If you read the article about last leaders you can see many of them died in moscow. Some in Kyiv. Russian influence decreased in this agency years after year and i guess the same happened in the whole country.
Up to a point that Moscow lost control despite the efforts, then decided to annex.

Of course... if half of France became an independent country today, there would be a lot of French influence in that country tomorrow wouldnt there?

Since 1917, if you please. Before 1917 they were one nation. Funny fact, Ukrainian greatest poet, the driving force of Ukrainian language was identifying himself as Russian.

This post was edited by Norlander on Apr 27 2023 03:53pm

Those sneaky Russians! Creating a country just to take over it!

5D chess to start a nuclear war at the...

I don't disagree that these considerations might have guided Russia's decision to invade, but this is such a shortsighted logic from Russia's point of view. You know what really puts them in a hopeless geostrategic position? Alienating the biggest and richest customer for their energy exports and putting their country at the complete mercy of their perennial frenemy China. Also, it's not like the US or Europe are great powers due to the sheer size of their population - they're great powers due to their economic and technological clout (of which their military power is just a function). Even in a 450 vs 200 scenario, there was no way Russia was gonna be able to successfully invade or economically outcompete Europe for decades to come.


Moreover, sacrificing tens or even hundreds of thousands of young men for this war does't exactly improve their situation. Neither does occupying a destroyed country which will rely on economic subsidies and where 70+% of the population hate you, so that you have to permanently deploy a sizable occupying force to keep them subjugated. Such an approach makes sense if you create local microconflicts like in Transnistria or South Ossetia which keep much larger countries away from your geostrategic foes - but it's bonkers for a country the size of Ukraine.




I actually agree with you that Russia needs to expand - just not territorially, but rather economically. If the country had invested its gigantic revenue from natural resources into modernizing its infrastructure, building up its economy and establishing a girthy welfare system with particularly generous child benefits, their future could have looked so rosy. Given its abundance of natural resources, its comparatively tiny population and the fact that their nukes prevent other countries from invading them, Russia could and should have been a 30 times larger version of Norway. But I guess it was more important for their oligarchs to have multiple helipads on their mega yachts while 20% of their population don't even have running water in their shack. *shrug*

Again: read the fucking NATO statutes! Countries involved in ongoing military conflict or territorial disputes cannot join NATO. Ukraine would have had to officially relinquish any claims to Crimea before being able to become a NATO member. And the notion that the rest of NATO would have been willing to risk nuclear war over Crimea, just so their new friend Ukraine can get it back, is silly. Everyone knows about the strategic and symbolic importance of Crimea to Russia. Everyone knows that Russia will not give it back and use all means necessary (including nukes) to defend it. Which is why the West had more or less settled with the pre-invasion status quo.

Fact of the matter is that Russia already held Crimea, and that there was no realistic threat whatsoever to their control over it. "Ukraine wanted to join NATO, which would then have come for Crimea with so much determination that they would have risked WW3 over it. Therefore, Russia had to invade the rest of Ukraine to nip all of that in the bud" is perhaps the dumbest justification for this invasion that I've heard so far.



Of course I know that. How exactly is it relevant here?

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Apr 27 2023 04:16pm

You will not go far with your "if" doing comparison with countries which are very different since the middle ages.

Amazing that someone has managed to teach a house plant to type