She is talking about the year 2000. It took 8years for the war in Ukraine and 14 until he took Crimea and 22 years until the full scale invasion. Is it really that hard to imagine that Putin is not some incredible mastermind, but does something big, when he believes there is a good chance of success or something else changes. In 2008 Georgia had made moves to join NATO, so Russia intervened. 2014 was the Orange Revolution and Ukraine was weak, so he attacked. If he wanted to take all of Ukraine all the time, that was actually also the perfect moment for that. However it took him until 2022, when he thought the West was weak due to Covid and a lot more propaganda, for him to attack. It might also very well be that he changed his mind on a lot of things, being in power for over two decades and yes the behavior of the West certainly was part of it.

[–] Skiluros@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Russia invaded Moldova and Georgia in the early 90s under Yeltsin.

This is not a putin matter per se. This is a russia issue.