Charity, great article but don't forget to mention that the second largest natural gas reserves in Europe are in the Ukraine and that they stopped purchasing Russian natural gas in 2015.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine#:~:text=Ukraine%20was%20estimated%20to%20possess,at%205.4%20trillion%20cubic%20meters.

Add in the fact that the Oil refinery built near Odessa received its first shipment of US oil in 2020.

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-ukraine-oil-idUSL8N2D24JN

When Russia illegally annexed Crimea, the population of ethnic Russians was close to 66%.

"The ethnic composition is as follows: Russians: 1.49 million (65.3%), Ukrainians: 0.35 million (15.1%), Crimean Tatars: 0.24 million (12.0%)."

One of the first things the Ukranians did after the annexation was to shut down the Dnieper canal system.

This excerbated the rapid salination of Crimea's agraian land.

See: Backgrounder: The Water Crisis in Crimea | Geopolitical Monitorhttps://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com › backgrounder-t...

Apr 24, 2020 — Crimea has always depended on the water supply from the mainland. The 400-kilometer-long North Crimean Canal (NCC) carried water from Ukraine's ...

First things the Russians did was blow up the dam.

So, Von Clausewitz opined that all wars are economic.

So this war is also about Russia not wanting to lose its natural gas and oil leverage with Europe.