I still think Ukraine should have just cut the separatist-run regions loose while they had the chance.
Granted, you don't wanna fall into the vicious cycle of appeasement, but if a certain region is only causing you trouble, you should consider washing your hands of them.
Perhaps, but between Donbas and Crimea, there's a lot of resources Ukraine could use for its development. Russian knows, having seized their drilling platforms when they invaded.
There's so much fucking gas Ukraine could probably provide the entire Europe for the foreseeable future. One of the theories I have for Putin's invasion is exactly this, competition over the only thing Russia as a glorified gas station has to offer to the world, being squeezed out of European market would've hurt big time.
Their titanium deposits place them in top 10 on the globe, and of course they're famous for metallurgy, specifically in the annexed territory.
Ukraine could've had a brilliant future if they made use of it all, and they were on the path to do exactly that.
So I'm not that sure they would've been willing to make this concession, pride be damned. It's existential for their nation on multiple levels.
Elon had the right idea: UN-supervised elections. If the separatist regions don't wanna be part of Ukraine, then don't make them stay. They have a right to self-determination, no matter what globohomo says.
The well was poisoned, it's way too late for that. Before 2014 that might've made sense. Though that said, they coexisted just fine before that, I'm under no illusion that Putin didn't deliberately fuel whatever schism that existed in order to capitalize on it, just so he could use them to justify further actions.
There is a little more to it, though it's in a similar vein - Russia's habitable stretch of land has been invaded over the centuries by quite a lot of peoples. The best barriers and bulwarks to invasion, it controlled during its stint as the USSR - it now controls one or two bottlenecks of around seven. Ukraine (and Poland) have some of those bottlenecks, and the Kremlin wants to have control over them, either directly or through puppet states.
It's not so much just Russia longing for the lost glory days of Empire, but rather that historical anxieties about its vulnerabilities essentially compel it to keep invading its neighbors. Issue is, the red army just ain't what it used to be - but access to nukes allows them to keep throwing what future generations haven't taken a holiday in istanbul at the wall.
To be frank, I'm not buying this, mostly because there is in fact longing for the lost glory days, it's like the only other feeling beside the apathy these people have, it's palpable.
Nuclear deterrent puts all these worries to rest, the security argument is a goddamn copout as far as I'm concerned.
The whole "NATO invasion" argument fell apart when NATO let Russia get away with the annexation of Crimea and hybrid war in Donbas. It became clear to me then that they would rather prefer to maintain things as they were than launch a pointless invasion risking nuclear holocaust.
Almost as if preserving peace was the entire point of their existence.
