Shibinsky’s faulty assumptions about Ukraine resources tells me that his assesment of the criminal corruption in states recovering from socialism are on mark. But any assesment of the reasoning behind Russian expansion is not.
Ukraine is loaded with gas and oil reserves as well as its Black Sea neighbors. Invasion of eastern Ukraine and the seizure of the Crimea prevent their exploration, expansion, and use of those shale oil finds which would diminish dependency on Russia.
In any war one can list something to be gained from the disputed territory. Yours is one theory; the other is that the Don basin has become a net welfare recipient for any state that is responsible for it, because the coal is no longer in demand and nothing else has been developed to replace it. That might explain the evident Ukraine’s and Russia’s reluctance to really fight for it.
But wars are primarily a spiritual crisis, not an economic one. It would be devastating for the Putin regime to have an ethnically indistinguishable neighbor rebuilding its national institutions and developing a diverse and open economy. This is why the geopolitical task for him, as he sees the world, is to foment as much war as possible. The fact that this policy meets with approval of the majority of Russians living in RF shows that the true extent of the damage done to the Russian people since 1917 has not yet been fully measured.
Ukraine is loaded with gas and oil reserves as well as its Black Sea neighbors. Invasion of eastern Ukraine and the seizure of the Crimea prevent their exploration, expansion, and use of those shale oil finds which would diminish dependency on Russia.