This Is What Putin REALLY Wants (It's Not Ukraine*)

This Is What Putin REALLY Wants (It's Not Ukraine*)

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[haroon]

One of the reasons why Russia is picking fights in its neighbourhood is that NATO does not permit any members to join that have an active dispute with an opposing force. So they know it’s too risky to sign up Moldova, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia lest they open a war with Russia. I think that’s his goal. To create enough chaos that NATO doesn’t expand further.

[jonseilim]

"Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain."
- Vladimir Putin

[Scifiwriting]

Here's what I don't understand. Let's take this from a purely economic perspective. None of those nations you talked about have all that much value or power. Sure. they have natural resources and things like that, but none of them have anything that Russia doesn't already possess in larger quantities. Even if he somehow conquered all of those nations, it wouldn't add enough to Russia's GDP to make it worth it. Put it this way, Russia would gain far more by building trade relations with the EU and USA than he would by conquering Ukraine, Georgia, etc thus cutting Russia off from the rest of the world. The truth is, Russia stands to lose far more by conquering these nations than he stands to gain. So why does Putin persist? Is this really just a matter of ego?

[wolframironside]

For anyone over 50 who lived in and remembers a pre-1989 world (East/West Germany, non aligned countries -Albania, Romania, former Yugoslavia, etc etc, ), the rapid balkanisation and re-alignment of Central and Eastern Europe (and now Scandinavia) has changed things in a way that even Reagan couldn't have dreamt of...the disappearance of non-aligned, independent nations in Europe is a huge backstory.

[Lord-Pierre]

The 0:30 quote is often used recently (understandably seeing the context). However, as my university teacher on the Russian sphere explained to me, we often forget the rest of the quote, to the effect of which where Putin states that any man with a heart regrets the Ussr, but any man with a brain would be foolish to bring it back. My teachers argues more for that Putin wants to unify the three historic “Russian people” : Biélorussians, Ukrainians and Russians
If his goal and focus was to completely reunify the USSr, we would have it seen already . In Georgia, he did not try to put in place a pro Russian regime like he is trying now in Ukraine. And for Kazakhstan, there are no talks of “unification” like with Biélorussia
I think an element of analysis that is missing in this picture (especially for Central Asia) is the role of China. With the BRI, China is investing amounts in these countries that Russia could never do. And I don’t think China would sit by as Russia engulfs these neighboring “partners”. It’s generally forgetten how much of these sort of decisions will depend on the goodwill of the Chinese, especially now that Russia as basically no other choice than to be economically dependent of China

[jackreisewitz]

Always remember: Actions speak louder than words. Don't trust what people say, trust what they do. That's when they show you what's really in their heart.

[hootowl]

I think there are a number of factors that motivated Putin's invasion of Ukraine. One that never gets mentioned is natural gas. About a decade ago a massive gas field was discovered in central Ukraine. Ukraine currently taps into only about 2% of it. If they tapped all of it they would directly compete with Russian sales to Europe, and possibly Turkey. It's also thought that even more undiscovered gas reserves exist in Ukraine.

[mattbowdenuh]

He's put himself into a position of where he's damned if he does, damned if he doesnt. The most damning part of the sanctions arent even the direct sanctions themselves, it's all the western companies that left Russia and theyre not coming back. Not to mention being isolated from global supply chains, which will take months if not years to get back to where they were in prewar condition (if ever). So economically, he's already gonna bear the cost.
At home, it's essentially more politically palatable to drag the war on for months than to admit a strategic defeat and failure. His only option is securing the breakaway provinces by May 9 to declare some sort of victory. If not, he'll just continue the war until every city in Ukraine looks like Grozny and Aleppo and scenes like Bucha will become commonplace. Scary thought, but thats basically the corner he's backed himself into.

[eternalvoid]

Turkmenistan not condemning the invasion doesn't say much. They never interfere with geopolitics in any way. From what I've heard and seen, a rebellion there is also highly unlikely. The country is kinda like North Korea, but then with a ton of natural resources. So it's far from a poor country. And since they keep to themselves, they haven't made many enemies globally, so they can always sell that oil to some other county. So it would be hard to make them dependent on Russia.

Putin also has little to fear from Turkmenistan, so I'm guessing he'll just trade with them as much as possible and keep the status quo.

[girtux]

Latvian here.

