Almost 90 bombs were dropped in one region in just 24 hours.
Russia unleashed an unprecedented bombardment in southern Ukraine overnight in what local officials described as a “massive attack” in the conflict which has continued to rage even as the international community’s attention has moved to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The Ukrainian Internal Affairs Ministry on Monday morning said Russia dropped at least “87 aerial bombs on populated areas of the Kherson region - the largest number for all time.” At least eight people were also injured in other Russian strikes carried out in the Odessa region further to the west on Sunday night.
Russia wants to keep unobstructed access to the Black Sea, for its freight and military ships.
The EU and China want to keep a railroad from China to the EU, through Kazakhstan and Ukraine or Belarus, to cut in half the time freight ships take.
Both need control over the same piece(s) of land.
For reference:
Russia already has access to the Black Sea even without any Ukrainian land.
Russia has access to the Black Sea through the Sea of Azov, which is controlled by whoever controls Crimea… and to maintain control over Crimea, Russia needs supply lines over a land access at least across the Donbass, not just through a bridge that can be bombed at any time, as it has been already.
Both the Donbass and Crimea, Ukraine considers to be Ukrainian land, even though the history of both areas is plagued by forced resettlements during the USSR times.
Additionally, there are natural resources, some ports, and a nuclear plant in the Donbass area, which Russia would happily take over.
Russia has a long stretch of Black Sea coast outside of the Sea of Azov. They don’t need any more land to use that.
Please look again at the map for the Unified Deep Water System.
This isn’t about having a port on the Black Sea, it’s about having ships from ports in inland Russia getting unobstructed waterway access to the Black Sea, from where they can go to the Mediterranean and beyond.
Then it looks like they need to change their strategy.
At this point, they don’t have many options, since their economy is based around using the waterways as main transport routes.
Keep in mind Russia can have a container ship delivered from China right to Moscow, and viceversa.
Russia’s best bet (around 2000-2010), was to befriend the EU, while getting rid of all their internal corruption, and start treating ex-USSR republics as proper states instead of relying on forcing puppet governments in them. Especially in Ukraine, they shouldn’t have burned their puppet government in 2014 by making it accept a worse deal than what the EU was offering, definitely not before at least having the country split in half and Crimea+Donbass secured as separate puppet countries.
By uniting Ukraine, then making an enemy out of the EU, while still allowing a ton of internal corruption, Putin has screwed Russia royally.
Russia’s only options right now are to either:
Speculatively:
But it’s kind of impossible for Ukraine to willingly agree to that, highly unlikely for the EU to lift its sanctions just because, and NATO would still rather have Russia disappear as a threat completely.
The EU might agree if it included guaranteeing a safe tax-free railway corridor to China, which would on one hand still hurt Russia, but on the other they could also benefit from a railway connection to China, even if it isn’t that much better than having container ships go from China right to Moscow.