Topic: Ukraine VS Russia. Ideological or Economical conflict (Read 452 times)

Hmm... Tell me, do you seriously think that "Europe has attacked Russia many times"? Can you really give examples of specific, direct attacks by European countries, in the form of direct aggression, against Russia? And let's give you examples, and we will discuss them by referring to real history and facts?
No offense, but it sounds like slogans from Soviet TV in the 1980s
So - write the year, the aggressor country that attacked Russia / the USSR, and discuss each item.

That fear is not just from Putin, it is from the nukes they have. Remove all the nukes from the equation and you will see that west would not hesitate to attack Russia in a single day. Without nukes, Russia doesn't have even remotely close numbers as Nato has in military, USA alone would be able to beat Russia without breaking a sweat.

You may think that "but USA had so much trouble even in Iraq" but that is exactly what happens after a while, you can't take over a nation, you can only beat them and leave. Russia would be in crumbles, many people dead, government changed, but then USA can't stay there and would have to leave, exactly same would have happened. But since Russia have nukes, that would destroy every single possibility of attacking them.

I think Putin have fear of Europe also because if you look at history then you can see that Russia has been attacked many times by Europeans though all of them failed. Nepolian, Hitlar all try to conquer Russia and till now Europe and Russia both fear each other. At least that is why NATO was created for. So the fear of west by Putin is not a fantacy but a fact.

There are many quite correct, "scientific" explanations given here. I will add one more. Another key reason is FEAR! Putin's fear! Putin's fear that the 2014 revolution, and indeed the behavior of Ukrainians in general, will be adopted by the population of Russia. And this means the destruction of the slave model of building a state. This means the loss of absolute power. This means the emergence of self-consciousness of the people. This means the impossibility of usurpation of power, media, resources, wealth.. This means that you can't do anything with impunity, it means you can't play God!!! And that's what he really fears. NATO security is all fakes and fabrications. The Baltic countries have been in NATO for a long time. For a long time, all the countries of the former Warsaw Pact in NATO. But NATO never attacked Russia and never even prevented Russia from creating terror wherever they wanted!!!

This is what I'm also thinking about. All of the issue regarding NATO being the reason behind the invasion of Russia to Ukraine is just a ploy of the former. Russia kept on saying that it is a big deal, when in fact, Ukraine wasn't even doing anything threatening to them. They were the first one to made a step and Ukraine just put a defenseive stance, because after all, they must protect theor country and citizens.

Putin is an overly-agressive kind of leader that would do everything in his power to fulfill what he wants. So, he really did great lengths just to bully Ukraine even the civilians who are innocent. He is binded in an idea that no one should really walk past his principles and on what he wants. That's why when Ukraine did something against it, he exploded like what a ticking bomb does eventually.

The reason for Russia's military intervention in Ukraine is primarily deeply ideological. At the same time, the very entry of Ukraine into NATO does not pose any danger to Russia, because Russia has long had common borders in the west with NATO members - Latvia and Estonia. This is all fiction and the main reason here is different. Russia is now a sharply authoritarian state, where the people now have practically no rights. Their actual tsar Putin has unlimited power, and the country's legislative body, the State Duma, is such only on paper. Everyone who opposes Putin, regardless of position and rank, either goes to jail or is physically eliminated.

In Ukraine, in contrast to Russia, there is a high level of democracy and freedom of speech. This is very dangerous for the Putin regime. He is afraid of his people and is afraid that the Russian people will also want the same arrangement of society. By destroying Ukraine, Putin is destroying a threat to his rule.

In addition, Putin is very obsessed with the history and greatness of Russia. But with this without Ukraine is just a big problem. Everything that Russia has now in terms of history, all this has Ukrainian roots. Russia even got its name during the time of Tsar Peter the Great at the beginning of the 18th century. Prior to that, it was called the Moscow Principality or Muscovy. Russia, Russian, is borrowed from the name of a powerful state of the 9th-12th centuries, which existed on the territory of Ukraine and was called Kievan Rus with its center in Kyiv. The current Moscow at that time was a small settlement called Mokva and belonged to the prince of Kievan Rus Yuri Dolgoruky.
RUSSIAN, ROSS, RUSSIAN - the population of the territory of Russia, which originally (9th century) was a small section of the Dnieper Right Bank with a center in Kyiv and a southern border along the Ros River. The current name of Russia and the word "Russian" has nothing to do with the current territory of Russia, and therefore Putin hates Ukraine and wants to seize and appropriate its history by annexing this territory.

