It’s all fundamentally dead simple. Russia views Ukraine as a buffer country between itself and the West and will do anything to keep it that way.
Which was, funnily, in response to US military presence in Turkey, which is still there. It's understandable that Russia doesn't want to see itself surrounded by "enemies".
They should probably stop invading more and more of it over time, then.
They should do it for the sake of security of Europe. Ukraine is not capable of controlling "own" territory.
[0] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/humanrights/2019/02/05/russias-new-s...
Their actions from 2014 until now show otherwise. Ukraine is not a part of NATO but Putin decided to grab Crimea, Donbas, and keep the military activity for over 5 years in order to destabilize the country.
Current conflict is rooted exactly in Ukraine trying to aligning itself with the West. It would’ve been the EU first, Nato second for them. That would’ve created a massive headache for Russia, including the loss of its only warm port, hence the annexation and the invasion. And now Ukraine is in limbo, because the EU won’t touch it with a wooden pole while it is in an active conflict.
This exit was a big mistake. Netherlands are rushing up to build new nuclear plants. Belgium seeks ways to reverse its exit plan. France has never stopped beefing up its nuclear industry.
Only Germany is behaving irrationally.
I don't actually know anything about Russia or Europe or politics in general first hand. However, from listening to a few episodes of the Economist podcast, my impression has been that Putin is stuck. He can't quit because even though he might be above being punished for his crimes, his cronies who have amassed billions are not. These folks will do everything in their power to keep Putin in power or find someone who is better at diverting people's attention from the problems affecting the people in their regular lives. Chechnya, Crimea, Ukraine, ... all these are (in my understanding) in service of the government's attempt at consolidating power at home.
> Nobody wants nuclear war, maybe some kind of super-sanctions would be the only recourse for the west, cut them off everything, and I mean everything.
What is a super sanction? In my (uninformed) opinion, a sanction is a complete sealing of a nation backed by political will and military might, preferably consensus from all the neighbors of the nation. No person and no goods go into or out of the country. No funds get transferred into the country or out of the country. All communications get cut off.
Correct me if I am wrong but Europe (I am speaking geographically, so including Ukraine) relies a lot on Russian petroleum and gas? And even if we weaned ourselves off of everything Russian, there is a border between Russia and China PR (mainland China under control of the CCP). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Russia_border
tl;dr a sanction not enforced by military might is not really a sanction, it is just a silly little non-binding resolution.
NATO is first and foremost a tool of American power in Europe and against Russia. If the geopolitical landscape changed so much that Russia decided to join the EU and was accepted, I think it would have to mean that the EU/Europe had shifted (back) to standing up on its own.
> with the economy of the similar size to Germany
Russia's economy is not that big. Nominal GDP is between Spain and Italy.
Sure, but that's only because Russian and US foreign policy goals are so opposed.
Other than their territorial ambitions in Europe this need not be the case.
The US want to keep control of Europe, that's partly what NATO is for. There's no reason for Russia to be OK with that. In fact no European country should be OK with that but for historically reasons I think they reckon that this is better than the fear of letting the "good old ways" (i.e. France or Germany trying to take over) come back, although Germany has pretty much taken over by peaceful means at this point, especially since Brexit...
It's not correct to say that all Western European countries were/are OK with US power and presence. The major powers were divided on that. Germany obviously did not really have any say, France did not want the US to stay, the UK thought that it'd help them look more important than they had become. But smaller countries may see the US as a guarantee against larger neighbours trying to invade again, as I mentioned, a bit like South Korea does.
Germany, and also that other country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...
There's flights from the US to Cuba now.
You could say, ban any airline that flights to Russia from flying into EU/US, heck, do it on an airplane basis to avoid shell companies and such. Any airplane that touches Russian soil, banned from ever entering any US/EU airspace/soil ever again.
And, with China being blocked off, talk about pushing two allies even closer together. Who needs 'the west'?
Of course I wouldn't like a power vacuum in a country with nukes.
I think Egypt was the last place that was gifted one of these. I hear it went well for them /s
Your parents were alive during that time, so it's not that old school.
Basically, nobody in their right minds want a war. In order to create favorable conditions for war, you need to create quite a few provocations, a lot of tensions, some murders, especially on children. At some point, people on the other side will get very emotional and demand a revenge. At that point you reached your aim: you changed the collective mind of the population and they crave for war now, they want "justice." This happened to a small degree in the USA after 9/11 - Bush did have some internal support although it was by no means unequivocal. I saw the same in the initial stages of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia: at some point people really hated each other.
But it is very, very far from it in Ukraine. There are many, many Russians in Ukraine, and many Ukrainians in Russia. In many parts of the country they speak Russians (I mean almost exclusively). Putin is trying some provocations and is also getting soldiers from distant areas of Russia so that they have less problems killing Ukrainians, but the spirit of "let's invade Ukraine" is just not there among Russians.
I find it hard to imagine that in this environment there's much of a middle-class that cares about the best 3rd wave coffee in Moscow and which is the best Montessori school (e.g. the petty problems that remain once you feel safe in your society). Those Russians left for Germany or the US long ago, is my impression.
The same goes for China, for instance. It is naive to think that a democratic government in China would fundamentally change anything to the geopolitical situation or China's international policy and goals.
The government's leanings may influence the means by which a country pursues its geopolitical interests but do not change those interests. Just observe the US.
Destabilizing Russia or China means the West can grab more from the Russian or Chinese people. Look what the West did in China in the 19th century.
Imagine a future with Russia in the EU, best timeline.
Nobody wants nuclear war, maybe some kind of super-sanctions would be the only recourse for the west, cut them off everything, and I mean everything.