= new reply since forum marked as read
with a ton of links inside the story; I finish getting all the links into the article and forget the major link...the one to the actual article! Duh!!
Thanks for adding the link.
He wanted it in the Custom Union. It's an important part, he thinks, of the Eurasian project. It was part of the Russo-Soviet empire and, moreover, holds a lot of "Russian world" citizens if not more than a smallish percentage of ethnic Russians.
It also was the key to the Black Sea, which Russia thinks of as it's own private sea. It pitches a fit over any violation or possible violation of treaties governing the Dardanelles. Since the Black Sea was found to hold significant natural gas reserves, it's even more important. And the "good" ports accessible to Russia on the Black Sea were all in Ukraine.
That's why to control it. Under Yanukovich, Russia pretty much did control it. The country was largely run for the Russians and the Donbas. (When they say, "You don't listen to us"--the original cry--the response from Ukrainians was, "Most of the time you were barely aware *we* even existed!"
When the Ukrainians were in charge, pressure, military and economic, was brought to bear to make them heel. That flopped this time.
The result of the "flopping" was a visceral terror of NATO and Western influence up to the Russian border. That's intolerable. It was intolerable when there might be NATO/Western influence up to the Ukrainian border. Transnistria appeared, where a minority of the population "self-determined" the fate of the majority. With a lot of Russian help and threats of war. Abkhazia appeared, then S. Ossetia. Russia's neighbors are typically rendered unstable or neutered. Think of it as part of the "custom" part of the Custom Union. Ukraine's rendered politically, militarily, and potentially economically toxic.
Putin and Russian leaders really are shell-shocked. They're in fear of the breakup of Russia, of the loss of what international clout and empire they still have, when they deeply believe that they, truly, should be lynchpins holding the world together. They're Germans circa 1925. They were terrified of the white-ribbon folk a couple of years ago. Of the Siberian autonomy movement. We saw what happened in Chechnya when they had a separatist movement--10s of thousands killed in total war. But they have a different standard for themselves and lack an awareness of it. They're able to say with a straight face how horrible it is that Lugansk may become "another Groznyi," all the while believing that their actions in Groznyi weren't just tolerable, but good and right.
As the press secretary in the Lugansk People's Republic said, when posting Soviet-era partisan-tactic/diversionary tactics manual, it's important if Lugansk falls for true Russians to continue to knock out infrastructure--the railroads, the electricity, the communications systems, etc. (Notice these are all *civilian* infrastructure.) With details on using sledgehammers and the like for disrupting trains and destroying tracks by derailing trains. Scorched earth. If they can't control Ukraine, it must be rendered an economic wasteland. That will for sure continue to foment unrest. Part of the humanitarian disaster in Lugansk is *because* they've been knocking out infrastructure on purpose. They've Groznyied themselves and are complaining about it.
A side issue is what Russia has been doing to/with refugees and their own ethnic minorities. The rebels don't want to let Russian-speaking kids be sent out of the war zone to the west of Ukraine. They want to send them to Russia. Some have been sent there by deception, some without papers, and some held in the war zone until it was Russia or be on the front lines. Some they allowed to the West with a fight. They simply don't want to lose Russians to "the fascists"--whether they believe that the kids will be gutted and roasted for dinner or just not raised to be properly Russian. Sort of a "gotta protect the tribe" mentality. A lot of the refugees, most of them adults, are being resetttled. Which is interesting--not in refugee camps, but with apartments, jobs, etc.. Most of the time not in deeply Russian cities like Saratov or Voronezh, but in the Urals, or out past Volgograd. These are areas with ethnic minority populations that in some cases outnumber ethnic Russians. In other words, they're trying to resettle Russian-speakers in certain areas in some cases to cement Russian dominance.
Meanwhile the Tatars have been fined repeatedly and threatened with having their little autonomous legislature disbanded. The merest hint of separatism, sometimes manifested in merely selling something that's ambiguous or failing to properly translate everything in real time into Russian so it can be monitored, can lead to airwave license cancellation, dismissal from your job, fine, investigation, impoundment of property, or even arrest. The Ukrainian church parishes in Ukraine have been raided during services, priests beaten, and congregants cars smashed while the police stood guard outside in case the congregants engage in some unprovoked attack on their attackers. (In Lugansk the lone Catholic church was raided and shut a couple of weeks ago for failing to uphold Orthodox doctrines. You don't want to know about gay issues in the DPR and LPR.)
