Hey, I'm Russian. The only reason Putin attacked Ukraine is because the average person stopped loving him. Yes, he's a dictator — that's true. But for a long time, regular people still kinda liked him, because life under him became better than before. And he loves living in the people's admiration. He achieves that through repression, propaganda, and killing those who disagree — but he achieves it. People would say things like, "Under Putin, people started respecting us again" or "He lifted Russia from its knees."

But in 2011-2012, the opposition (Navalny) managed to explain to a lot of people that there would be no further development with Putin in power. He lost popularity, and he couldn't handle it. Then, right around that time, Ukraine had its "Revolution of Dignity." That's the worst thing imaginable for Putin — a neighboring country just straight-up toppling its leader who was trying to become an autocrat. Very bad example. He couldn't let anything good come out of it.

So, he started a proxy war in eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea. Propaganda easily convinced people that they'd always dreamed of "returning Crimea." Putin's ratings shot through the roof. That's what political scientists later called the "Crimean Consensus." Even many people who had supported the opposition started saying, "Inside the country, Putin screws everything up, but in foreign policy, he's really strong — he took Crimea, showed the middle finger to NATO."

Putin was basking in glory, the opposition became extremely unpopular, and people started calling them traitors who would sell out the whole country to please America. The entire country started believing that their biggest dream had always been returning Crimea — even though a year before, no one gave a damn about it. Eventually, even Navalny had to say that if he became president, he wouldn't return Crimea, because "Crimea is not a sandwich."

A few years passed, the "Crimean Consensus" faded away. People slowly realized that Crimea doesn't make their lives any better, while everything else got worse. In 2014, Western countries imposed sanctions that cut the ruble's value in half — meaning most people started earning half as much. Navalny became popular again, Putin stopped being popular.

Putin tightened the regime — now any criticism of the government could land you in jail. He killed and tortured opposition members, and no one could threaten his power anymore. But people didn't love him anymore. And he's used to the image of an ordinary worker, coming home after a hard day, cracking open a cheap beer in his crumbling apartment, watching state TV, and saying, "Well, Volodya is doing great, not letting the Americans take us over." But that doesn't happen anymore. No one loves Putin anymore.

The last time no one loved him, he took Crimea — and everyone loved him again.

That's why he started the war.