This paper challenges dominant interpretations of Russia's war in Ukraine as fundamentally anti-Western confrontation, proposing instead that it represents a forceful continuation of Russia's three-decade quest for recognition within—not rejection of—the European security architecture. Drawing on Bruno Latour's concept of diplomatic "category mistakes" and Gilles Deleuze's ontology of the fold, I trace how successive Russian attempts at integration (under Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin, and Medvedev) were consistently misrecognized by Western policymakers who interpreted gestures of co-authorship as imperial threats.

Through empirical analysis of diplomatic archives, treaties, and policy documents from 1985-2022, I demonstrate a striking continuity: Russia repeatedly sought inclusion in European security structures on co-equal terms, from Gorbachev's Common European Home to Medvedev's 2009 European Security Treaty. Each rejection became "folded" into Russian political identity, resurfacing with increased assertiveness. The West's interpretive framework—locked in post-Cold War triumphalism—proved incapable of recognizing these overtures as genuine bids for belonging, instead reading them through lenses of containment and deterrence.

The war in Ukraine thus emerges not as civilizational rupture but as the violent expression of a repeatedly denied invitation—Russia's attempt to forcibly insert itself into conversations about European futures from which it feels systematically excluded. This reframing has profound implications for conflict resolution: peace requires not Russia's defeat or isolation, but recognition of its co-constitutive role in European security. The paper contributes to IR theory by demonstrating how misrecognition itself becomes a structural force in international politics, shaping both identity formation and systemic transformation.