I don’t think it’s just Putin which is why I mentioned the megalomania of other Russian elites. But Putin surely made the final decision to invade.

I didn’t say Russian only lies. I said Russia “has lied about pretty much everything for a long time”. That is not the same thing.

assuming the opposite of whatever Russia says

I’m not just assuming the opposite of Russia’s statements. I’m drawing a best guess conclusion based on two premises:

• Russia has a history of lying about its true intentions and actions
• Russian oligarchs and elites would absolutely be interested in mineral wealth, given their history of megalomania

I think it’s likely that mineral wealth would have been part of the Kremlin’s motivation to invade. Along with general megalomania and irredentism.

Maybe the primary cause was Putin’s megalomania, or indeed megalomania among quite a few Russian elites.

Occam’s razor would dictate that Russia is probably lying if they say they’re not interested in Ukrainian minerals, given that the Kremlin has lied about pretty much everything for a long time.

Putin is even saying he wants to sell minerals from Russian-occupied Ukraine to the US. Clearly he wants to profit from minerals in Ukraine.

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It’s hilarious that you accuse the US and Ukraine of wanting to get rich from mineral rights, but you won’t accuse Russia of the same thing. In reality there will be rich people in each of those countries wanting to profit from minerals.

Why do you think that what Russia says is true?

Russia said they didn’t poison Alexei Navalny in 2020, but they did. They said they didn’t kill Alexander Litvinenko, and they said they didn’t poison Sergei Skripal, but they did both of those things.