Ukraine’s invasion has exposed Putin’s messianic vision of Russia as a mirage | Luke Harding

The president hoped for a speedy victory; instead, there are foreign tanks on Russian soil for the first time since the Nazis

Vladimir Putin's war plan was simple. Russian tanks would roll into Kyiv, while special forces seized key buildings and raised the Russian flag. The operation - to conquer Ukraine and to install a puppet government - would take around three days. The west would be horrified, of course. But - sooner or later - it would grudgingly recognise this new and great Russian reality.

Two and half years after his full-scale invasion, however, the triumphant parade Putin envisaged on Kyiv's Khreshchatyk boulevard has yet to happen. Victory has proved elusive. Ukrainians didn't welcome liberation" by their Slavic brothers in the way Putin's spy agency predicted. They fought back. The country's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, also failed to leg it and to follow Russia's imperious script.