https://headlineusa.com/milley-admits-afghanistan-may-have-inspired-putin-attack/
(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said it is “possible” that Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine because he saw President Joe Biden’s weakness and incompetence in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“From the intelligence I’ve read, it’s not clear,” Milley said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on April 7. “I think it certainly is possible, but I also know that Putin had aims on Ukraine long before the end of the war in Afghanistan.”
During more than two decades in leadership, Putin had refrained from claiming that Ukraine belongs to the Russia, but he maintained that Ukraine could not join the European Union or NATO without provoking a military response.
Before the invasion, Putin said that Ukraine rightly belongs to Russia.