Why is Russia attacking Ukraine? The real reason that the media is hiding from you
For the past few weeks, we’ve been hearing in news about the deployment of armed forces on the borders of Russia and Ukraine. Hearing all this I was wondering, why would Russia act like we’re in the 1900s and invade a country. Then I did some research and found out some reasons given by the media, which were along the lines of, Vladimir Putin thinks the people of Ukraine and Russia share a common culture and must unite and stay together. They portrayed an image that said,
Russia was once in a relationship with Ukraine (Soviet Union) and Ukraine broke up cuz she didn’t like Russia. Now Russia wants to get back with her and is telling everyone that Ukraine also wants to get back with Russia. So Russia is forcing Ukraine to get into a relationship again.
Vladimir Putin in his blog post, compared this relationship to that of the US and Canada. What if tomorrow Canada decides to join a military alliance with China, how would the US react.
These reasons sound so dumb. Putin is not a kid that suddenly felt a lot of love towards the Ukrainian people so he wanted to reunite them to Russia. He is a sane human being who understands the consequences of war but is willing to face those consequences if it benefits him. Benefits? Of course there are benefits. HUGE benefits!
In short, Russia is attacking Ukraine for the following reasons:
- Oil & Gas
- Oil & Gas deposits
- Water
- The buffer between NATO and Russia
- Population decline
1. Oil & Gas
The GDP of Russia is 1.64 Trillion USD. For comparison, the GDP of Texas (state) is 2 Trillion USD. Russia remains a global superpower because of its energy resources. Russia is the 2nd largest producer of Oil, ahead of even Saudi Arabia. The revenue stream from these energy products provides up to 50% of the entire Russian government’s budget and represents about 30% of Russia’s entire GDP. Not just that, fuels and energy products are 63% of Russia’s exports. Now, do you understand how much Russia depends on Energy resources?
Russia is therefore a petrostate just like Saudi Arabia or Iran and is the only petrostate located in Europe. Keeping aside these geological blessings, there are a few geographical disadvantages too.
Most of their oil is sold off to the oil-thirsty customers of the European Union. 35% of the EU’s entire gas supply comes from Russia alone. For example, Germany, the World’s 4th largest economy imports nearly half of its natural gas from Russia. This flow of gas to the EU from Russia through a complex network of pipes provides critical revenue for Russia and critical heat for European cities during the winter. Both sides heavily rely on this trade relationship. Any disruption to this relationship would be disastrous to Russia and Ukraine is the most likely place where such a disruption could occur.
Back in the days, when Ukraine and Russia were a part of the Soviet Union, pipelines were built through Ukraine to transport gas from the Siberian sources to customers in Europe. When the USSR collapsed, Ukraine started demanding billions of dollars per year in tariffs from Russia for it to continue using Ukraine as a bridge for those pipelines. Russia started building other pipelines, through loyal Belarus, the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, and planned to stop all exports through Ukraine by 2024.
2. Oil & Gas deposits
Russia has so much oil and gas, but you know, the grass on the other side is always greener. Scientific research says, Ukraine’s exclusive economic zone, within the Black sea, may contain more than 2 Trillion cubic meters worth of natural gas. Adding to the list of resources Ukraine has but is not using, are Shale gas hotspots. Shale gas deposits have been discovered in the Donetsk and Kharkiv in the East and around the Carpathian mountains in the West.
Ukrainian govt started to grant exploration and drilling rights to Shell and Exxon. It was possible that in the near future Ukraine would become Europe’s 2nd petrostate, giving direct competition to Russia’s exports and a threat to its GDP. This would also lead to Ukraine joining NATO sooner than before.
As long as Ukraine had a pro-Russian president, it was not an issue for Putin, but when a rebellion overthrew the pro-Russian president in 2014, Russia acted quickly and grabbed the Crimean peninsula (remember the 2 Trillion worth of gas deposits around Crimea?) along with some regions in Donetsk in the name of ‘protecting ethnic Russians’ in those regions.
Since these conflict zones were near to the zones rich in gas reserves, Shell and Exxon stopped their operations and left. Thus Russia was successful in preventing Ukraine from becoming an Energy exporter to the European states and preventing Ukraine from joining NATO.
Russia would never return Crimea to Ukraine as it would lose all those gas reserves and the exclusive economic zone. It would also lose a strategic port city, Sevastopol which is one of the very few year-round ice-free ports which the Russian navy needs to operate throughout the Black Sea and the Mediterranean sea.
