I thought it was “Ukraine has always been Russia and it was wrongly separated from Russia by Lenin and then later added to from Russian territory by Stalin”? (Actually, it's been all of the above, plus a few more.)
I didn't hear that as the pretense for invasion either. As far as I heard the "red line" was always related to NATO (and maybe lesser extent to ethnic Russian treatment in the rebel areas).
> I didn't hear that as the pretense for invasion either.
Then you didn't read the translation of Putin’s speech announcing the invasion, or any of many other things not targeted by the Russian government primarily at Western audiences.
This one? I have. NATO is clearly singled out as the red line which triggered the invasion. He says a lot of other stuff including references to historic events, but those weren't the trigger for the 2022 invasion. I don't see how they could be called a pretense for it when he said the red line was something different.
