Can someone explain to me the Ukraine-Rusia conflict?

It's not a great power, a faulty regional power at best

If you have the largest nuclear arsenal, one of the largest armies, the largest territory and you can project power all the way to Syria and Africa you are a great power. You're just gay and not living in reality

>be Canadian
>print money out of thin air
>use it to pay citizens to make you things using labor and resources
>give all the things to Ukraine
>own citizens can't even afford gas
>repeat ad inifitum

It goes back further, but Khrushchev stole Crimea off of the Russian SFSR for bureaucratic convenience and because he was a Ukrainian that played favouritism for Ukraine.

He needed approval of the legislatures of the RSFSR and USSR to transfer Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR. Which he did not have.

After the breakup of the USSR, an agreement Ukraine made with Russia was that Crimea would be allowed to determine it's own fate.

Ukraine has not honoured this.
Notable also is how Ukraine ignores it's own constitution if it's convenient. Such as the law prohibiting foreign troops on it's soil.

When Ukraine got along with Russia, they allowed Russian bases in Crimea, territory that supposedy belongs to Ukraine.
Again, no foreign troops allowed, but Ukraine trained with NATO and such in recent years on Ukrainian soil with the now anti-Russian government in charge.

Other than these posts I would like to elaborate on Crimea. Crimea is a big part of the reason for this invasion. The difference between Crimea, and the meme statelets in the Near Abroad that Russia set up as puppets (Abkhazia, Transnistria, DNR, etc), is that Russia regards Crimea as Russian territory. Not an autonomous Republic, not a sister country, but literal Russian land, part of the Russian Federation. After the events of 2014 the annexation of Crimea was formalised; whereas international law dictates that Crimea is occupied Ukrainian territory, Russian law says it is as Russian as Novosibirsk or St Petersburg.

If Ukraine joined NATO, the first thing they'd do is try to recover Crimea. They could actually ask NATO for help. It would be an internal Ukrainian matter in the eyes of all NATO nations, simply Ukraine would be restoring order in its own country. NATO legislation allows for this, in fact the USA did it after 9/11: Americans asked NATO allies for help to patrol American skies. It was called Operation Eagle Assist, you can look it up.

However as we have established before, Crimea is seen by Russia as bona fide part of Russia. In other words, a Ukrainian operation to recover Crimea, backed by NATO, would be considered by Russia a full-scale NATO invasion of Russia. Which would lead to nuclear war, inevitably. Just like a Russian invasion of Florida would.

When the USA and NATO leaders told the world that Ukraine was more than welcome in the alliance, the Russian government decided to act. All they wanted, all they had been asking for, was a binding agreement with NATO that would leave Ukraine out. Instead, USA+NATO leaders said the gates were open. Russia knew that this process would end in nuclear annihilation of the Northern hemisphere. So they attacked first, before that point of no return.

Russia is the aggressor of course, and Ukraine did nothing to deserve an invasion, but it's not mindless imperialism.

Attached: Crimea,_Terra-MODIS,_05-16-2015.jpg (1817x1198, 349.44K)

And still an economy smaller than Italy

Still not a single reply pointing out that Ukraine found big gas deposits in Crimea and threatened to cut Russia from the European gas market. Everyone spouting about Russian clay or NATO encrouchments are blind to that this is a resource war, an actual war and not like muh iraq

Mostly this, though with the failure to take Kiev or at least threaten it enough to scare off the current government the less important war-justification narratives have been boiled off and the new focuses of the Russian military reveal the true objectives - namely securing the separatist regions in Eastern and Southern Ukraine and attempt to seize the entire Ukrainian coast.

These are most critical to control the Ukrainian natural gas reserves, an increasingly Western leaning Ukraine could serve as an alternate fuel source for Europe which would completely hobble any Russian geopolitical leverage on the continent. They would be forced to play nice and accept their global position as a resource rich but underdeveloped second tier state and has-been power which flies completely in the face of the hardliner view of Russian civilization as special and destined for greatness, and to make the pride sting even more it would be the Western bloc fresh off it's success in the Cold War relegating Russia to that position.

Was just posting this and forgot the map

Attached: Ukraine shale formations.png (601x395, 177.37K)

>Constantly trying to draw countries that left the SU back into sphere of influence through bullying
>Invades neighbours
>Wonders why others ''''antagonize'''' them

it speaks to how stuck in the 18th century imperialist mindset the government is that they view their neighbors joining a voluntary mutual defense compact as a threat

There is always the option of laying down arms and giving it up to the west.
Surely the option of cooperation is open and more beneficial than isolating yourself, what are they really fighting for? Their own power and control? It's too late to recover what was lost, wars have no place in this part of the world anymore, the borders have solidified, at least until a major food crisis and general societal collapse.