The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and the launching of the special operation in 2022 are not happening from international relations and the geopolitical standpoint of pure conquest on the part of the Russian state led by Vladimir Putin.
Russia is trying to gain control of the Carpathian mountains; the reason for this is that the Russians need to secure its western borders. However, it is not just that superficial thinkers like Professor John Mearsheimer put forward the argument that the Russian expansion was due to the expansion of the European Union in the 1990s and 2000 as well as the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation taught the former Eastern Bloc and Warsaw Pact members of the Soviet Union.
This, unfortunately, is complete nonsense. According to the geopolitical writer and geopolitical strategist Peter Zilhen put forward the argument is that for Russia to feel secure, they will need control over Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Turkey, all of these independent nations and ought Russians to control them it will mean a war of conquest.
With this being the case, the argument for letting the Russians have their sphere of influence in Eastern Europe is sadly complete and utter nonsense or, at worse, capitulation to the Russian Federation.
What must be understood is that the Russians have primarily been invaded from the regions mentioned above and that the Russians now no longer have the population and military-industrial complex to fight for control of those landmasses.
The world can now be witnessing Russia’s last war and the ending of the predominant Russian ethnic group based in Western Europe; what all this means in practical terms is that the next 20 years will be seen as the disappearance of Russia as a great power.