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Putin said he will not invade. But he did. Does not matter how you are trying to turn this around. He did invaded and he did lied about it.
His what?
Massing a hundred thousand troops on the border isn’t “last minute” and they had their sights set on a (quick) regime change after a shock and awe campaign to force surrender.
Do you want an apology or something?
From a Russian perspective, Putin gave Ukraine 8 years to build a competitive army, with extensive NATO help. Back then, Russia could have forced a more serious settlement or regime change fairly easily. Maybe it was necessary to wait, to prepare Russian economy for the inevitable wave of sanctions. (Which, I might add, have failed spectacularly in their original, stated intent of bringing Russia to its knees.)
However, it appears that Putin really did hope for the qualified success of settlements as weak as Minsk I/II, or a possible third iteration. Coerced, if necessary. Either way, all that failed and now war is raging and hundreds of thousands of slavs (most of them from Ukraine) are dead, with many more to follow.
This is obviously not an outcome that Putin desired. This is, however, an outcome that seems to make some people in the West very happy indeed. “Weakening Russia” is what they call it, gleefully. And they keep pushing, keep stoking the fire. War is peace.
However, they deeply, fundamentally miscalculated. That will become very apparent over the next decade.
I'm quite certain that Russia is not secretly winning the war, but it's just that nobody can tell because of how great it's going.
Well, sounds like the Ukrainian side is about to start it’s much-anticipated Decisive Battle offensive. The overall picture should become clearer once the dust from that has settled.