In the picture above you can see the movement of Russian troops from specific regions. Going anti-clockwise, Crimean border, Donetsk region held by Russian backed separatists, Kharkiv and Kyiv. Kyiv is the capital so it is obviously being attacked, Kharkiv is being attacked cuz it has gas reserves, Donetsk region (separatist-controlled) is being attacked cuz it also has gas reserves, but why are they attacking Kherson, you might ask. This brings us to our next reason, Water!
3. Water
A wise man had once said, the next World War will be over water. Water is not the main reason, but it plays a vital role in this war (Let’s hope it doesn’t become a world war). Crimea is almost an island. It has dry and arid land along with some salty marshes and very little fresh water for people or agriculture. Prior to the annexation, freshwater came from a canal in Ukraine.
After the Russians took it over in 2014, the Ukrainians cemented the canal and blocked the flow of water into Crimea. As a result, Crimea has become very dry and arid. 2020 was the driest year ever in Crimea, in 150 years. The Russian city is struggling to keep a hold and the capital city of Crimea, Simferopol has to ration water supplies to its citizens. The Russian govt is spending billions of dollars per year to provide water to Crimea. Thus Russia wants the canal to be opened for Crimea.
By now (28th Feb 2022) the Russian military has destroyed the dam that stopped the water from flowing to Crimea.
4. The buffer between NATO and Russia
Put yourself in Putin’s shoes and you will start to believe that NATO is a hostile military alliance that can any day attack Russia. This might sound crazy to you but just think about it. Iraq, Libya, and many other countries were attacked by making the World believe that their ruler is committing crimes against humanity (I’m not saying they didn’t, but is it coincident that they had so many oil reserves). To an extent, the media has convinced us to believe the same about Putin (even before this war). You might say, that was only the USA, not NATO. Do you think NATO will say no if the USA wants Russia? Due to these concerns, Russia wanted to have a buffer between NATO and itself.
Scenario 1: Pro Russian Ukraine
If Ukraine was a part of CSTO (Russian military alliance), Russia’s defensive lines would be pushed to the Carpathian mountains and eastern border of Poland. For the armed forces of NATO to attack Russia, they would have to come through the border of Poland, to the Baltic states to access the North European plain, where they can be cut off by CSTO forces from Belarus and Kaliningrad. Thus there would be a strong buffer between Russia and NATO.
Scenario 2: Pro NATO Ukraine
If Ukraine was a part of NATO, Nato’s frontlines would be 2300 Kms of open, hard to defend flat land, in direct contact with Russia. It would be around 300 km away from Volgograd, which if captured, would shut down the entire Volga River and cut down Russia’s valuable oil and gas resources coming from the Caspian sea, from the rest of the country.
Belarus, a loyal CSTO member would be surrounded by NATO members from 3 sides, which would not be safe for Belarus. Thus it is absolutely necessary for Ukraine to either join CSTO or at least remain neutral, for Russia’s safety.
5. Population Decline
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s deaths have always outnumbered its births while the country’s fertility rate has been among the lowest in the World. Its population has been shrinking ever since. Adding to the problem, the pandemic has made it worse. Right now Russia has around 25 million men who are in their military service age, but the govt knows that as time goes on the pool of manpower is going to decrease. So to achieve the goals talked about before, Russia had to act as soon as possible, or else it would become harder for them to do anything about Ukraine.
Conclusion
I believe these were the reasons behind Russia’s attack on Ukraine. What do you think, is Russia here only to take control over the regions having valuable resources, or is it attacking to take over the entire country?
Stay away from the propaganda, whether it is spread by the Russian media or the Western media. Neither did Putin attack to denazify Ukraine nor did he attack cuz he wants Russia to go back to its glory days of the Soviet Union or the Russian Empire. Like almost all wars of the 21st century, this war is also being fought for energy resources.
All we can do is, pray for innocent Ukrainians who will be killed due to this War and also pray for the future of innocent Russians living in Russia cuz their lives are going to become unimaginably hard, as there are many sanctions that are coming their way. Sanctions that only harm helpless innocent citizens.
If you liked this story, consider subscribing to my email list, my next story will most probably be on the reason why sanctions won’t work on Russia.
Thanks for reading till here. I’d like to end this with a quote by Paul Valery,
War is a massacre of people who don’t know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don’t massacre each other.
Goodbye :)