For Russia, the strategic value of Donbass is to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. If Minsk II is enforced, Ukraine will be more federalized and the Donbass territories will be able to prevent joining NATO. The current limbo is almost as good as enforcing Minsk II in that regard
Russia won’t gain greater access to the Mediterranean from Donbass. It already got its main Black Sea deep water port in Sevastopol and Donbass is actually Northeast of it. Also Istanbul, which is in a NATO country, could already block Russia’s access to the Mediterranean any time it wanted.
For Russia, the strategic value of Donbass is to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO
Thanks, someone understood what i wanted to say.
Though i don’t get why everyone thinks that if Russia invades, which is unlikely, they would stop at Donbass. Going as far as Crimea seems to be the logical solution.
Istanbul could block access to Russia but Putin has been doing great favors for Erdogan in Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh in order to not use it. Hungary is also a NATO member but they refused to host US soldiers since this whole debacle started.
