Russia's endgame After all this blood and terror, just what does Putin want from Ukraine?

There is still widespread disagreement in the west on Vladimir Putin’s motives, six months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

- Philip Short

This is of more than academic interest. If we do not agree why Putin decided to invade Ukraine and what he wants to achieve, we cannot define what would constitute victory or defeat for either of the warring sides and the contours of a possible endgame.

At some point, like all wars, the present conflict will end. Geography condemns Ukraine and Russia to live beside each other. They will have to find a modus vivendi. That also applies to Europe and Russia, although it may take decades before the damage is repaired.

Why did Putin stake so much on a high-risk enterprise that will at best bring him a tenuous grip on a ruined land? The invasion has been portrayed as an imperialist land grab. A passing reference to Peter the Great was taken as confirmation that Putin wanted to restore the Russian empire or, failing that, the USSR. Otherwise sensible people, mainly in eastern Europe, held that Ukraine was just a first step. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” a former Swedish minister told me recently, “if, in a few years, Estonia and Latvia are next in line.”