While the harbingers were already visible long before, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made it clear that the days of the comparatively peaceful post-war order are numbered. Nevertheless, the calculations leading to all of this remain largely mysterious. How could a society such as the Russian one embark on such an adventure in which it reveals itself to the world as a terrorist state? The historian Sergei Medvedev, who saw the approaching catastrophe coming with his The Return of the Russian Leviathan, goes back deep into Russia's history to explain Putin's motivation - to figures such as Ivan the Terrible, the Golden Horde and the Chekists, who personify the legal State of Emergency. Medvedev's diagnosis, which sees Russia as the unconscious of a spiritually eroding postmodern age, is extremely dark. According to him, the invasion of Ukraine marked the beginning of World War III, which began with the invasion of Ukraine.

Sergei Medvedev is an Affiliate Professor at Charles University in Prague. Born in Moscow, he studied at Moscow University and Columbia University in New York City. He specializes in political history, international affairs, and Russian studies. After over 15 years as a Professor and Associate Dean at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, he left Russia in March 2022. For many years, Sergei Medvedev was a contributing columnist to Russian Forbes, Vedomosti, and The Republic and filmed programs on history and culture for the Russian Kultura TV and TV Rain. Since 2015, he has been working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, where he hosts the intellectual talk show Arkheologiya.

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