![Why did it take the West so long to wake up to Putin's outrages?](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/220301021220-02-clinton-lavrov-geneva-file-2009-super-tease.jpg)
Why did it take the West so long to wake up to Putin's outrages?
CNN
This terrifying, world-changing conflict in Ukraine did not start in 2022. Nor did it start in 2014. It began a decade and a half ago when Russia invaded Georgia and got away with it. Millions of us: Ukrainians, Moldovans, Georgians, Syrians, Armenians and Azeris have all participated in dress rehearsals for the horror show that the Kremlin has now unleashed. And we know that it did not have to come to this.
"Remember the red button?" a friend texted when the first Russian bombs fell on Kyiv. In the region that has been colonized and tormented by Russia for centuries, everyone remembers the red "reset" button: the gift of an illusory fresh start that Hillary Clinton presented to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during their meeting in Geneva 2009.
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