Good Yglesias runs down the history of Ukraine and Russia. Only at the end does I think he really hit on the proper historical analogy of the relationship between Britain and Ireland. Ireland was a bastion of "civilization" during the Early Middle Ages (Dark Ages). Similar to how Kievan Rus was the outpost of "civilization" is what is now Russia. Eventually Russia came to dominate Ukraine the way Britain came to dominate Ireland. Yglesias has a nice rundown of the linguistic imperialism of Russia, and that was largely true of Ireland as well.
All of which is to say that if Britain tried to re-invade Ireland, I don't anyone would call that sound thinking. Yet that is basically Putin's argument for re-invading Ukraine. As Yglesias notes, we should take Putin at his word that he really believes his own bullshit about Ukraine being a "fake country." Of course, he also believed his own bullshit about the power of the Russian military and that's not going so well.
If you want to know why Ukraine might win this war outright, I offer the Netflix documentary Winter on Fire. Unbelievable bravery.
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