>>1545675I know. I tried to cram as much of information as possible in one post(2000 symbols) so the OP could deduce the rest. I didn't want to write tomes answering "why" because understanding it requires knowing a lot of information. Yes, the Sevastopol naval base was one of the concerns, but it was cause, not a reason. The main issue was the rising US influence, they didn't want to allow US influence, they had absolutely no problem with Ukraine's existence before, only when US moved their agents into Ukraine and Moldova and started forcing their influence did the elites in Russia start ringing their alarms to evacuate their golden geese. After November 2003, Putin absolutely hated that his sphere of influence was attacked by the US despite a verbal agreement not to push eastward, he could slightly tolerate expansion in the former warsaw pact countries, but not the former USSR, he thought it was his personal playground and so he felt personally attacked. In his 2007 Munich speech he criticized the idea of trusting the US, he tried to find allies that also hate this(but he wasn't unable to find anyone in Europe to oppose US influence, Brussels had a deep grasp on everyone), he thought before that they would "play fair" and won't abuse vacuum of power after dissolution of USSR and was pissed off that they actually did. The Ukraine conflict is essentially a clash of influences with some side quests like making a quick land grab in order for oligarchs to take factories and make themselves richer. As for the US, they did it to prevent RU from becoming a global player instead of regional one, a Russia-Ukraine-Belarus alliance would be a much scarier enemy to fight to, so they used cheap tricks in order to prevent it, like old trusty radicals and nationalists CIA connections in Ukraine with Nazi-collaborators(like UPA) since 1947(1957?don't remember) and a cultural war via globalism(essentially replacing the culture of an enemy country with the US's preferred culture).
