So why has Russia decided to start war?

I'll give you my own opinion. The answer to this question has very deep historical roots. As you know, Russia considers itself the main and only legitimate heir to absolutely all the states that were located on the territory of Russia in different historical periods, starting with Kyivan Rus and ending with the Soviet Union. And since some of these states occupied larger territories than present-day Russia, they automatically consider these territories to be zones of their influence.

And after the collapse of the USSR, Russia, of course, continued to consider Ukraine a zone of its influence, constantly trying to force the Ukrainian government to become an obedient vassal. On the other hand, the policy of the Ukrainian government was rather uncertain. On the one hand, it maintained relatively friendly relations with Russia, and on the other, it tried to get closer to the West. And this uncertainty of Ukrainian policy has always made the Russian elite very nervous.

It should be noted here that after the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine was the second most powerful post-Soviet country, inheriting a third of the Soviet industrial capacity and having one of the strongest armies in the world.

"Therefore, given these opportunities, Ukraine was the only country in the post-Soviet bloc that could not be afraid of Russia and communicate with them on an equal footing. Allowing itself to do things that other countries could not and that created some tension in relations, for example, the division of the Black Sea Fleet."

When Russia failed to turn Ukraine into a younger, more obedient brother at the diplomatic level, it turned to economic blackmail. It threatened to cut off energy supplies, on which Ukraine was heavily dependent.

And when all these tools of diplomacy and further economic blackmail failed, it was then that the decision was made to solve the problem militarily.

As Clausewitz wrote, war is an act of violence aimed at imposing one's will on the other party when all other methods have failed.

"It's just that, in my opinion, Russia could not impose its will on us militarily until the early 2010s because of our country's significant military and industrial potential."

That's why, at first, it wanted to weaken our country. By destroying our industry and military-industrial complex. Although our useful idiots did a lot to undermine our defence capabilities.

And only then to start a war.

To all the haters, I would like to say that I do not justify the behaviour of the enemy. I'm just saying that such a scenario could have been foreseen and that we could have worked on the development of the military-industrial complex and industry in general. If you don't want to be a vassal, you have to develop a strong economy, which is necessary to finance the army, and develop industry to produce weapons. Unfortunately, our industry and military-industrial complex have been destroyed throughout the years of independence, but no one cared because they relied on someone to protect us.

Source

About the author: Pavlo Vernivskyi, economist, expert at the Oleksandr Pol Institute.

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.