[zilean]

Whats wrong with RT in general (besides funding) and this article in particular?

> It would be nice for Russia to have a swath from Crimea to Dontesk up through Latvia, just look at a map.

Why take this land? It does nothing strategically, has population that you need to subsidise, etc. Crimea allows Black Sea control. Kaliningrad effectively makes Baltic inner sea for Russia and if there ever would be any baltic action you would see that, not many (if any) ships would be able to enter.

[kaitnieks]

Regarding Kaliningrad - wouldn't it be way more convenient for Russia to have that patch joined to the main country?

[kaitnieks]

Latvia has a population you need to subsidize? What do you mean by that?

[vkou]

When Russia occupied Crimea, Ukraine pulled out all support for the region's infrastructure. (Electricity, etc.) Quite naturally, Russia had to foot the bill to replace it.

The only way to get around that is to seize the entire country.

[zilean]

You cant just occupy country w/o sanctions, export/import chains breaking, you need to rebuild what would be inevitably destroyed during the invasion, etc.

[mzs]

Ukraine shows how much can be tolerated.

[zilean]

Well, Russian economy is still in recession. And Russian forces tecchnically never fired a gun in Ukraine or Crimea.

[Steko]

Russian forces have fired many guns in Ukraine, full stop.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a419b994ccf14a42977665a9af966...

[mzs]

connection via land to sea, later better positioned for potential Lithuania to Finland ops

[zilean]

Again, why take Lithuania to Finland? Whats the purpose?

[clock_tower]

The Baltics and Finland were both part of the Russian Empire; the Baltics were part of the USSR, and Stalin tried and failed to retake Finland. That's probably cause enough, if you're Putin.