Reading the points from various users here as well as the OP, it seems that the major reason for this war is more on economical aspect.
But as we read the news during the early days of war, they were pointing out that the reason was because Ukraine wanted to be a part of NATO.
And with more and more analysis of what is happening between these 2 countries, we are discovering that there's really more than meets the eyes here.
But Putin's method is not a very good one to tackle this situation, or maybe, it is the only way he thought that will totally make Ukraine under his power.

Some might find the following interesting.


It appears ukraine is the 3rd largest supplier of agricultural produce to the european union. If Putin was able to invade ukraine, he would own a good percentage of EU oil consumption and agricultural produce.



The Carpathian Mountains are a good natural defense. Putin asked for land behind this mountain range, if I remember correctly.

There is a famous story about Putin's childhood circulating in the media. As a child Putin cornered a rat. The rat was boxed in and had no path to escape. It decided to attack Putin. Pundits claimed that Putin had come full circle in his life by eventually becoming the cornered rat, himself. I'm not certain I believe that but it is an interesting observation.

And why do you think it is that Ukraine is trying to join NATO and become officially the enemy of Russia?

I'll tell you. It's because Russians cannot be trusted. They're a bunch of liars and bullies. They gave Ukraine independence in exchange for its nuclear weapons. Now they claim this deal was signed by old socialist government and it doesn't count, but they will not give the weapons back. They want to nullify their side of the agreement, as it fits them. They also claim that the Soviet Union should go back to its former borders, which means annexing a few other independent countries that have a different language culture and religion from Russia. It will never happen and Russians know it, but this doesn't mean they can't bully those countries to show how deeply saddened they are for the loss of Soviet republics.

Russia should actually be more worried about the Bosphorus strait and also the Dardanelles Strait for their access to the Mediterranean Sea and hope that the treaties will be honored in a time of war. 

I think the gas reserve found in the basin of Crimea was the main reason why Russia wanted to expand it's borders... so it boils down to the economical factors and not the access to the Mediterranean Sea. 

Putin also did not like it that a leader of the Ukraine was not controlled by him... and that is what happened since Volodymyr Zelenskyy came into power in 2019.    ( Zelenskyy is the first Jewish president and with Volodymyr Groysman as prime minister, Ukraine became the first country other than Israel to have a Jewish head of state and head of government. )  Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelenskyy

geographically also ukraine seems to be in front of the gate of russia, and this is as putin said. Putin believes that if he is surrounded by enemies in front of his house, of course this is a threat to Russia. this happened since ukraine will join nato, whose ruler is a big enemy during the second world war. so for this war I think the biggest cause is ideological views

I think the main reason why Russia has not messed with the neighboring countries is because they have let them know that they will not join either RUSSIA or NATO, the biggest problem of all was that UKRAINE has expressed the idea of wanting to join NATO, for its part it is easy to give as a country like Finland, they declared themselves neutral, however Putin sent their respective threat to them and Sweden not to get involved because it could go very badly, so the Russian rule reaches those countries whether they like it or not, and Ukraine was also the heart of the Soviet Union, in some way this country represents being of great interest to Russia.

The Russia and Ukraine war is both economical and ideological_cum_political. It's economical in the sense that Russia has other neighbouring countries it shares borders with, why haven't Russia made occupation of part of these other neighbouring countries except  Crimea in Ukraine. Crimea has been resourceful to Russia since it's occupation, only the gas alone it supplies to Europe is enough advantage to Russia's economy , not to talk of the seaport.

This war only seems much ideological to many , in that, the ideological_cum_political part of the war whereby Ukraine took the decision of joining NATO  is what brokes the camel's back, in which the war then got aggravated and situations heightened.

Western sanction on russia is not new for them. Russia faces such sanction in 2006 and 2014. So it will be a childish thought that Putin didn't expect such action from the west and didn't took any necessary steps. A data shows putin convers more than 600 Billion worth of dollar to gold which i assume could be 3 to 4 times greater than this figure. They Keep only 16% of their reserve currency to USD which western country froze. Now putin demanding rubles as a payments from any country who wants to buy oil and gas from russia. A cleaver move from putin.

