Russians so confident they’d seize Kyiv, they had packed their parade uniforms

"Peter the Great talked about a Russian window on Europe. Putin just smashed that window," says Mark Beissinger, Henry W. Putnam Professor in the Department of Politics at Princeton University and an expert in social movements and post-communist politics, who addressed an audience of academics and students at the Princeton Athens Center on May 29.

In this interview he comments on the recent developments in the Ukraine war, potential scenarios for peace, and the impact of the war on the international order.

When the drums of war started beating in Ukraine well over a year ago, nobody expected that the overwhelming Russian attack would have been met with the degree of Ukrainian persistence and organization we have been witnessing.

"The Russians were so confident that they could invade and seize Kyiv in three days that victory parades in the streets of the...