How Kazakhstan is Hedging Against a Russian Invasion

In 1939, Winston Churchill famously described Russia as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same because decades later, his words still capture Russia's unknowability. In the months leading up to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, many commentators argue that it would never happen.

It was assumed that crippling Western sanctions, diplomatic isolation and military losses would render such a move strategically illogical for the Kremlin.

And they weren't wrong. It became a meat grinder that tore through over a million soldiers killed and wounded, but Russia invaded anyway. Turns out, things like good strategic sense were secondary considerations to the heady brew of ideology, nationalism and historical ambition the Kremlin had been huff ing.