Apart from the sanctions imposed by several countries on Russia, which of course have an effect on many things including the economy, I think Russia has taken all of that into account.
what is clear is that both the Ukrainian and Russian economies are currently in complete disarray,
and in the midst of a war like this it is certainly not an easy thing to recover

I am not a politician or a historian, I am a simple working person and I sew clothes. I feel sorry for the people who died in the war. And I really wanted to help the people of Ukraine. But I saw a video of Ukrainians feeding a Russian soldier, who for some reason is dressed in a military uniform of the Ukrainian army, and I understand that not everything can go smoothly with my donation. I may lose my money. Now I don't want to hear what they tell us about this war. I agree with you that it will take some time before we find out the truth.

You're correct. The economic incentive is not there for Ukraine. Assuming the war does not last years and that Russia could take over Ukraine tomorrow, their economy is still in the gutter and Rubles is becoming more worthless as the sanctions continue. Ukraine doesn't have enough natural resources in order to justify invasion. If it did, the U.S. would have troops on the ground at this moment.

I totally agree with your opinion, this is not an ideological conflict but an economic conflict, because we know that there are a lot of agricultural products in Ukraine, Ukraine has a lot of wealth from mining products such as natural gas, coal, iron ore, etc., because if a country does not produce wealth nature is certain that there will be no country that wants to spend a lot of money to fight this country, such as Indonesia which does not want to fight Timor Leste, because the country knows Timor Leste does not have crops, most wars occur because of economic problems, including Russia's inflation to the country. Ukraine.

Its been a quite long time since Putin warned Russia's neighboring state about joining NATO. But how does he explains the annexation of Crimea? The Russian navy was using Crimean seaports by leasing them but that doesn't make them the rightful owner of that part. As an independent country, Ukraine has the right not to make a new contract about leasing its ports to another country.

It's true also. Whether Putin wants to take back what the Soviets had conquered before or not, he is gaining in this fight. During the Minsk agreement in 2014, everything was settled already because after all, Russia had leased that part of Crimea for years. Why end the contract and let someone else lease when they have not defaulted? 

It requires a deep understanding, not just a shallow memory of Putin bad or Hitler is bad. If they have to live as neighbors, both countries should have respect for each other and not find faults.

While there are countries surrounding Russia that are part of NATO, they are not hostile to them, there is no border dispute and no ballistic weapons pointing to Russia yet. But they should be worried too especially because there are US military bases with a small number of US troops, Putin already warn them like Latvia.

It is economic, , it is not just the water but there are different things too.  Ukraine has so many natural resources and could fill up the gap within Russias supplies, for instance Uranium which is needed in making Nuclear weapons etc.

I'm having difficulty understanding the first one since they were still paying Ukraine before the previous President was overthrown via coup d'etat with the help of the West in 2014. Russia was more likely threatened so they had to do a pre-emptive strike before the newly installed leader would change the deal or completely ignore it. I believe that's the main reason for the Crimea annexation.

We can't avoid this situation, I guess. A powerful country wanting to control a weaker one for some hidden interests.
And it is not only happening with Russia over Ukraine. There are many others but we are not blaming this hard as with Russia.
Russia's move is a very violent one breaking the war protocols making it an illegal war. Bluntly killing innocent civilians.
We are already in this digital age, so they can't cover up those mistakes. They have no way of saying they are not doing it.

In all seriousness, if he could control all of them, he would. There are some places that he ignores for some reason and he just doesn't even look at them. But aside from those few places, he would like to control every single USSR part of his old nation. Obviously he can't just take the whole land and make it Russian, he just makes it de facto Russian simply. Look at Belarus right now, we all know they are their own nations and yet we all know that it is run by a guy that is a puppet of Putin.

You may hate this situation, a whole nation that is controlled by a puppet of Putin, but USA and UK have done this a million times in history, every powerful nation benefits doing this and do not care about hurting others.

You're now confusing me even more.

First, there was this:


But then there was this one:


I cannot see any economic explanation here. So which is which? Is it economical, ideological, political, geographical? Or was it simply a dream of the past? A vision of the future? Or was it simply a war waged because of brainwashing?


I completely agree, but my point is that even in a fair democratic process a madman could win. I myself freely voted for a president, and he's a madman, perhaps of a lesser degree.

Because it is economical. I think that the ideological theory and fantasy of Dagan are just to brainwash Rush people. Hitler has done Similar thing in nazi Germany. According to media reports, 200k people were gathered in Moscow in support of Putin.

