Not to mention Russia has serious demographic problems. I believe deaths passed births in Russia back in the 1970's. Communism makes countries old before they get rich. They have a declining population which makes defending their country most of which is a flat featureless plane with nothing defensible except for a few rivers from the Carpathian mountains all the way to the Ural mountains and Kazakhstan to the south very difficult. Control of Ukraine narrows the corridor that an invading army could use to penetrate the Russian interior and gives the Russian army more space to retreat into. If you look at the German campaigns of 1941 and 42 in the south they came dangerously close to cutting Russia off from its primary oil infrastructure in the south in the Caspian sea region. There is a large bend in the Don river which protects an army advancing through that corridor.
They have serious strategic issues in the east - 1.4 billion Chinese in a resource poor country with a resource rich country sparsely populated to its north. They face the risk of a 2 front war in the west and the east.
Putin is also ageing. He is 69. He is essentially a monarch, he probably has good doctors and maintains good physical fitness but statistically speaking he probably only has 15 years left. He needs to conclude this business now. Secure his borders while Russia still has the capacity demographically speaking to fight a major war and then likely wants to do what Nurusultan did in Kazakhstan and step down and head a council of state security while he grooms a successor. I would have to guess that Dmitry Medvedev would be high on the list given that he has been president before and is still relatively young. From what I understand though the most powerful of Putins "security men" in his inner circle is Igor Setchin.
his finite lifespan is an important factor, but a good king would just expand his kingdom as much as realistically possible and then leave a strong nation to his son to be the new king of.
Not to mention Russia has serious demographic problems. I believe deaths passed births in Russia back in the 1970's. Communism makes countries old before they get rich. They have a declining population which makes defending their country most of which is a flat featureless plane with nothing defensible except for a few rivers from the Carpathian mountains all the way to the Ural mountains and Kazakhstan to the south very difficult. Control of Ukraine narrows the corridor that an invading army could use to penetrate the Russian interior and gives the Russian army more space to retreat into. If you look at the German campaigns of 1941 and 42 in the south they came dangerously close to cutting Russia off from its primary oil infrastructure in the south in the Caspian sea region. There is a large bend in the Don river which protects an army advancing through that corridor.
They have serious strategic issues in the east - 1.4 billion Chinese in a resource poor country with a resource rich country sparsely populated to its north. They face the risk of a 2 front war in the west and the east.
Putin is also ageing. He is 69. He is essentially a monarch, he probably has good doctors and maintains good physical fitness but statistically speaking he probably only has 15 years left. He needs to conclude this business now. Secure his borders while Russia still has the capacity demographically speaking to fight a major war and then likely wants to do what Nurusultan did in Kazakhstan and step down and head a council of state security while he grooms a successor. I would have to guess that Dmitry Medvedev would be high on the list given that he has been president before and is still relatively young. From what I understand though the most powerful of Putins "security men" in his inner circle is Igor Setchin.
his finite lifespan is an important factor, but a good king would just expand his kingdom as much as realistically possible and then leave a strong nation to his son to be the new king of.