Why… did we underestimate Russia’s ambitions?

In this new mini-series we look at past expectations that turned out to be untrue and try to learn from past mistakes. In our first episode, Stanislav Secrieru and Florence Gaub look at Russia: although people expected the country to be poor and weak, the 2010s witnessed Russia’s geopolitical resurgence. Why did we not see this coming, what can we learn from this – and what else are we doing wrong?