A few days before the war began, The Telegraph’s senior foreign correspondent Roland Oliphant was in Ukraine and tasked with writing an analysis on spec about why the war had broken out. The plan was to have it ready to run on the day of the invasion - just in case it did actually happen.

He hoped it wouldn’t have to be published - but it was.

In the piece, he wrote about how Russia was stronger than ever while the West appeared to be at a moment of historic weakness. With Ukraine’s army getting stronger following the 2014 invasion, Vladimir Putin thought the timing was ripe to take the rest of the country and gambled that he could get away with it.

One year on, Roland looks back on that assessment and reflects on how accurate it was.

#russia #ukraine #war

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