Content Team 
Eight centuries of shared heritage and legacies of history, a looming population crisis, the protection of energy exports and a pinch of imperialism are the major reasons at the center of the Ukraine War.
The Ukraine War is heading into its 17th month that began with Russian forces invading with the intention of occupying its independent neighbor. During the course of this 17-month struggle there have been estimates of hundreds of thousands of military and civilian casualties on both sides, with large parts of Ukraine suffering massive structural damage displacing millions. With daily news of all of this senseless violence taking place, many can only ask “Why did Russia invade Ukraine?”.
From a historical standpoint, we have been no stranger to acts of aggression and war and much of our current world has been shaped through invasions, conquests, and the military victories and losses from our past. In most all instances there were geopolitical reasons behind each of those aggressive actions, the war between Ukraine and Russia is not any different. While most will agree that this is a horrible and brutal war, one that nobody should have to experience firsthand. However, from a purely geopolitical standpoint, there are reasons that could be defined as rational to explain Russia’s behavior. It is up to each individual to determine whether those reasons are rational to you.
Below we delve into three likely reasons for the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the perspective of a geopolitically minded state actor.
Shared Heritage
The two nations shared heritage goes back to the time of Volodymyr I Sviatoslavych (Volodymyr the Great) who as Prince of Novgorod and Grande Prince of Kyiv merged both regions into the first Slavic state of the Kyivan Rus and converting them to Orthodox Christianity. Uniting the regions of Kyiv (Ukraine) and Novgorod (Russia) under the banner of a single kingdom for the next 300 years; their peoples have remained culturally linked to this day.
This ancient cultural connection along with their history of control over Ukraine allows them to use the power of imagery and propaganda to justify their actions. By leaning into centuries old nationalistic fervor with their own people and allies it provides less a reason and more a conformable pretext for their action; this is their pinch of imperialism.
Legacies of history
With the Mongol Hordes arriving in Eastern Europe in the mid-1200s, the Kyivan Rus was toppled with the sacking of Kyiv in 1240. This set the stage for Ukraine to be conquered and regionally divided by various empires for the next 800 years causing regional and ethnic divides leading to cultural and political differences whose legacies can still be felt today.
The Golden Horde, a remnant of the original Mongol Empire, remained in control of most of Ukrainian territories for the next 200 years. By the middle of the 15th century, with the Golden Horde in decline, Poland and Lithuania attacked and won their eventual wars against the Mongol invaders. Ukraine was jointly ruled between the two until the creation of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569 and the entirety of Ukraine then fell under Polish administration.
The 17th century saw the rise of the Tsarist Russian Empire which led to conflict with the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1654. This led to war, which brought lands in Eastern Ukraine (i.e. left-bank) under control of the Tsar Russian Empire. A century later during the 3rd Partition of Poland in 1795, Western Ukraine (i.e. right–bank) was annexed by the Russian Empire. Ukraine remained a part of the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union for the next 200 years, gaining independence during the latter’s collapse in 1991.
Beginning with the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th century, ethnic Ukrainians were systematically oppressed by their occupying powers. It was common practice to have an influx of people with accepted culture(s) of the suzerain move in and uproot the current residents and displace them. Forcing them to move to less desirable locations with less desirable work. The Russian Empire was known for implementing a policy of “Russification” which pressured Ukrainians to abandon their own language and religion and forced residents to adopt preferred Russian customs.
With Ukraine having a number of regions separated and controlled by different groups over a period of 8 centuries, it can be difficult for Ukrainians to form a unified national identity due to those legacies of history. Due to eastern Ukraine falling under Russian rule prior to western Ukraine, residents in the east have developed stronger connections with Russia and are more prone to supporting leaders aligned with Russia. Conversely, western Ukraine has experienced various European influences, which explains why individuals in this region tend to favor politicians aligned with Western ideologies.
Having been forced, at times, to abandon their own customs and be subjected to displacement for being seen as unacceptable can also lead to people more readily assimilating to the ways and means of their historical rulers. As the population in the east primarily speaks Russian and practices Orthodox Christianity, whereas parts of the west predominantly speak Ukrainian and adhere to Catholicism. With that, the sense of Ukrainian nationalism is not as deep in the east as it is in the west.
These differences in people’s allegiances and sense of attachment helped to drive the events in 2014, with the annexation of Crimea and the declaration of Russian-back republics in the region of Donbass. With these legacies being a part of the genesis of this War, right or wrong, they also had effect in its decision to continue it.
