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this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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If you win the war, you can get a lot in return. That is why countries do it. Permanent access to ressources, people, strategic locations...
The difficulty is switching back though. That's why it is so dangerous. Getting locked in a war economy requires to attack ever new targets, deepening the hole.
Russia has a shitton of natural resources they are not using. Ukraine has nothing additional to give, apart from historical lands
Ukraine has a lot of fertile land. With climate change Ukraine becomes more valuable to stabilize food supply. Prices for farm land in Ukraine have been increasing sharply, even during the war.
In geostrategic terms, controlling Ukraine allows Russia to double the controlled area of the Black Sea coast.
Both aspects significantly increase the dependency of Europe and many Asian and African countries on trade under Russian control. Ukraines pre war agricultural exports show great opportunities to increase Russian influence, particularly in countries already relying heavily on food imports and being strongly vulnerable to climate change.
Russia's agricultural potential is not currently limited by land, but rather by weather, which meets the same condition as you describe for Ukraine. The biggest advantage of stealing Ukrainian farms is an already established industry, which Russia needs to destroy in order to take the land. There are some arguments for destroying Ukraine to eliminate competition, but they are not that strong when you consider the global market demand, and if you include agricultural inputs such as fertiliser, which put the Russians into a very strong position. Russia also already has several valuable access points for the Black Sea. It would have been cheaper to develop existing ports for more deep water access than to destroy the RU economy in a war. Some more rail development would be necessary as well, but that isn't hard for Russian industry. As we have seen lately, occupying Crimean ports and airfields isn't as big an advantage as it used to be because warfare has changed.
The biggest reasons for taking Ukraine are cultural egotism. To redefine the Russian nation as a strong player in the world, instead of the fading gas station. There is something to say about one person's desire to create the historical narrative as a despotic conquerer.
BTW, Vlad Vexlers videos are quite informative from the philosophical perspective, getting at both the philosophy of the Russian leadership and the historical cultural perspective of the Russian nation.
Climate zones:
Precipitation:
Soil quality:
You are right that Russia has about a similiar sized good quality land to the east/north east of Ukraine in terms of climate,precipitation and soil quality. That would still be a huge strategic improvement, independant from development of the land. You are also right that Russia has ports at the Black Sea already. It is not about just what you have, it is also about what others wouldn't have.
We see the same thing in reverse with the NordStream pipelines. The Gas could have been continued to be transported through Ukraine and Poland just fine. But by building around them, Germany and Russia could deny a share of the cake to them, which of course they were strongly opposed to, like most other European countries and the US were too.
Most of Russia is pretty poor farm land otherwise:
Russia has very little other than natural resources. In particular they lack a lot of the later parts of production chains to make use of many of those resources to produce modern goods.
And this war has only accelerated other countries trying to reduce their dependence on Russia's resources.