I don’t think the BBC does a good enough job of connecting the dots here. This position only makes sense if you believe either:
that Europe is going to use this as a jumping-off point to invade Russia or her allies; or
that Ukraine is not a sovereign country.
1 is not credible given that Europe has been a pretty peaceful neighbour for 80 years, whereas Russia has invaded a bunch of countries.
So this really demonstrates Putin’s belief that Ukraine should not have control over her own territory, that Ukraine can have some autonomy but at the end of the day needs to submit to Russia’s will. Russia doesn’t want to admit this to the West because it harms Russia’s credibility, so this little argument really deserves to be made clearer.
I don’t think the BBC does a good enough job of connecting the dots here. This position only makes sense if you believe either:
1 is not credible given that Europe has been a pretty peaceful neighbour for 80 years, whereas Russia has invaded a bunch of countries.
So this really demonstrates Putin’s belief that Ukraine should not have control over her own territory, that Ukraine can have some autonomy but at the end of the day needs to submit to Russia’s will. Russia doesn’t want to admit this to the West because it harms Russia’s credibility, so this little argument really deserves to be made clearer.