The war in Ukraine has made the situation rather unstable in our nation. Due to the USSR occupation of our country from 1944-1991, we have A LOT of russians here, who, unfortunately, are not loyal to our state, and support the war in Ukraine. Another caveat is that one region, similarly to Donetsk/Luhansk, is Latgale, where the huge majority of pro-russians live, who might go the same route DPR/LPR did, despite unlikely, is a possible scenario. Our asses are saved only because we're in NATO and EU. If we weren't, we'd have the faith of Ukraine long ago, with us, and brother nations of Estonia and Lithuania, being "denazified" and "denationalised". I'm open for questions, if anyone wants to know things more specifically, since we're currently the border of the "Iron Curtain", and things are tense.

[nworded]

Worst. Chicken Fight. Ever.
- Comic Book Guy

[mrrobot]

as a Georgian, No thank you. Georgia's history dates way before Russia was a thing. not to mention what Russians did to Georgians in Abkhazia.

[jokellus]

It always baffles me when I hear "NATO expands" as if NATO would be recruiting new countries to join it...One could ask why are so many countries that have borders with Russia wanting to join NATO? Every sovereign country has a right to choose their defensive policies.

[alexanderaquino]

I do the math... Putin was costing around $20 Billion per day on military & economic loss. You also failed to mention that Russia's reserved assets in foreign countries were already frozen and new developments in the countries that imposed sanctions they also putting more strict measures for not trading or honoring foreign currency that will come from Russia, they even refused to be paid by Russia on the bonds that Russia owed to them, accepting the loss. So Russia has little money to play with and fewer countries to trade with since besides China other countries it allied with were weak economically and have less power in military

[Aenntw]

I recall a history lesson we had in grade school about the Soviet Union. In my mind, I drew a comparison as to how the British empire had expanded all across the world; whilst the Soviet Union (Russia, actually) had grown to the sides.

[gosha]

There are a few issues here. First off, Kazakhstan did side with the West condemning the invasion of Ukraine because they couldn't bear the burden of economic sanctions that would've been imposed otherwise. Also, Kazakhstan is believed to be increasingly influenced by China, which makes it even more unlikely to be taken by force. Thus, it currently is not a puppet-state like Belarus, and it is unlikely to become that any time soon. Also, during the 2020 Armenia-Azerbaijan war, russians did not seem too keen on sacrificing their relatively good relationship with Turkey to support Armenia in Karabakh, meaning that Azerbaijan is unlikely to become a puppet state (or be invaded) either. Russia has already pulled most of its troops from both Armenia and Georgia because they need those forces to achieve their military objectives in Ukraine, there even are rumors confirmed by OSINT of Armenia giving russian-made planes back to russia on putin's demand. Azerbaijan seems to be already taking advantage of these two facts by reclaiming its territory, showcasing russia's incapability of protecting it's spheres of influence militarily on multiple fronts.
As to their gold reserve - as far as I'm concerned they have been banned from trading gold on the common international market, meaning if there is an actor (such as China) willing to buy from them, the price would likely be drastically lower than the market (make no mistake, Xi plays friends with putin, but Chinese interest has always been and always be above this "friendship"). With sanctions tightening and the war bill getting bigger it becomes more and more clear that putin has massively overestimated their wartime economic potential.
Last but not the least: it's simply not true that russians make their own weapons using their own resources. They mostly do SKD production and very little RnD (particularly in mechanics and electronics). Without Taiwanese and American semiconductors/integrated circuits, German engines/transmissions, Japanese high-precision manufacturing tools etc. they are back to 1985 at best in terms of weaponry they can produce. Also, they will have to scale back their production volume significantly because all the major military contractors in russia have been equipped to work with western-made production lines and parts, to even returning them to state where they will be able to maintain reasonable degree of autonomy is not a simple task at all and it is unclear whether it is even possible for them to return back to full capacity any time soon even with inferior components and production tools.

[markfiedler]

I really have a hard time imagining what he sees as an ideal end outcome.
Attacking NATO is the death not just of the Russian state because obviously NATO would win a conventional war, but it would potentially be the end of the Russian people if it went nuclear (hard to imagine it wouldn't, really). No one is gonna be a winner from a nuclear exchange, but I can't imagine Russia will come out of that exchange with less harm done to it.

[Pwndbythnb]

Putin can produce "dumb" weapons like bullets, guns, unguided munitions but when it comes to missiles the sanctions makes that impossible to replace what they're wasting in Ukraine right now

[emmetjohnson]

This is what Russia wants is for the United States to stay out of Ukraine with those military bases

[VialOfVice]

When talking about the idea that Russia could take controll over any country and keep it, enforcing the controll over the people without major conflict arising, which russia wouldn't be able to finance the end of, i think I speak for everyone when I recite the words of stunningly musical talent and disqualified Eurovision 2009 candidates: "We Don't Wanna Put In"