Well, the media has done a good job of making Putin out to be a comicbook supervillain, whose actions are irrationally evil, beyond understanding and taking place in a vacuum unconnected to recent or distant feopolitical history (which is a doing a disservice to comicbook villains really; most have more convincing backstories than what the media has afforded Putin). Which is not to say there’s a narrative that justifies Putin’s actions in Ukraine, but people should at least understand how we arrived at this point.
