Yes, please sum it up. Here an item that you can bet Russia was watching every step that American leadership was taking.
I use an app called “Ground News”. this was on my feed this morning. It gets more detailed as it closer to the present
As asked 
Warning : summing up this paper does not mean that i endorse it or approve Putin crimes against peace. Ukrainian wrong do not justify the war.
And what followed has proved the paper wrong about its evaluation of Russia aims.
GREAT WARS SOMETIMES START OVER SMALL OFFENSES
Time February 14/February 2022 page 32-37
By Shimon Shuster Kyiv
With reporting by Leslie Dickstein and Simmone Shah/ New York; and Brian Bennett, W. J. Hennigan, and Nik Popli / Washington
Viktor Medvedchuk, a very close friend of Putin, is the leader of an Ukranian political party, the biggest opposition force in parliament, with millions of supporters. Over the past year, that party has come under attack.
Putin sees Ukraine as a fraternal nation, tied to Russia by bonds of faith, family, politics, and a millennium of common history. He wants to preserve the links. Medvedchuk and his political party are his best tools. In fact, he wants to bring Ukraine under his control.
In the early years of Putin presidency, Ukraine was very dependent on Russia and Ukrainians had no intention to join Western alliances.
The turning point was the Maidan revolution in 2013/2014. Russia influence disappeared, Russia took Crimea and installed puppet governments, in the 2 eastern regions.
Ukrainian oligarchs funded new pro-Russian parties and Putin’s voice would have been heard in Ukraine, even if no dominant. Obama’s administration took a hard line against them and made the compromise impossible and sanctioned them. Their alliance made a breakthrough next legislative elections in 2018.
Following year, in 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky is elected president with 73, 2 % of the votes. 3 months later his party wins a majority but the pro-Russian coalition comes second. The TV networks of the oligarchs criticize relentlessly the president and his government, especially their management of the COVID crisis.
Medvedchuk met Putin and Putin offered to supply Ukraine with millions of doses of vaccine and to allow Ukraine to make the vaccine free of charge. The government rejected the offer and USA accused Russia of using the vaccine as a political tool. When no Western vaccine arrived, the approval ratings of the president had fallen to 40 % from 70 % and Medvedchuk was in the lead.
In February 2021, The Ukrainian government took Medvedchuk TV channels off the air, depriving Russia of its propaganda outlets in the country. The U.S. embassy in Kyiv applauded the move. About two weeks later, on Feb. 19, 2021, Ukraine announced that it had seized the assets of Medvedchuk’s family. Among the most important, it said, was a pipeline that brings Russian oil to Europe, enriching Medvedchuk and his family and helping to bankroll Medvedchuk’s political party.
To attack the oligarchs, president Zelensky did not use the legal channels but presidential decrees, with USA approval. Some top Ukrainian officials disagreed with the president as Medvedchuk was an effective mediator, with direct access to Putin. Medvedchuk shouted about political repression.
Medvedchuk was charged with treason in May and placed under house arrest in Kyiv, unable to attend parliament ‘sessions. Just last month, the U.S. accused him and his allies of plotting to stage a coup with help from the Russian military.
Putin’s answered in February 2021 by deploying 3000 paratroopers at the border of Ukraine. The escalation began. USA imposed sanctions on Medvedchuk’s allies and envoys. Russia had no more way to influence Ukraine through politics.
In early December 2021, Biden called Putin, offering to hear out all of Russia’s "strategic concerns”, opening the door to a global negotiation. Russian diplomats asked NATO to retreat to its 1997 limits, before the fall of USSR. Negotiations stalled and Russia thought that it needed to keep the military pressure on Ukraine to keep the upper hand. It did not work.
Medvedchuk’s party has shrunk in the polls.
How odd. Putin complains about feeling threatened by NATO expansion, so he invades a country that brings him closer to NATO and threatens NATO with expansion.
Quite a role reversal!
Thanks, Morgnkane for the insight.
If Putin Picks Puppet Ukraine Leader, Viktor Medvedchuk is Odds-on Favorite – Newsweek 2/24/22
If Putin takes complete control of Ukraine in the near future, as is widely predicted, he’s likely to want a leader who will implement that plan.
As it stands, Russian-born Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk looks to be Putin’s likely choice to serve as the country’s new head of state.
Let’s hope he doesn’t take Ukraine. That would be the worse thing for that country and it also makes Putin not only a dictator, but also another Hitler or Stalin. Basically, Putin is attempting to start WWIII.
Here’s something that was brought up on the Stephanie Miller show this morning- Russia is the biggest pusher of COVID vaccine misinformation, as well as COVID misinformation. Due to people having to shelter together in underground bunkers and shelters, COVID is going to spread there. What was not said, and I think it was implied, this will weaken the Ukrainians, just as having the dotard in office here in the U.S. weakened the U.S… COVID and having the dotard is basically one and the same- the Ukrainians can’t fight if they are sick and dying from COVID. It’s high there right now and sadly, they not dying from being bombed trumps dying from COVID (no pun intended).
I suppose these latest sanctions put a damper on Trump Tower - Moscow …
I have a brilliant idea!!!
The US should send our greatest peacemaker diplomat to have direct negotiations with Putin .
I elect Trump to represent the US in this noble cause. Trump is good friends with Putin and if he succeeds it would definitively help his chances to go down in history as one of the greatest world leaders in history.
How could he resist?.. 
According to French experts, Putin made three mistakes:
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he believed that the Ukrainian populations, in particular those of Donbass, and the Ukrainian army would welcome him as a liberator and would rise up against the regime;
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he overestimated his army, and he underestimated the Ukrainian army,
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he did not take the Ukrainian president seriously.
In short, he has lost his sense of reality and that is worrying.
The alerting of its nuclear force shows it. He sees himself as the good guy, threatened by the bad guys.
I’m no scholar of history, but it seems that song has been sung before.
And not just by Russia/USSR, or USA … but throughout history.
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Pathological egomaniacs are not concerned with past history.
They aim to make new history as Exceptional Leaders (God complex).
They falsify history to use it !!!
Indeed. They falsify reality altogether. Illusions of Grandeur is what makes them so dangerous.
He’s lost his damn mind, worse than his bed buddy, the dotard, has.
This is so bad that we have televangelists who think that the Russian attack on the Ukraine was an act of God carried out by Putin doing God’s will.
I’m assuming that more evangelists in the future will come up with the idea that the book of Revelations is coming true, with humans like Putin or terrorists deciding acts of such violence are God’s will.
Will it happen that we’ll have more such wars with the leaders claiming to be God’s children, and that their dismissal of so many human lives are a necessary act of God? Sickening.
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Welcome greentree,
This leaves me breathless. Is it any wonder that the most bloody wars in history were fought in the name of God’s will?
I would expect him to use the example of Putin doing the Devil’s will. But Biblical scripture has corrupted man’s mind to the point of insanity!
Welcome Greentree !
Beyond comprehension.
Where do we go from here?
Putin is an atheist. How in the world would he be doing “God’s will”. Televangelists can be so stupid just to get money.