For months he kept the world guessing - but now Vladimir Putin has unleashed a brutal war on Europe.
But as Russia pummels Ukraine, tanks rolling into Ukraine he is for the first time in years losing his biggest asset - control.
Now he faces so many variables, Russian troops deaths, partial or total failure, a long-drawn out and bloody, economically crippling war.
So why has he decided to make such a bloody, apparently insane move which ultimately has to fail if Europe is to avoid teetering towards World War Three?
What is Putin trying to achieve? Annexation of Donbas or all of Ukraine?
He likely wants control of, or to cripple Ukraine, to create a huge buffer between Russia and NATO and that means he will have to subjegate the capital Kyiv.
Putin is obsessed with returning Russia to its former Soviet glory, or something resembling it.
Ukraine’s existence as an increasingly European-leaning democracy offends his need for Russia to be surrounded by client states and subjected, controlled areas that put a distance between Russia and NATO and western democracy.
The contested areas of Donetsk and Luhansk are a small though significant prize in the offing and it is possible he could claim that as a victory that may go down well at home if his troops take the area. But once this area falls it is unlikely the Russian war machine will stop.
Why has Putin invaded Ukraine now? What is his motive?
He claims Ukraine needs to be “de-Nazified,” a ludicrous reference to fringe groups of right-wing extremists, armed groups in east Ukraine. This has fed into paranoia among some east Ukrainians about Nazis existing in Kyiv, spurred on by his GRU spooks controlling the media in the region and spreading lies.
Kremlin doctrine of chaotically spreading lies and misinformation about Nazi Europe has the same effect as mud occasionally sticking and it can work. So some Russians unfamiliar with liberal Europe believe it.
Putin has seen Ukraine leaning ever-closer to Europe and maybe he believes now is the time to stop this before it is too late. He is obsessed with status, power and a paranoid, gangster-like contempt for liberal democracy.
Are other countries at risk from Russian aggression?
Moscow’s “hybrid warfare,” a mixing military and sub-threshold aggression that falls falls below an act of war - such as cyber, misinformation, election interference, espionage, technical and scientific theft - means the West is already at war with Russia in the shadows of what spies call “the grey zone”.
Economically it is seriously damaging the world order.
Take for instance the theft of a multi-million-pound aerospace design for a new wing on a plane which happened some years ago. It can boost Moscow’s economy whilst damaging ours, but it is below the threshold of war.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin occasionally goes overt with a Novichok attack on foreign soil, or a similar assassination, again debatably an act of war but just falling short of needing retaliatory action for fear of sparking World War Three.
What can the West do?
NATO has been piling weaponry into Ukraine to help battle Putin’s tanks, such as the thousands of deadly NLAW anti-tank weapons sent by the UK.
This is helping Ukraine’s military defend against Russia and will turn Ukraine into a proxy war between Russia and NATO, as has happened in places like Afghanistan, where the UK fed weaponry to Mujahideen to fight Russia in the 1980’s.
It could turn it into a war-battered shadow of the successful country it has become. Sanctions will slowly hit Moscow hard economically but ultimately the only tactic he will cower to is strength and it is apparently too late to put troops boots on the ground in Ukraine. NATO countries will boost their defence budgets and try to price Moscow out of the arms war that will now unfold.
Could the West have done more to contain Russian aggression and prevent the invasion?
The West has sleep-walked into this nightmare for years and Putin watched carefully. We have rapidly reduced troop numbers, warship numbers and concentrated efforts on Iraq and Afghan-war related counter-terrorism, largely ignoring the Russia threat and that from China.
Some, like defence committee chairman Tobias Ellwood, have argued UK troops in Ukraine may have deterred Putin as he would not want to take on another nuclear power. Although hawkish, it is possible this would have stopped Putin.
Will the UK be dragged into war?
Moscow’s “grey zone” aggressive activities mean we are already at war against Russia and very publicly sending anti-tank weapons into Ukraine was an act of aggression in itself, though entirely justified. Britain has stated repeatedly that British troops will not deploy to Ukraine as it is not a NATO partner.
Nevertheless, Putin is now committed to war in Ukraine and can’t be backed down. The conflict could spread as if they are successful and do take Kyiv and western parts of Ukraine, Russian troops will occupy a country neighbouring Poland and that, as a NATO member, is possibly at risk.
What are Russia's invasion tactics? Why are civilians being hit? Are they collateral damage?
It is an awful fact that civilians are always the real victims of war and will suffer enormously. All the precision weaponry in the world cannot prevent civilian deaths during a conflict.
However, whilst Russia may not be directing their aim at civilians deliberately its military is not exactly dedicated to preventing civilian deaths and has a pretty bad reputation for collateral damage.
If these deaths are not reported back in Russia, and they won’t be, then they don’t matter to Putin. He only cares about how things are seen back home.
Why is Putin obsessed with NATO?
Putin hates anything that stands in his way. But NATO is a defensive alliance set up to protect the sovereignty of its members through military or political means. It is merely in his way preventing Russian expansion, whilst not aggressing against Moscow.
Its most senior member is the US, which as a major military and economic superpower, also a democracy represents everything that KGB veteran Putin hates. He sees it as a powerful, US-controlled organisation - which is not true - that has marginalised Russia, which NATO also says is not true.
In fact, NATO stresses that it has made repeated overtures to Russia, even working with Moscow on counter-narcotics programmes and submarine rescue projects. But every despot needs an enemy and painting NATO badly has been made so much easier with the disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq.
What do Russians think of the Ukraine situation, given the deep ties between the two countries?
Many in east Ukraine, in Donbas very close to the former line of control, which separated separatists from Ukrainian forces, feel both Russian and Ukrainian or both. One Russian woman told me recently in Donbas she was born in Siberia and still had many relatives in Russia but that she had married in Ukraine and loved her adopted country.
When she returned to see family in Russia she had to keep her criticism of Putin to herself. An officer in the Ukrainian army told me he too was Russian-born and that his relatives there would ask about the “awful oppressive situation in Ukraine”.
He told them there was no awful situation, that it was lies being spread by the Kremlin, but they would not accept it. It is complex as Ukrainians tend to speak Russian in everyday life as well as Ukrainian and feel different degrees of affinity to Russia and Russians.
Is this all-out invasion or does Putin even now have options?
It seems extremely remote but it is still possible Putin could withdraw, having made his point, and keep the Donbas region, perhaps saying “job done - we’ve protected our people.”
But many say Russian troops will be at Kyiv by Friday morning and could encircle the city, bringing it to its knees.
It is possible Putin will realise this would be a mistake and Moscow’s troops could get bogged down in an even worse, conflict with guerilla-style warfare attacks from Ukraine’s troops and citizen fighting units.