I am reading through Crimea history on wikipedia, and I see it was part of Roman Empire, part of Tartary, Armenians and Greeks, were involved, Adyghe and other indigenous ethnic group, part of Russian Empire, and in 1954 Khrushchev joined Crimea to Ukrainian SSR. I dont see where it was "part of Ukraine before 1954".

In short, for most of Russians, Crimea is sort of a gift to Ukraine to help it to develop. But as soon as it became developed, Russia waiter for Ukraine to return Crimea. At least that is the idea that is presented to most of Russians.

That sounds wrong. If we are going back in past, then if Russia took it back, Turkey should take it back either.

Russia didn't make the step to proper democracy. And even in a (young) democracy, it's not unimaginable at all to elect a madman; it can easily happen because of lacking actual choices.
The thing is that in a democracy the pillars of the state are not linked/interconnected, hence they won't allow a man (or even a small group) rule.
Since Russia is not a proper democracy, there's no other power in the state that could veto any of the president's actions.

And since this situation is there for too long, I expect that anybody even daring to question his actions is basically doomed. So it's a totalitarian state (weakly) disguised in democracy.

We all know nothing about Putin's mental condition, you and I. We can only surmise. So we may be looking at the same man waging an invasion in a sovereign country, dropping bombs on parks and schools and homes and malls and everywhere, but we could still have different opinions of him.

I am seeing a madman and a devil. Others may see a completely sane man and a prophet.


1. Is it unimaginable for an entire country in these modern times to elect a madman? Look around. Or does a people even elect?
2. This is the modern era. As such, it shouldn't be an era when a country would rape another country for whatever selfish reason, may it be economical, ideological, religious, geopolitical, and so on.
3. I don't know much about the Russian population. What I'm almost sure of, though, is that they prefer peace rather than war.
4. I don't trust much the western media and the resources made available by them, but I think it's much harder for me to trust the Russian media and their resources.
5. Please, you cannot bomb innocent little children because a purported genocide happened 8 years ago, can you?
6. Can you talk of demilitarization and denationalization and Nazism and liberation and bomb children and helpless women and old people?

There are many countries that were once a part of Russia. So now Putin will reclaim all those countries? Crimea was part of Ukraine On 19 February 1954 even before Ukraine got independent. Basically, Crimea also got independent from the former soviet union as a part of Ukraine. Crimea consists mostly of pro-Russian people which is another matter.

With Ukraine opening towards EU and NATO and turning their back to Mother Russia, I find it quite a big ideological difference.
And yeah, it's somewhere between military reasoning - attempt to get Russia's borders towards natural barriers, big seas and mountains - and somebody's wet dream to become the tzar of a new era's Soviet Union.

Clearly the coal from Donbass, the oil and gas from Crimea and Black Sea and the great plains just perfect for grains are also a big point in all this.

Do you know that technically, Crimea belongs to Russia? It was a part of Russia for a long period of time, until Nikita Khrushchev (First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) signed an agreement to transfer Crimea to Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, to support USSR region and to decrease population of Tatars there. Some people believe, that Khrushchev simply presented part of Russian land to Ukrainians. That is why Russians celebrated that much when "they got their land back". People disagreed why someone "distribute their land to others just for nothings". That what I think triggered all that disagreements between Russia and Ukraine long before war, annexation and etc.

The most stupid post I've read about Putin. Who do you think would appoint a madman to the presidency? Do you know the population of Russia? Or maybe you forgot what time you live in? Is this medieval?
Try to shift your eyes to Russian resources and read what is the demilitarization of Ukraine and the denationalization of Ukraine. Try using a translator. Type in the search the genocide of the Russian-speaking population of Donbas for 8 years. Read about the Gorlovskaya Madonna. Do you know what Nazism is? This is exactly what was the reason that the operation began by the Russian authorities. Liberation of Ukraine from Nazism.
Although I understand that all words are useless while there is a mass mailing of fake news. But history always shows that sooner or later people will find out the truth, it takes time.

"Ideological" is not the right term.This isn't some "communism vs.capitalism" or "nazism vs.communism" type of conflict.There aren't any ideologies being preached by both sides.
The conflict is geopolitical,not ideological.Geopolitics and economy are deeply linked together,so there's no choosing between two options.The conflict is BOTH geopolitical and economical.
I didn't know that there any gas reserves in Crimea.I don't think that Crimea is the main reason for the conflict.
You are forgetting about eastern Ukraine.
The gas transit isn't a reason for the war,because Russia has Northern Stream and Turkish stream,so the Russian gas can reach Europe without going thru Ukraine.
The main reasons for the conflict are these:
1.Putin wants more territories.
2.Putin wants to put Ukraine under his control in one way or another.The possibilities of USA deploying nuclear weapons in Ukraine or Ukraine joining NATO are just a silly excuse for Putin to attack Ukraine.

