Not even touching the political aspect (Ukrainian nationalism being clearly anti-Russian long before 2014), for the Russian military having well established NATO military bases in Ukraine and Georgia is many times worse than for US to have Russian bases in Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America (and you should remember how US reacted to the possibility of those). And no, the Russian military can not responsibly believe in "defensiveness" of NATO for a number of good reasons.
The invasion itself is clearly a bad and desperate move, but it comes after all the previous moves (from trying to be friends with NATO during the pre-Munich years and keeping Ukraine on the hook using the Minsk agreements) were exhausted and it has piled on top of the utter failure of Russian policy on the Ukrainian front since 91 (targeting oligarchs instead of population).
Are you kidding? What about all the natural resources of Ukraine? And huge arable land?
If Russia managed to control Ukraine, even at terrible but temporary cost in 100 years Russia would be much better off with Ukraine than without. It would make Russia even more serious player on so many markets.
They never drew their economic power from people. They could exterminate all Ukrainians and still come on top economically in the long term if they controlled the land.
As for gas, we can see how overt declarations about going off carbon fuels are squaring against reality where German leaders are practically crawling up Putins ass in the middle of the war to ensure harmoneous future cooperation with a country that has only carbon fuels.
Not even touching the political aspect (Ukrainian nationalism being clearly anti-Russian long before 2014), for the Russian military having well established NATO military bases in Ukraine and Georgia is many times worse than for US to have Russian bases in Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America (and you should remember how US reacted to the possibility of those). And no, the Russian military can not responsibly believe in "defensiveness" of NATO for a number of good reasons.
The invasion itself is clearly a bad and desperate move, but it comes after all the previous moves (from trying to be friends with NATO during the pre-Munich years and keeping Ukraine on the hook using the Minsk agreements) were exhausted and it has piled on top of the utter failure of Russian policy on the Ukrainian front since 91 (targeting oligarchs instead of population).