For many people, watching the Russian invasion of Ukraine has felt like a series of \u201cHe can\u2019t be doing this\u201d moments. Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin has launched the largest ground war in Europe since the Second World War. It is, quite literally, mind-boggling.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why I reached out to Fiona Hill, one of America\u2019s most clear-eyed Russia experts, someone who has studied Putin for decades, worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations and has a reputation for truth-telling, earned when she testified during impeachment hearings for her former boss, President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
I wanted to know what she\u2019s been thinking as she\u2019s watched the extraordinary footage of Russian tanks rolling across international borders, what she thinks Putin has in mind and what insights she can offer into his motivations and objectives.<\/p>\n
Hill spent many years studying history, and in our conversation, she repeatedly traced how long arcs and trends of European history are converging on Ukraine right now. We are already, she said, in the middle of a third World War, whether we\u2019ve fully grasped it or not.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n "People don\u2019t want to talk about Adolf Hitler and World War II, but I\u2019m going to talk about it. We are treading back through old historical patterns that we said that we would never permit to happen again" – Russia expert Fiona Hill on Putin and Ukraine https:\/\/t.co\/ROiRNeSFP8<\/a><\/p>\n — Michelle Boorstein (@mboorstein) March 3, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n