- Ukraine is the entry door to the russian heartland, and as such has always held central importance to the russian military doctrine.
- Russia still has the internal view of a superpower, but they aren't anymore, Putin wants to reclaim lost glory.
- Ukraine becoming a successful democracy right next to Russia would further delegitimize his own regime.
- There's a grain of truth in the lie that russian Ukranians are discriminated against. Ukraine is very regionally divided on wether to have a pro-western or pro-russian government. [0] The pro-russian rebels are certainly supported and probably also instigated by Russia, but they do hold support among the local population in the far east.
This is also my expectation of how the conflict will play out: Russia will bomb Ukraine, invade from all sides in a limited capacity, but with the strategic goal of crippling Ukraine and conquering the whole regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. When those two regions are secured, I suspect a ceasefire wille be reached. That said, I've been wrong before, I truly did not expect Russia to just brazenly invade like this.
- Russia still has the internal view of a superpower, but they aren't anymore, Putin wants to reclaim lost glory.
- Ukraine becoming a successful democracy right next to Russia would further delegitimize his own regime.
- There's a grain of truth in the lie that russian Ukranians are discriminated against. Ukraine is very regionally divided on wether to have a pro-western or pro-russian government. [0] The pro-russian rebels are certainly supported and probably also instigated by Russia, but they do hold support among the local population in the far east.
This is also my expectation of how the conflict will play out: Russia will bomb Ukraine, invade from all sides in a limited capacity, but with the strategic goal of crippling Ukraine and conquering the whole regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. When those two regions are secured, I suspect a ceasefire wille be reached. That said, I've been wrong before, I truly did not expect Russia to just brazenly invade like this.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Ukrainian_parliamentary_e...