03/28/22

Putin’s motives?

In 2014, I wrote about Putin’s motives to invade the Crimea. I believed then that his motivation was to have ultimate control over the Black sea naval base. Pro-Russian rebels had been fighting Ukrainian forces in Donbas region. Russian forces were helping rebel forces with both manpower (not in uniform) and weapons.

Russia had claimed and continued to claim that they were acting to help protect Russians in those areas and those Russian citizens openly anted their help.

 Likely, this was a primer for the first wave of moves to take Ukraine as a whole or at the very least, de-militarize Ukraine’s forces and also force a commitment from Ukraine to never join or cooperate with NATO.

What do you think were the motivations for Putin’s aggression?

Are Putin’s motives in 2020 any different?