Yukon Cornelius said:
Major Geopolitical shifts and major wars start in very short time phases. Sometimes less than 24 hours.
Anyone wanting more people to die in this stupid war over mud fields is a fool.
Russia doesn't want mud fields. They want strategic positioning to maintain control over Crimea, control over oil and gas reserves in the Black Sea, and control over the mineral resources in eastern Ukraine. There's a host of reasons they've been strategically investing in fomenting unrest and supporting separatist groups for over a decade.
They were content with subverting Ukrainian politics through bribes and kickbacks, but when it was apparent that wasn't going to last, they started resorting to active measures to split off the parts of Ukraine they wanted. Believe it or not, the "little green men" that were actually Russian soldiers were not, in fact, invading Ukraine in 2014 of their own spontaneous volition on their off time. In 2022 Russia acted to solidify those gains and take another not at the apple. They wanted to take Kiev and install a puppet government, but when that failed they moved to their secondary objectives of a land bridge and controlling areas with the resources they wanted.