Putin has bluntly stated that the fall of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century and he was to see it resurrected (minus communism) by 2020. Russia clearly has its eyes set on bigger goals than just Ukraine. It is using the issue of ethnic Russians need their protection in places like Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine for starters. – Putin is old school and he sees size as a show of strength rather than economics. He grew up in communism so that is what he knew – raw power. Putin actually dreams of doing more than just raining on the EU parade – he wants to dismantle it and smells their blood for Europe is decaying from within for the same Marxist reasons that Communism fell – central planning. It is ironic that today, there is more economic freedom from government regulation in Russia that is Europe. The real problem is the oligarchy rules the economy rather than bureaucrats. Putin will rip apart the territorial status quo created in Europe in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union.
Putin is no fool and he may be as brilliant a strategist Than Napoleon ever was. With Russian activists, Putin may be able to take Eastern Ukraine without firing a shot. Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula was easy and could be contained. Invading Eastern Ukraine would not be so easy. There will be enough Ukrainians in those regions to resist Russian troops. That can get messy even though he could occupy all of Ukraine is 3 to 5 days. However, oppressing opposition will be another problem that could tie up his troops for some time. Ukraine has a population of 45 million, about the size of Spain. It is about 4 times the size of Greece and is bigger than Poland. Estonia is only 1.2 million and Latvia is about 2 million. Belarus is less than 10 million. So you can see, Ukraine is the prize for it is nearly 1/3rd the population of Russia, which is about half the size of the USA in population yet more than double that of Europe.
This is why our computer was targeting Ukraine as the flash point. Russia presents a major threat to the security of the European continent as a whole. Europe is collapsing and incapable of mounting a defense to stop Russia. This will be increased even more after 2015.75.
Eastern Ukraine is also a much larger territory than Crimea that had clear geographical limitation to its territory. Russia was already there with its port. Putin knows that Crimea is his to keep, and that no Western government is likely to challenge this newly acquired Russian province on a military basis.
Putin’s primary goal is to prevent Ukraine from joining Western economic and security structures such as the European Union and Nato. This is his first priority. He wants to keep Ukraine in some state of suspended animation since it has his pipelines to Europe. He needs at minimum to maintain Ukraine as a buffer zone. He can accomplish that much by persuading the West to accept what Moscow calls the “federalization” of Ukraine. In this way, Russia demands that there is the creation of a federal Ukraine that maintains the regional sovereignty thereby the regions will have the vote on “Ukraine’s foreign policy direction” in addition to the local sovereignty. This way the East can block any union with Europe or NATO. This is an interesting strategy, but it will likely fail and in the end war will be likely.
Country | Population |
Russia | 143,455,000 |
Europe: 105,400,000 | |
Germany | 81,840,000 |
United Kingdom | 64,231,000 |
France | Europe: 63,702,000 |
-66,616,416 | |
Italy | 61,789,000 |
Spain | 46,958,000 |
Ukraine | 45,461,000 |
Poland | 38,548,000 |
Romania | 19,858,000 |
Netherlands | 16,795,000 |
Belgium | 11,162,000 |
Greece | 10,758,000 |
Portugal | 10,609,000 |
Czech Republic | 10,519,000 |
Hungary | 9,894,000 |
Sweden | 9,595,000 |
Belarus | 9,460,000 |
Austria | 8,477,000 |
Switzerland | 8,075,000 |
Bulgaria | 7,261,000 |
Serbia | 7,203,000 |
Denmark | 5,612,000 |
Finland | 5,436,000 |
Slovakia | 5,413,000 |
Norway | 5,077,000 |
Georgia | 4,942,157 |
Ireland | 4,662,000 |
Croatia | 4,258,000 |
Bosnia and Herzegovina | 3,847,000 |
Moldova | 3,486,000 |
Lithuania | 2,956,000 |
Albania | 2,783,000 |
Macedonia | 2,066,000 |
Slovenia | 2,062,000 |
Latvia | 2,011,000 |
Kosovo[6] | 1,826,000 |
Estonia | 1,283,000 |
Montenegro | 620,000 |
Luxembourg | 542,000 |
Malta | 419,000 |
Iceland | 324,000 |
Jersey (UK) | 100,000 |
Isle of Man (UK) | 87,000 |
Andorra | 75,000 |
Guernsey (UK) | 63,000 |
Faroe Islands (Denmark) | 48,000 |
Liechtenstein | 37,000 |
Monaco | 36,000 |
San Marino | 32,000 |
Gibraltar (UK)[7] | 30,000 |
Åland Islands (Finland) | 29,000 |
Svalbard and Jan Mayen(Norway) | 3,000 |
Vatican City | 800 |
Total | 737,791,800 |