HAVE YOU GOT A MINUTE?*

 * Actually 31:55 minutes to be precise.

This is to watch an excellent overview of Ukraine and Russia's interest in taking over or at least invading the country.

WHY RUSSIA IS INVADING UKRAINE

This is an excellent  essay that makes sense of why Putin wants control of Ukraine, why Ukraine has no love for Russia and why NATO forces have an interest in Ukraine and other countries surrounding Russia. I implore you to take time to view this but here's a synopsis that covers most (not all) of what is contained in the essay:

• Since the fall of the USSR in 1991 Russia has been exposed on it's Southern and Western borders and needs a buffer zone like it had with the Warsaw Pact countries.
• 50% of Russia's revenues come from oil and gas production (Russia is the biggest oil producer in the world) and its sales to Western countries.
• Russia has been using Ukraine as a pipeline thoroughfare to the West but after the 2014 overthrow of the very pro-Russia dictatorship Ukraine has been charging Russia billions each year for access. Russia as a way of getting around this created Nord Stream to get gas to Germany without going through Ukraine.
• Recently Ukraine discovered massive oil and gas fields in their territorial waters in the Black Sea off the Crimean peninsular. This has the potential of Ukraine being oil and gas independent and being a competitor to Russia by selling direct to Germany and the Western NATO countries. This would be crippling to Russia's economy.
• Ukraine has no infrastructure and experience in extracting oil and gas so contracted with BP and other major petrochemical companies to oversee extraction and distribution.
• In the old USSR the Crimean peninsula's lack of water was solved by creating a canal from Ukraine channeling water from the Dnieper river to fertilise Crimea and provide agriculture for its 2 million people. Since the disestablishment of the USSR Crimea had been an annexe of Ukraine.
• When Russia recently invaded and effectively took over Crimea, Ukraine sealed up the source of water from the Dnieper and thus created a water shortage for Crimea which is rapidly returning to an arid Steppe landscape.
• Russia fears Ukraine's potential to produce oil and gas and so took over Crimea to capture the Black Sea territorial waters where most of the gas and oil fields are. This action had the double effect of taking from Ukraine the bulk of the producing and potential fields and also scared away BP and other Western oil companies so Ukraine is back to square one in not having the infrastructure and experience to 'harvest' what's left of its gas and oil fields.
• Russia also wants to move through Ukraine to the Dnieper river to open up the water supply to the Crimean canal.
• NATO would like Ukraine to be stand alone with the possibility of becoming a NATO aligned country in the future. This is for economic and military strategic reasons. Russia fears this and is doing everything it can to thwart this as it did with Georgia a few years before.