> I'm surprised that they haven't learned the lessons of Afghanistan (the Soviet era, the NATO era) about a population that is fighting for their homeland, vs. soldiers fighting because they were told to.
They have learned a form of that lesson, which is why part of their domestic propaganda is about how “Ukraine” is fake country unjustly erected by Lenin and Stalin from Russian territory that has no justification to exist, but is naturally part of Russia, as well as that the current government of Ukraine is a Nazi regime. Putin wants the people fighting his war to see themselves as fighting in and for their homeland against NATO-backed Nazis intent on destroying Russia.
I guess Ukraine is far less alien to a Russian than Afghanistan was (or Afghanistan or Iraq were to an American), so it could plausibly work. Most (if not all) Ukrainians also speak Russian.
And your point explains his speech emphasising the Kievan Rus as the origin of the Russian people, and and the often fluid borders of Ukraine.
And of course, the Kievan Rus as the point of Christianization of the Russian peoples. And in something that feels like it comes from a Paradox grand strategy game, in 2018, the FSB was trying to prevent people from switching from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church controlled by the Moscow Patriarchate to the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
Putin really is playing the long game of "Ukraine was Russia, all along!"
They have learned a form of that lesson, which is why part of their domestic propaganda is about how “Ukraine” is fake country unjustly erected by Lenin and Stalin from Russian territory that has no justification to exist, but is naturally part of Russia, as well as that the current government of Ukraine is a Nazi regime. Putin wants the people fighting his war to see themselves as fighting in and for their homeland against NATO-backed Nazis intent on destroying Russia.