For what?
Nothing. Literally nothing.
You've got a point there,
this video purported to summarize the reasons for invading Ukraine, but upon thinking, a lot of the points don't really measure up.
According to the video, Russia invaded Ukraine to:
- Control the bottleneck that leads to the militarily vulnerable North European Plain in Russia, which consists of wide tracts of land that are too difficult to defend. (If there's any lesson to be learned here, it's that nukes are already enough of deterrence to prevent an invasion into Russia no matter the crimes it commits)
- They don't want Ukraine to have access to the vast natural gas reserves in Crimea and potentially become a competitor to Russia in the energy market which is the lifeblood of its economy (Russia already had Crimea, and there was basically zero chance of Ukraine ever being able to retake it. Crimea is less secure now, than it was before the war. Plus, as a result of this war, Russia has incurred sanctions that have almost kicked it out of the energy market completely. Nice job Putin!)
- They don't want to pay tarifs on the natural gas pipeline that runs through Ukraine in order to sell natural gas to Europe (Russia had already built alternative pipelines by this point, and were very close to phasing out their reliance on this pipe entirely. Waiting a few more years would have been smarter than a costly war)
- They want to reopen the water canal to Crimea that Ukraine blocked off when it was annexed. Crimea's water issues have cost Russia a lot of money so they'd like to stop them now (As previously discussed in this thread, though the closing of the canal cost Crimea a lot of water, the biggest cause of the shortage is actually the fact that the remaining water is being used to feed agricultural exports rather than the citizens of the peninsula. With the sanctions now, the agricultural exports aren't really viable anymore so this problem had already solved itself. Albeit in an incredibly unprofitable way)
- Putin wants to rebuild the USSR (The only credible reason, and the only real goal that has not been forfeited as a result of the sanctions. Ukraine may end up getting bombed into useless rubble, but if he does conquer it, at least there will be a piece of paper that says that he owns the country, even if it can be barely called as such. It's just ideological dick-waving though. In other words, this war truly is for nothing now)
This war is only being continued because if Putin admitted defeat, he would certainly lose his grip on power.
Long story short, don't blindly accept edutainment videos no matter how well-written they may be. Always use your critical thinking skills.
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Topic: Maybe the WWIII thread (soon) (Ukraine) (Read 68610 times)