The argument russia uses is "strategic buffer". However, the west was not putin's enemy before putin started invading countries.

The answer in my opinion is that like the US Russia's leader's are too old. When you're older 20-30 years is like a few years passing by. To putin it was not so long ago when NATO agreed not to expand eastward but also when Russia agreed to Ukraine's independence in exchange for them giving up nukes.

After Iraq and Afghanistan, Putin knew that it was the right time to start invading, because the one critical weakness of America is it's dependence of the will of the people to start and continue to fight a war. America is still weary of "boots on ground". That's why he didn't envision so much western support for Ukraine because he would assume the west would not risk a possible escalation to war, but the west is able to go all the way up to the red line and all but cross it.

Russian leaders and Putin in particular believe that the only way to be great, given their vast territory and relatively small population and the only way to have the home land of western Russia prosper is by having strategic advantage over others. Primarily, this means dominating its neighbors but also interfering in random countries (much like the US) as well.

I believe until Hillary Clinton screwed up the relationship with Putin as Obama's secretary of state he was open to the idea of being freinds with the west, so long as they let him be a good old dictator and do whatever he wants.

Hillary (and by proxy Obama) made the mistake of trying to force human rights, democracy, gay rights,etc... which meant being critical of Russia, meanwhile pushing THAAD to eastern NATO countries in a time of peace.

What was the expectation? For putin to go down like Gadaffi? To have a russian arab spring and Putin quietly retire to his Yacht? Come on!

The west could not tolerate Putin nor could it stop interfering with Russias internal matters including the whole Chechnya thing which even to regular Russians that made them upset against the west.

So in my opinion, Putin had two choices, accept western influence and eventually allow for a democratic Russia with liberal western ideals and cede power and influence over the oligarchs (who also don't want democracy or western liberalism) and militarily, imagine being a nuclear power and your neighbors have ICBM interceptors which meant neutering your nuclear capability (imagine russia having those in mexico and canada) which is obviously an act of agression he would have to tolerate. The second option would be to resist.

I can't support Putin's invasions of course but the west cornered a bear and everyone acts shocked when the bear starts mawling everyone near it.

It is pure western dishonest propaganda to say Putin like Hitler just wants more territory and will invade all of europe if no one stops him. Even if he controlled all of eastern Europe western expansion means nuclear war. At best he will invade all eastern europe countries that are not nato members with the exception of Poland,Finland and sweden.

Do you know why he interfered in the 2016 elections so much? Because freaking Hillary Clinton who already pissed him off with arrogant western expansion/interference and disrespect was about to become president, so he recruits a rich new york asshole that's been in bed with the Russian mob since the early 90s and you know the rest of the story.

The one single act of this century that will reshape the power dynamics of world super powers (and possibly a lot more than that) is the democratic party's insistence on nominating Hillary Clinton who emodies a special brand neo-liberal "manifest destiny" . Bernie would tell putin to go f himself but would not put THAAD in eastern europe or demand democracy in russia knowing full well that means deposing and agitating the current dictator of Russia.

Pride and arrogance comes before downfall.

Edit: to those who are downvoting me, I just ran into this: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/24/vladim... It explains Putin's thinking behind Ukraine's invasion. I am not justifying his invasions but pointing out the role of the west in knowingly being hostile and provoking Putin. It is this same neocolonial "manifest destiny" thinking that is resulting in so much hostility with China.