Demographic Crisis
Russia is experiencing an unprecedented demographic crisis and the country’s dwindling population will make it difficult for Moscow to implement its economic and diplomatic agendas in the decades to come.
While many countries in Europe and elsewhere are grappling with the twin dilemmas of aging populations and declining birth rates, Russia is experiencing a unique phenomenon – an extremely high mortality rate for a relatively developed country. Since 1991, Russia has recorded almost 7 million excess deaths (excess in terms of predicted deaths based on historical trends and causes).
It is a trend that points to a combination of poor diet, hard lifestyle and deficient health-care leading to high cardiovascular disease incidences along with higher than normal volumes of death relating to violence, injuries, and other non-natural causes. Add to that their high emigration rate, and their numbers look even worse.
From 1992 to 2012, and again since 2016, Russia’s death rate has exceeded its birth rate which is rare for a developed nation and is amassing a large aging population with the median age being 40.3 years.
The number of future mothers is declining, the average Russian is aging, and the increase in disease and deaths has been greatest among the working age population. As a result, the labor force has shrunk more rapidly than the population as a whole, reducing Russia’s economic growth prospects for years to come.
With that, Ukraine’s population demographics are not much better, in fact for many of the primary indicators such as birth rate and median age they are slightly worse. However, Ukraine is a country of nearly 45 million people (35th in the world) and has almost 1/3 the population of Russia (145 million).
Those 45 million in population, with over 68% (30+ million) of working age, would go a long way in providing at least a short-term solution to their demographic woes. And Ukrainian and Russian populations, as mentioned, share a cultural link making any integration from an economic and political standpoint a smoother and easier to manage process.
In 2014, with the annexation of Crimea, it allowed for an additional 2.4 million people to become Russian citizens in a single day. A major geopolitical goal of this war is to perform a similar action with Ukraine, but on a much greater scale.
Natural Resources
It is not a secret that Russia’s economy is built around the extraction, transport and sale of their massive fossil fuel reserves. Their primary energy exports in oil and natural gas account for nearly 15% of its GDP and a large part of their federal budget. It goes without saying, their geopolitical strategy revolves around keeping their energy exports flowing, and their fossil fuel profits incoming.
Russia’s announced war aim of conquering Ukraine’s eastern regions and southern shores is hardly coincidental. These regions—including Ukraine’s section of the Black Sea, now mainly controlled by Russia—account for about half of Ukraine’s conventional oil, 72 percent of its natural gas, and almost its entire coal production and reserves.
In terms of future prospects, recent finds (pre-2014) in their Eastern and Southern regions show the potential of large untapped reserves. Natural gas reserves are estimated at 5.4 trillion cubic meters (tcm), with proven reserves of 1.1 (tcm) of natural gas, which places Ukraine as having the second-largest natural gas deposits in Europe after Russia.
The untapped reserves are contained in two potential gas fields, Yuzivska gas field located in Donetsk Oblast and Kharkiv Oblast, and the Olesska gas field in Lviv Oblast and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. In 2013, Ukraine signed a production sharing agreement with Royal Dutch Shell involving the Yuzivska shale gas field and signed a production sharing agreement with Chevron involving the Olesska gas field. However, due to the instability and geopolitical risks caused by the war in the Donbass region and the eventual Russian annexation of Crimea, both companies pulled out of the deals (even as both companies had set up multiple test wells in their respective project zone).
Ukraine moving forward with energy independence from Russia and building infrastructure to potentially sell these resources to Europe is likely high on Russia’s list to contain. While their primary focus in the short-term may not be to take over Ukraine’s current production, it is to ensure Ukraine’s future production causes as little disruption as possible to their European (and EuroAsian) energy dominance.
The dynamics of Russian-Ukrainian relations have been significantly influenced by energy, particularly the transportation of Russian fossil fuels to Europe through Ukraine’s extensive pipeline network spanning 28,000 miles. Setup to move hundreds of thousands of barrels of Russian oil and tens of millions of cubic meters of Russian gas through the Druzhba, Pomary Progress, Soyuz, Urengoy, and Uzhgorod pipelines to European ports and markets. Keeping these pipelines open and under as much of their control as possible is key to their economic strategy.
The more Ukraine develops their own fossil fuel production and the closer they move toward and embed with European economies; the less control Russia has in maintaining their massive energy transport network which heavily relies on these pipelines.
