https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4044221/posts?page=1#1
I absolutely HATE it when someone posts a YouTube video as an article.
Yet, here I am doing exactly that...
This video is 10 minutes and two seconds long, and is the best explanation I’ve seen so far as to why Putin and Russia 1) Invaded Crimea in 2014, 2) has been waging a proxy war in the “breakaway” regions of Donetsk and Luhansk since 2014, and 3) why Putin is invading the remainder of Ukraine in 2022.
For those of you unable or unwilling to watch the video (I do recommend spending the 10 minutes of your time,) here’s my very poor Cliff Notes version:
Russia gets 60% of its revenues from oil exports. Europe gets 40% of their oil from Russia.
In 2012 massive oil and gas reserves were found in Crimea. Crimea signed a $10 billion exploration contracts with Shell and Chevron to develop the new found oil and gas fields. These oil and gas products would compete in Europe with Russia’s oil and gas, reducing Russia’s oil revenues, which we recall amount to 60% of their total GDP. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, cancelling the contracts with Shell and Chevron.
But Ukraine still had massive reserves in, you guessed it, Donetsk and Luhansk, and other areas East of the Dnieper River. In 2019, Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited Ukraine, and soon after Ukraine awarded exploration contracts to a consortium of U.S. oil companies. Again, these oil reserves would compete in Europe with Russian oil, so Putin is invading Ukraine to shut down this latest attempt to extract Ukrainian oil and sell it in competition with Russian oil.
This explanation makes more sense to me than the “Putin feels threatened by NATO expansion” excuses for the invasion.
1 posted on 3/6/2022, 11:09:00 AM by Yo-Yo
Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
Here is a professor from the University of Chicago who explains the divisions in Ukrainian society:
That’s his personal website. Here is some of what he talks about:
Essentially Ukraine is extremely divided by ethnicity.. Russian to the east, Ukrainian to the west. When you look at the election results map there is an enormous difference in political preferences.
Their map is stark: east vs. west, sort of like our red/blue map shows urban vs. rural. It’s amazing they were able to keep the place together for as long as they did.
A house divided against itself cannot stand, and that may well be said for us too.
Why is Russia Invading Ukraine? Opinion!
Nate the Lawyer
Mar 6, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CmdSzVFSKc
(informative video, thanks for posting)
A source is a source and good information is good information.
In these times good sources and information are hard to find.
Using what you can find to build a argument is the best anyone can do.