I thought they’re devoting so much to this war largely because Putin needs it to stay in power. As in, they started it because they thought they could secure a peace deal really quickly (i.e. no NATO and official handover of Crimea), but things didn’t go as planned and Putin has to see it through to maintain his power. The nationalism and crushing of Democracy was plan B, not the primary goal.
I don’t think they need more fuel reserves, and they already have a bridge to Crimea, so they don’t really need any of the land in E. Ukraine. I think Russia attacked with the excuse of assisting Russian separatists in the east, but I really don’t think they care about them, they just want Ukraine to stay within their sphere of influence, and failing that, not join the west. Before 2014, the government of Ukraine was pretty pro-Russia, and then they switched to a pro-west government (some say through western influence, but not sure how much of that is propaganda).
Yes agreed, at this point Putin will look weak if he doesn’t get something out of all this. Which could give someone an opportunity to take him down.
They don’t really need more fuel reserves, but they want to prevent Ukraine from undercutting them on the market.
Putin’s bridge to Crimea has almost been destroyed already, and they’ve stopped even using it for a lot of military logistics. A land bridge isn’t vulnerable like that.
I thought they’re devoting so much to this war largely because Putin needs it to stay in power. As in, they started it because they thought they could secure a peace deal really quickly (i.e. no NATO and official handover of Crimea), but things didn’t go as planned and Putin has to see it through to maintain his power. The nationalism and crushing of Democracy was plan B, not the primary goal.
I don’t think they need more fuel reserves, and they already have a bridge to Crimea, so they don’t really need any of the land in E. Ukraine. I think Russia attacked with the excuse of assisting Russian separatists in the east, but I really don’t think they care about them, they just want Ukraine to stay within their sphere of influence, and failing that, not join the west. Before 2014, the government of Ukraine was pretty pro-Russia, and then they switched to a pro-west government (some say through western influence, but not sure how much of that is propaganda).
Yes agreed, at this point Putin will look weak if he doesn’t get something out of all this. Which could give someone an opportunity to take him down.
They don’t really need more fuel reserves, but they want to prevent Ukraine from undercutting them on the market.
Putin’s bridge to Crimea has almost been destroyed already, and they’ve stopped even using it for a lot of military logistics. A land bridge isn’t vulnerable like that.