Why Ukraine's continued existence is a geopolitical threat to Russia:

[DetlefK]

What does Russia want?

They want their sphere of international influence back, like the one they had in the Soviet-Union.



How is Russia doing that?

Russia is currently building an economic alliance with former member-states of the Soviet-Union, similar in style to the early days of the European Union. The long-term goal is to transform this into a currency-union, like the Eurozone in the EU. With the central bank of this new international currency conveniently located in Moscow, effectively giving Russia control over the economies of these countries.



Why is Ukraine a threat to Russia's ambitions?

Ukraine is neither a NATO-member nor a EU-member, but Ukraine has taken first steps to work closely together with the EU. Ukraine has changed it's trade-regulations to fit to EU-trade-regulations in order to ease trade with the EU.

If Ukraine were to become stable and economically successful, that would be a sign to ALL THE OTHER former Soviet-Union member-states that an alliance with Russia is not their only option for strategic alliances.

A ukrainian success-story would prove that Putin's nationalistic jingoism and constant fear-mongering about western aggression is in fact not true.

It would prove that one can belong to a pan-russian culture without submitting to Putin's narrow politicized framing of what being russian means.






Putin's goal is not to keep Ukraine out of NATO. His goal is to prevent it from developing economic and cultural relations with the EU.

Just imagine a Ukraine with freedom of the press right next door to Belarus and Russia, where freedom of the press doesn't exist.

Just imagine a Ukraine with a european-minded liberal culture right next to Russia, which e.g. once withdrew funding from a movie-director for making a movie about a fictional corrupt mayor.

Just imagine Russia's upper-class no longer emigrating to the UK where they are out of sight and out of mind, but emigrating right next door to Ukraine where they are a constant reminder for the russian people how similar and yet different those two countries are.

[PJMcK]

1. Great insights

Thanks, DetlefK.

[soryang]

2. "Just imagine a Ukraine with a european-minded liberal culture"

You can only imagine it, because it's a delusion.

[marie999]

3. No, the main reason is Russia and Belarus do not want a 3122-mile border with their enemy.