The Ukraine War Is Also a Blood-For-Oil War
Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine is a desperate bid to assemble a 21st-century Russian Empire. It is also an oil war -- or more accurately, a war to steal Ukraine's energy reserves.
The czarist and Soviet communist Russian empires were largely self-sufficient entities possessing the resources and millions of people required to field powerful military forces. However, when the USSR collapsed, the Kremlin's empire lost about half of its population and significant food and energy resources.
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan (RUBK is my acronym) has the geostrategic resources to secure global Great Power status. I think that geopolitical configuration has been Putin's goal since 2004.
Russia and Kazakhstan are energy powers. Ukraine, however, is the key RUBK puzzle piece: a Slavic population, world-class food production (especially grains) and, yes, energy resources, as in coal, oil and natural gas.
Think back three decades. Recall the anti-American critics who claimed combating Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait was imperialist propaganda camouflage for seizing oil fields on behalf of Western oil companies? Blood for oil. Wailing crackpots made that indictment until, oh, 2009, when Barack Obama became president.
In 2023 Iraq's government once again controls its oil and gas fields.
Yet Putin's Kremlin escapes criticism for waging war to steal resources.
Facts say Putin is guilty of the charge. Ukraine has the world's sixth largest hard coal reserves. In the West radical climatistas damn the use of coal -- coal kills Mother Earth. A check of accurate coal utilization and pollution statistics shows tyrannical Russia and China burn coal by the polluting tons and jail critics. One wonders if they don't fund the climatistas.
As for Ukraine: Ukraine's most significant coal reserves are in the Donbas region (Donetsk Coal Basin). That's eastern Ukraine -- which Russia claims as ethnic Russian territory and now bitterly defends.
Will climate radicals accuse Russia of spilling blood for coal? We know they won't. But right now, Russia spills blood defending the coal fields its invading forces seized.
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