Fiona Hill

And Putin just didn't see that.

Oh, he was, what was it, 38%, something like that, but best in the popularity?

You might have said the same thing about the Soviet Union when Hitler invaded in 1941.

You see, the problem is Putin always reads history from one perspective over another.

I think most countries basically rise to their own defense.

So this is actually one of the first times that Russia has been on the offensive rather than on the defensive.

So there's kind of a bit of a flip there.

I mean, obviously, Afghanistan, but that was more complicated because it was also supposed to be an intervention, right?

I mean, it wasn't supposed to be to annex Afghanistan.

It was to try to prop up or reinstall a leader there.

Syria, you were in there to help your guy, Bashar al-Assad, turn away the opposition.

Chechnya was a debacle.

the Chechens fought back big time.

And it was only by dint of, you know, horrible, violent persistence and ruthlessness and nasty, dirty tricks that, you know, kind of Putin prevailed there.

But then, you know, you wonder, did he prevail?

Because what happened?

You know, Chechnya sometimes describes the most independent part of the Russian Federation and Ramzan Kadyrov, you know, plays power games in Moscow.

Yeah, his predecessors, even his father and others wouldn't have done that.

Ahmed Khedira and, you know, before that, Dudaif and Maskardif, I mean, they were wanting to make a compromise, but, you know, they wouldn't have had, you know, the same position that Khedira has had.

So, you know, I think that, again, it's your perspective and where you stand and which bit of history you start to read.