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Comment by tediousgraffit1

14 days ago

Why do you think Russia wants territory? Why did they suddenly develop an appetite for territory in 2014?

6 comments

tediousgraffit1

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pclmulqdq  14 days ago

They have wanted it since the fall of the Soviet Union and access to the Black Sea has immense strategic value to them. They only had geopolitical (and local political) cover to get it in 2014 and 2022.

  • tediousgraffit1  14 days ago

    So not because ukraine rejected them in 2013? To be explicit, I still have seen no evidence for the premise that '_some_ amount of war' was inevitable. Belarus would seem to be an obvious counterexample.

    • pclmulqdq  14 days ago

      No person seriously discussing that region of the world would have ever thought Ukraine would give Crimea to the Russians without a fight. Countries, in general, don't give up land without a fight. Crimea is also one of the most militarily valuable pieces of land in the world. Putin, at the same time, wanted to do some "re-unification" of some previous Soviet territories including Crimea.

      I'm also not sure why you're citing Belarus here. It was split off from the Soviet union in 1990 and governed itself the whole time despite being essentially a vassal state of Russia. Belarus has not ceded any land to Russia, either.

      Edit - I see what you're saying about control or territory. If you want control, directly controlling the territory is better than having a puppet government. While Russia would have accepted a puppet government, as they have in Belarus (since there has been no good opportunity to go to war with Belarus to take it over), they had the opportunity to go to war for direct control and the West made it clear that Ukraine as a vassal state was not an option (see the 2014 revolution). If you think someone wants control, why do you think that they see $0 of extra value in directly owning the territory?

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