Putin beordrar styrkor att gå in i Ukraina - INVASION NU (2022-02-24)

As a 37-year-old KGB lieutenant colonel stationed in the East German city of Dresden, Putin watched nervously as angry crowds stormed the city’s huge Stasi compound in December 1989, just a few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the end of Soviet control in Europe.
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A few days before he became president, in late 1999, Putin wrote an article in the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, outlining his task as he saw it. “For the first time in the past 200 to 300 years, Russia faces the real danger that it could be relegated to the second, or even the third tier of global powers,” Putin warned. He called on Russians to unite to make sure that the country remained what he called a “first-tier” nation.
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“Through you, we got used to being winners,” Putin told veterans on his first Victory Day, two days after his inauguration in 2000. With each year, the victory narrative became more pronounced. Questioning the darker sides of the Soviet war narrative, such as the deportation of 2 million Soviet citizens during the war, or the ruthless tactics of the Stalin regime on the eve of the conflict, became ever more taboo. Putin was determined that Russians should not be made to feel guilty for their past.