Kaliningrad is an exclave too and yet it sits in the EU's territory like a sore thumb.
Pre-WWII Germans were very unhappy about Danzig.
Ukraine as a whole isn't really a strategic threat to a country of size and power of Russia, but I don't think that cool rationality prevails in the Kremlin right now. Their concept of "strategy" is much more imperial than what we are used to.
> Pre-WWII Germans were very unhappy about Danzig.
Good point but I think 'unhappy' is understatement. Germany did ultimatum to Poland that they want to have a land corridor to Danzig. Poland said no and Germany invaded Poland later on. So there is a lot of similarity in current situation in a way that current Russia == old Germany
> Kaliningrad is an exclave too and yet it sits in the EU's territory like a sore thumb.
I don't think anyone is really too bothered about Kaliningrad. Are they? It's not like Germany wants it back or anything.
> Russia, but I don't think that cool rationality prevails in the Kremlin right now. Their concept of "strategy" is much more imperial than what we are used to.
Oh, I don't disagree with it this at all. But the only way Putin can back down while still saving face is by pretending that the invasion actually acomplished something. If you wanted to justify the invasion on the grounds of Denazificatiom, it helps to take over the base of the only unit that can tenably be called neo-Nazi.
A sea that Russia controls.
> Intent on building a land connection between Crimea and Donetsk.
Which can be accomplished by surrounding Mariupol. A besieged city, cut off from any reinforcements and supply lines is hardly a strategic threat.