Throughout the post-Soviet era the Kremlin grappled with two interrelated questions. Firstly, whether a Ukrainian or (Russia’s preference) a pan-Russian identity would dominate Ukraine. Secondly, whether Ukraine would be part of Europe or (the Kremlin’s preference) the Russian World and Eurasia. Between 1991 and 2013, Ukraine found itself in the ‘grey zone’ where two identities and foreign policy orientations competed, with conflict especially acute in the decade between the 2003-2004 Orange and 2013-2014 Euromaidan Revolutions. Russian imperial nationalists never accepted Ukraine could be a fully independent state. They demanded, lobbied, cajoled and aggressively pursued a Ukraine that would have a semi-sovereign relationship akin to that which exists between Russia and Belarus. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka is the kind of leader Russia sought to install in Kyiv if its ‘special military operation’ had gone as planned. The roots of Russia’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion lie in the dominance of Ukrainian and marginalisation of pan-Russian identity from 2014. Ukrainian identity became dominant after the marginalisation of pro-Russian forces who had supported a pan-Russian identity, and through the adoption of new legislation in memory politics, language, education, and media, and the goals of NATO and EU membership and closure of Russian television and radio media broadcasting into and inside Ukraine, banning of twelve pro-Russian political parties, and the removal of Russian Orthodox canonical control over Ukraine through autocephaly for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.