I don't know why people are pretending to be surprised. When the Soviet Union or Uncle Sams props your army up to fight the other you were in for a bad time. There are like books written about events like these.
I don't see how the political establishment was strong enough to do anything but being played, so contemplating whether accepting help or on the contrary playing along with the "special operation" thing seems like counterfactual history to me, even though such discussions usually are quite interesting.
You were told this was something else, and it resonated better because the people involved were culturally close to Europeans. But in reality was the messaging all that different from "Operation Iraqi Freedom"? Both were fights for automotive power sources dressed up as a liberation movement.
You may want to look up something about how Saddam came to power in the early 60s. He had not only the same CIA covert ops backing but even the same kind of TV promotion. That whole army fatigues getup should be familiar by now.
How does it feel when Trump flips the script and outright says: we'll put a "people's leader" in charge of Greenland and then he'll sell it out to us. This is all that your color revolutions were all along, always.
Mineral aquisition is a bit of a furphy here .. in my estimation the more important goals for Russia here were expanded access to Black Sea ports, main land access to Crimea, and water supply security to Crimea ... and a nostalgia for the Olde Russian Empire Made Great Again.
I think it was mainly about not losing face internally when the separatists would have been defeated. Like, there was a bridge. Water can be piped. The port in Sevastopol was big enough. Etc. And there is no way some mines can repay all the costs just as the invasion of Iraq wouldn't be repaid by Iraqi oil ever.
The North Crimean Canal was shut down in 2014 soon after Russia annexed Crimea.
As a water supply it was a greater than a single pipe .. or even ten. Crimea was running critically low on water after a few years and Russia was keen to restore that otherwise the taking of Crimea rang hollow.
No, you underestimate the scale of ecological catastrophe imposed on the Crimea by Ukrainian regime.
" “After five years without water, the population structure of the villages of the steppe regions of Crimea looks depressing. By the end of 2020, 90% of the remaining population will be unemployed. All the rest will leave the region,” concludes Liev.
...
According to Liev, in the last 50 years, when the irrigation functioned, the peninsula received a new layer of fertile land. However, in the last 5 years, this soil has not been moistened enough and is already degraded.
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As an occupying power, Russia is entirely responsible for the maintenance of the Crimean region according to the Geneva Convention, says Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Crimea Anton Korynevych. Ukraine’s task is to make the occupation as burdensome for Russia as possible. The water supply to Crimea may be effectively used by Ukraine to put additional pressure on Russia so that it returns Crimea." [0]
Note, that the title of this article published by Ukrainian "Euromaidan Press" is "Ukraine’s water blockade of Crimea should stay, because it’s working". Enough said.
No, it's even stupider than that. He thinks the US is backing Ukraine because we want their lithium deposits. This is an idea that the Trump admin has recently floated, but it's not the reason that the US has been supporting Ukraine for the last 4 years.
