When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many in the West, and in the Kremlin too, expected the Ukrainian state to crumble in weeks, if not days. The government would flee, the state would be carved up – some lands absorbed by Russia, the rest perhaps being made into a Moscow-dominated puppet state. Indeed, the Kremlin's own denial of Ukrainian agency and statehood are as much the reasons for its failure to carry out regime change in Ukraine as its poor logistics and overly ambitious military plans.