Chapter 8 discusses how the Russian regime’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 concretely enacted Russian hawks’ conception of Russia as an imperial great power that should rely on its technological and military might to assert its civilizational distinction from the West. The chapter argues that the Russian regime has restored elements reminiscent of the Soviet-style “vertical,” facilitating the propagation of norms and principles through a bureaucratic chain of command. However, it has not completely reconstructed a cohesive institutionalized state apparatus. Its doctrinal framework remains adaptable. In addition to official state-led initiatives, the regime continued to oversee ideology formation through interactions and transactions with a variety of nonstate ideological entrepreneurs. This involvement of diverse actors across state and nonstate realms fostered a certain degree of polarization within policy circles. Moreover, the hawks’ production of narratives justifying Russia’s imperialism and war violence encountered resistance from recent intellectual emigrants who have established organizations in exile dedicated to fostering critical thinking and dissent in intellectual circles.