How do you so sure about Putin's mental conditions? Do not forget he is a former KGB agent that gives him a cold-blooded mind. Putin is not in fantasy nor it is his own will that is going on right now. The Russians have carried out many military operations outside the country since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Georgia (2006), Crimea (2014), Belarus (2020), Kazakhstan (2022), and then Ukraine (2022). But in reality, from Russia's point of view, these campaigns are not the military adventures of a single individual. Behind each expedition is comprehensive integrated thinking of the future geographical plans of the Russians. To understand Russia's ongoing militarism, we must turn our attention away from Putin to Alexander Dagan, one of Putin's advisers.

Alexander Dagan's own book where he talk about his new ideology. "The Fourth Political Theory"


This talk looks like a fantasy but I am afraid that he is exactly doing everything for it at least all these Russ military expeditions point towards that. he is the man behind all these military interventions of Russia and he is using Putin. Putin has a very close relationship with Dagin and is influenced by his ideology.

War on Ukraine is part of a long pre-planned picture which can be proven from a statement of Degan in 2006.


I am not sure in the long term Russia could succeed or not but it will make the whole of Europe a continent of ruins.

Ideological or Economical conflict? I don't think it's both.. more like a political issue...we know that Putin doesn't want his country to be influenced by the west. And by joining Ukraine to Nato or Europe this could be a threat to their country..

... especially Putin doesn't like Zelensky who is too pro-western

This invasion is neither ideological nor economical. This invasion is simply born out of a folly. Arguing that this invasion is either ideological or economical is dignifying it. At the bottom of it, this is nothing but a decision of a deranged man. Putin is becoming a crazy dictator who is living in a world of fantasy. The problem is that he has so much power and he is a mad man. Everybody is afraid to confront him and tell him he is out of his mind. I know for sure that even some of those people in his inner circle do not approve of this stupidity.

It all consolidated and Russia wouldn't stand having a hostile country that blocks the water stream going to them. They see the dam was created mainly to cut off thier supply of water and then the Russian speakers in Donetsk and Lugansk prefer to be independent of Ukraine them experiencing the genocide from the Ukrainian government. It's both ideological and economic. 

Belarus experience the same since they are blocked from accessing waters in Crimea which is worse than sanctions they get. They'd use all thier might to get what they need while NATO is forcing them to do exactly what they need to do.

So you are expecting Putin to first announce that he demands Crimean gas and oil reserve along with free gas transit through Ukrainian territory then attack Ukraine? Georg W Bush first said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction then provoked other nations to join his side to attack Iraq which later proved that this attack was only for sucking Iraq's oil reserves. Superpower throws fear or ideological cake to people to justify their wrongdoing and gain support. You just can not say a state give me your wealth or face destruction. It's not the roman or Mongol era.

Putin has done a similar thing which has done in 2003 when the USA and their allies attack Iraq. Also, you must have known that 35-40% of Ukrainian are pro-Russian, especially in eastern Ukraine and that's a big number. They have a historical and cultural connection with Russia so what Putin said is not totally wrong after all.

This war is deeply ideological. Russia, throughout history, occupied Ukrainian territories. Russia also appropriated OUR history, trying to make it theirs. Putin repeatedly said he doesn't see Ukraine as a separate state, doesn't see Ukrainian people as separate from the Russian people. Only someone very out of context could believe that the war is economical. So yeah, you missed a lot of points. But, of course, with ideological tensions came also economic and generally political tensions. But this war is NOT about Russian gas or water to Crimea. And I honestly can't believe some here are saying there's no ideological difference between Russia and Ukraine, after everything that happened. Ukraine values freedom over everything, which is why it's fighting so fiercely against a much bigger army. Russian people clearly got used to whatever's going on, and they are not fighting for their freedom, not even leaning towards democracy. There's a huge difference, and, one way or another, it has been there for centuries.

