the value of ukraine is not in its territory, nor less its sovok rustbelt industries, nor even less its position on the invasion route to moscow (spoiler: we live in the icbm age). ukraines value is, forgive the triteness, in its people, or its human capital  namely, 35 million 95+ iq people who are very close to and compatible with russians, who are indeed an intrinsic part of the all russian nation. now if russia was prepared to expend a rather high cost in welfare funds and knock on effects on integrating 1.5 million genuinely quite alien chechens, then paying a drastically more modest price (per capita) for 35 million of its own kith and kin is eminently rational. although russias 145 million people can still generate sufficient economies of scale to maintain political sovereignty and to run a largely self-contained technological civilization, complete with its own it ecosystem (read: sovereign memetic space, socially distanced from the woke nihilism of the west), space program, and technological visions. but creating and then sustaining such a world-civilization will certainly be considerably easier in a restored russian world that unites russians, belorussians, and ukrainians under one banner in a slavic superpower of 200 million people stretching from brest to vladivostok
DEUS VULT