This is absolutely about natural resources. This is textbook Russian banditry as practiced for hundreds of years. Russification is already happening. Stalinist goon squads deployed, Ukrainians deported to the gulag, etc. We’ve seen this movie before from Russia.
This is absolutely about natural resources.
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Absurd. Russias land mass is 11 time zones, from the Baltics to Alaska. Chocked full of natural resources. Russia is self sufficient, it has everything the west needs, food, grains, wheat, gas, diesel, oil, NG, water, metals, commodities. They are in need of nothing.