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There’s a fraction of “why Russia fights war in Ukraine” arguments that touch the topic of natural resources. Presence of oil, gas, lithium, uranium etc in #Ukraine is highlighted, which is true, but I don’t think it’s just resource grab, just as it’s not a land grab either.

#Russia does not necessarily want to mine these resources in the Donbas itself. Russians have annihilated dozens of mines and industrial plants in the Donbas since 2014, and do not appear to have any intention of resuming mining in the foreseeable future.

On the contrary, their actions to date indicate that their only strategic objective regarding natural resources boils down to preventing Ukraine from extracting them, thereby removing competition for Russian and, importantly, Chinese raw materials.

Emergence of a country in the EU with its own deposits of gas and other minerals poses a strategic threat to the Russian economic model, which in turns boils down to extracting raw materials and ensuring that the EU itself does not extract them to create a strategic dependence.