Russia is vast. It is unimaginably massive. It is 11 timezones long & has a 36000km long coast and 17 million sqkm in area

Then, why does it still fear losing support of Ukraine and desire it's landmass so badly?

The answer is 'Geography'

A simple history explainer 🧵

Even though Russia has a long coast, its entire length is far high up in Northern hemisphere and hence the waters are not warm throughout the year

The coast freezes for close to half the year and that means they cant have good ports there and trade and commerce is affected.

2/n

And for trade, you need a warm water port. Where trade can happen all year and connections to the south.

Here comes the answer - Ukraine.

Ukraine has a coast along the Black sea and connects to the Mediterranean which opens up the entire world.

Russia so dearly desires this.

After the collapse of the USSR, the 'Stans' - Uzbek, Kazhakh etc fell along with the Russians. But the countries close to Europe - Romania, Lithuania etc fell with the west and NATO.

Ukraine got caught in the middle. Eastern part of Ukraine supported Russia & the west with EU

And Ukraine had Sevastapol, a warm water port in the region of Crimea (the small part that juts out in the south).

Russia had a lease to use this warm water port & run its ships for trade.

But if Ukraine went into EU or NATO, there was the risk of losing this port.