Two years ago today, the Kremlin started a war for which it was neither mentally nor militarily prepared.
Why did it do that? how did the idea of violently carving out a Greater Russia, backed up by mystical Orthodox nationalism, travel from the marginal fringes of Russian politics to become official Kremlin policy?
Putin had a huge Intelligence Service, spies everywhere and a successful record of conquest in Chechnya and elsewhere.
Yet outside Kyiv, his troops were met by fierce and professional resistance, backed by a citizenry in which tens of thousands of Ukrainians of all ages queued for hours at the military recruiting centres to join the army.