I’m not saying the bombastic rhetoric of some that Russia is eager to take over Europe holds much water, but there’s definitely other resources available outside of Russia that they’d like to have. Like labour. Or access to better ports on warmer waters. Or access to shorter trade routes. Or access to the political capital that comes with winning a war. So I do understand why they’d want to chunk off extra territory.
There’s also the security value of increasing the distance to the closest NATO border. From their perspective the NATO countries are one bad election away from military confrontation. Which given the current state of affairs isn’t devoid of logic. I’m not saying we have to comply with their demands regarding NATO’s borders or that this justifies their invasion of Ukraine. Just that there’s some material reasons to the madness.
I’m not saying the bombastic rhetoric of some that Russia is eager to take over Europe holds much water, but there’s definitely other resources available outside of Russia that they’d like to have. Like labour. Or access to better ports on warmer waters. Or access to shorter trade routes. Or access to the political capital that comes with winning a war. So I do understand why they’d want to chunk off extra territory.
There’s also the security value of increasing the distance to the closest NATO border. From their perspective the NATO countries are one bad election away from military confrontation. Which given the current state of affairs isn’t devoid of logic. I’m not saying we have to comply with their demands regarding NATO’s borders or that this justifies their invasion of Ukraine. Just that there’s some material reasons to the madness.