I actually don't totally disagree with Graham there. It's not "all" about money, but that is a big part of it. There is definitely an aspect of Russia believing that Ukraine and Ukrainians belong to Russia and the Russian people, and therefore do not have a right to self-determination, but you can't discount the economic part in all this.
It's true that Ukraine sits on a massive wealth of rare minerals and other natural resources, and they are exactly the kind of resources that are needed to fuel the technological age we are entering. Whoever controls those resources will have a lot of power and wealth. As Ukraine continued to look west with aspirations of joining the EU and NATO, Russia became afraid of not just losing access to that, but also that their western adversaries would get in on it.
I have no doubt that part of Trump's "peace" plan involves the U.S. getting a piece of the pie in exchange for dropping support of Ukraine and letting Russia pursue their agenda of annexing parts of Ukraine it wants.
__________________
"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
|