So, if Russia bit off part of Ukraine, it was going to come back to bite off more. “It's totalitarian, it’s imperialist, empires expand and totalitarianism in its classical form is built on expansionist imperialist power. Putin’s motives are classically imperial, Gessen says. “Because of the finally completed investigation into the downing of the Malaysian airliner in 2015 and because of other documents that became available along the way, we can now see with absolute certainty that there was no separatist movement in the Donbass until Russia decided to manufacture a separatist movement and introduced its agents and its disinformation machine into the Donbass.”

“This entire story of the oppressed Russians in the east of Ukraine and a separatist movement is utterly manufactured.”Įvidence of this came to light when the Malaysian airliner was shot down in 2015 over Eastern Ukraine, he says. The Russian narrative that they are a liberating force in Ukraine is entirely untrue, Gessen says. “And that's how you end up with this completely insane seeming mix of let's go back to the USSR by fighting Ukrainian Nazis and gays.” “Russia is forever fighting the righteous war and saving the world from the Nazis. The third element is harking back to World War II, he says. “A great empire passed that was based on traditional values, it has nothing to do with reality, but the mythology is that people lived in traditional marriages, there were no gay people, no trans people in the country, and everybody was happy and went to church, not true, but that's the mythology.” In the case of Putin, it is a glorious Russian empire, Gessen says. “So, whether it's Trump in the Republican Party in the United States, or Putin in Russia, this they have in common, it's they base their political actions and their political agenda on a mythologised view of the past.”

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