Far as I have heard, Ukraine was the industrial and agricultural backbone of USSR.
Beyond that, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics, notably on Ukraine. They see Ukraine as a key political necessity for resurrecting the power structure that they see as having been lost in the early 90s. Read about UK and US and you’ll see a lot of familiar material there in terms of what Russia has actively worked toward.
Ukraine is resource rich and seen as Russia’s soft underbelly. Kremlin is also insecure that their access to Sevastopol is only on a leased basis. That’s why they took the entire Crimea.
Why?? What does Ukraine have that they’d so desperately want that they’d send so much population to die and risk a civil war for it?
Far as I have heard, Ukraine was the industrial and agricultural backbone of USSR.
Beyond that, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics, notably on Ukraine. They see Ukraine as a key political necessity for resurrecting the power structure that they see as having been lost in the early 90s. Read about UK and US and you’ll see a lot of familiar material there in terms of what Russia has actively worked toward.
Ukraine is resource rich and seen as Russia’s soft underbelly. Kremlin is also insecure that their access to Sevastopol is only on a leased basis. That’s why they took the entire Crimea.
I think putin also wants to reassemble the USSR territories.