Why Russia is a prisoner of geography
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2022/03/why-russia-is-a-prisoner-of-geography
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2022/03/why-russia-is-a-prisoner-of-geography
Tim Marshall notes:
Russian leaders have long attempted at least to control the flatlands to their west, or even occupy them as part of the Russian empire, most recently in its formation as the USSR. Russia lacks its own warm-water ports with direct access to the oceans. Some of the Arctic ports freeze for several months each winter, and Russian ships must contend with the ice packs to the north of the Arctic coastline. The routes to the ocean lanes for the Baltic and Black Sea fleets are difficult at the best of times, and nigh on impossible in the worst.
These two preoccupations – vulnerability on land and lack of warm-water ports – came together in Ukraine in 2014. As long as a pro-Russian government held sway in Kyiv, Russia could be confident that its most important buffer zone would remain intact and guard the European Plain along with Belarus. Even a neutral Ukraine, which promised not to join the EU or Nato and would uphold the lease Russia had on the warm-water port at Sevastopol in Crimea on the Black Sea, could be tolerated. But when a pro-Western government came to power after the Kyiv uprising in 2014 the Kremlin was horrified.
Russian leaders have long attempted at least to control the flatlands to their west, or even occupy them as part of the Russian empire, most recently in its formation as the USSR. Russia lacks its own warm-water ports with direct access to the oceans. Some of the Arctic ports freeze for several months each winter, and Russian ships must contend with the ice packs to the north of the Arctic coastline. The routes to the ocean lanes for the Baltic and Black Sea fleets are difficult at the best of times, and nigh on impossible in the worst.
These two preoccupations – vulnerability on land and lack of warm-water ports – came together in Ukraine in 2014. As long as a pro-Russian government held sway in Kyiv, Russia could be confident that its most important buffer zone would remain intact and guard the European Plain along with Belarus. Even a neutral Ukraine, which promised not to join the EU or Nato and would uphold the lease Russia had on the warm-water port at Sevastopol in Crimea on the Black Sea, could be tolerated. But when a pro-Western government came to power after the Kyiv uprising in 2014 the Kremlin was horrified.
