“Ukraine” ...an artificial construction of relatively recent origin.
So what? Lots of nations are.
Ukraine as Kievan Rus existed long before Russia.
Failing to factor in its history in our discussions of the war is like leaving out the Armistice and Alsace–Lorraine from our discussions of WWII.
You really should read the full paper. I lays bare the conceit that underlies the thinking that starting this war was a “good idea” and that there should be no off ramp. For example, I quote:
I initially believed NATO military leaders must have had a sober view, far in advance, that their half-million-strong, well-armed, trained-to-NATO-standards Ukrainian proxy army had almost no chance of prevailing on the field of battle against Russia.
But watching drone video of Ukrainian fortifications has convinced me the US military brain trust effectively disdained the Russian military, and its commanders, in the course of their eight-year-long preparation of the eastern Ukrainian battlefield.
Their vanity persuaded them the Russians would mindlessly smash themselves to pieces against an entrenched well-armed force.
Indeed, they were so confident of the genius of their plan that they persuasively encouraged many hundreds of now-killed or captured NATO veterans to “share in the glory” of humiliating the Russians and bringing down the Putin regime once and for all.
They deluded themselves into believing the Russians lacked strategic and logistical acumen, a sufficiently well-trained force, and – arguably the biggest miscalculation of all – sufficient stockpiles of ammo to conduct a protracted high-intensity conflict.
In short, I have come to believe US/NATO commanders actually persuaded themselves that this ‘Mother of All Proxy Armies’ had an excellent chance to soundly whip the Russians in a battle situated in their own back yard
In other words, they disregarded centuries of European history that they somehow convinced themselves had no relevance to their 21st century aspirations to defeat Russia militarily and take a great spoil of its resources