Putin’s Goals with Ukraine

As the invasion of Ukraine by Russia continues, I think it’s worth trying to understand Putin’s goals. In my previous post I stated that Putin seeks to control the countries that directly border Russia, and as such, Ukraine is a highly attractive target for security reasons (and symbolically valuable as they were the first nation to declare independence from the USSR). I still believe that’s true.

However as I’ve observed the actions of Russia during this invasion, specifically with Russia doing things like shelling and setting fire to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, as well as attacking and seizing Chornobyl, one more sinister goal seems to be apparent. A strict military interpretation of these actions might be that he’s attempting to inflict enough harm to the nation’s infrastructure to force it into submission. Unfortunately, it’s worse than that.

Putin is playing a revised scorched Earth script vs Ukraine. His goal seems to be that even when the fighting eventually stops, if Ukraine still maintains a government friendly to the west (instead of being obsequious to Russia, as Putin wants), the country will be so broken and destroyed that the population will have no choice but to gravitate politically, economically, and militarily towards their Russian neighbors. Even if Zelensky “wins” the war and repels the Russian invasion, what will be left of the nation?

Large parts of it could be without basic necessities such as electricity, running water, food, and shelter. What’s worse, if the nuclear reactors in…