I do not think Putin will gamble on Russia's economy only for an ideological reason. One state attack another state generally for two reasons. Either out of fear or greed. Most of the time greed played the main role which is also valid for Putin. Putin doesn't want to lose the EU market for their fossil fuel and Ukraine was creating problems by diverting gas from Russia's gas pipeline and overcharging for transit as mentioned in OP. I think Putin was desperate and played that gamble.

I would agree that the NATO membership was just an excuse from Putin to attack Ukraine.

And it could be ideological, he believed that it is still with Russia, and since the government is anti-Putin, it has to be reminded that it was once was a part of Russia. And we may say that Putin has a nationalistic idea that he takes very seriously and no one can stop him from fighting for it even if it means attacking Ukraine and getting condemnation from the West.

Maybe true, maybe not. To be honest, we who are not from conflict countries can only rely on information from the media of the two countries, in fact, we still haven't found out that this conflict is related to ideology. Apart from all those relationships, because anything can have a relationship with each other.

Both economic, political, religious, and maybe also social on both sides. I certainly don't understand deeply about the conflict between the two countries, even about Crimea, which now no longer gets clean water from Ukraine because it has become Russian territory, while Crimea depends on this water source.

In conclusion, every issue that is said to be an internal conflict will have the potential to be linked to Politics, Economics, and even to raise the issue of Ideology, all to achieve their respective goals.

That gas from Crimea is very hard to extract and there's no active extraction going on now or anytime soon. And Russia is already a major fossil fuel producer, adding Crimea is like adding a drop to the ocean.

Russia already had access to the Black Sea, so it wasn't exactly a great geopolical victory.


Now consider this, Russia has committed economic suicide with their invasion, their currency crashed, they lost access to a portion of their reserves, western countries and their allies refuse to do business with Russia, so Russia will have to do it on worse terms with China and India. Things will only get worse and worse from now on. Was it worth it?

Ideology is the main and only reason why it has happened. It was Putin's personal ambition to conquer Ukraine and be remembered as a great leader.


You clearly have zero knowledge on Ukrainian and Russian history. At least try to read Wikipedia or something.

Same religion, similar language, same ethnolinguistic group (Slavic). Ukraine was even part of ZSRR 30 years ago. So there is no Ideological difference. Its only economic and strategic/military reason for conflict. Economical reason was pointed out by OP. Strategic/military reason is that Ukraine was tryign to join European Union and NATO which would enable NATO to place their military bases and missiles 450KM from Moscow. It is unacceptable if you consider your country to be one of the top 3 powers where everyone else is your enemy (that's what Russians seams to think about themselves)

If you dive deep into the past incident then you will see the real reason behind the Ukraine Russian war is economic not ideological or security concern.

This war is an economic loss for Russia? There is 3 main economical reason behind the Russian attack on Ukraine.

1. Russia's gas transit problem with Ukraine?

We all know how much Europe depends on Russia for its energy to power up their country to survive the winter. Gas from Europe first goes to eastern Europe through Ukraine and then all over western Europe. On 1 January 2006, Russia cut off its gas supply to Europe due to a transit problem with Ukraine. Ukraine was demanding more transit fees from Russia than the global rate. When Poland charged 1$ per 1000 Cubic meter gas to transit 100 KM Ukraine demanded 2.5$ for the same amount of gas. Not only that, Russia found out that Ukraine was stealing some gas from the supply route by diverting it for their personal use. This was the beginning of the whole problem.



2. why did Russia annex Crimea?

a) There is a trillion dollars worth of gas reserve found in the basin of Crimea which Russia wants. This was the main and first reason behind the Russian occupation in Crimea.

b) Crimean seaport Sevastopol didn't freeze in winter which makes it unique from most other seaports in Europe. This means Russia can operate business even in winter through this seaport. Not only that it can be used as a naval fleet for the Russian navy the whole year. And its location gives Russia the power to conduct any naval operation to the whole of Europe.



3. Why attack Ukraine?

We can see how important Crimea is for Russia but Crimea has a very serious problem of its own and that is it doesn't have any natural source of drinkable water. Its water comes from Ukraine and after the occupation of Crimea Ukraine cut off its water supply. So only having Crimea without any water supply isn't sufficient enough.

Many of us think that Russia's attack on Ukraine is due to its joining NATO which I think isn't valid because Russia has a border with two other NATO members. The main reason is economic not ideological or security concerns. Both sides have some responsibility behind the conflict but that hasn't given Russia the right to annex Crimea or attack Ukraine. Did I miss any points here?