Why the US and NATO have long wanted Russia to attack Ukraine | LSE - March 2022 |

Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine has come at a substantial cost for Russia, with the country so far failing to achieve its military objectives and the Russian economy suffering under unprecedented western sanctions. Robert H. Wade argues that while nothing can excuse Russia's invasion, the Kremlin has effectively fallen into a trap laid by the US and Nato that is intended to bring down Putin's regime.

On 26 March, President Biden, speaking in Warsaw, said, unscripted: "For God's sake, this man [Putin] cannot remain in power." Such an overt statement of intention for regime change in Russia has not gone down well in most of Europe. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken later clarified Biden's Warsaw remark: "As you know, and as you have heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else, for that matter". Blinken has apparently forgotten Vietnam, Chile, Iraq, Afghanistan, and quite a few more.

Consider the following quotes. On 24 February, during a White House press conference on the first day of Russia's invasion, Biden said sanctions are designed not to prevent invasion but to punish Russia after invading "...so the people of Russia know what he has brought on them. That is what this is all about."

On 27 February, James Heappey, UK Minister for the Armed Forces, wrote in the Daily Telegraph: "His failure must be complete; Ukrainian sovereignty must be restored, and the Russian people empowered to see how little he cares for them. In showing them that, Putin's days as President will surely be numbered... He'll lose power and he won't get to choose his successor." Finally, on 1 March, Boris Johnson's spokesperson said "the sanctions on Russia we are introducing, that large parts of the world are introducing, are to bring down the Putin regime."