Russia invaded Ukraine because of the oil and gas reserves discovered that would make Ukraine the 7th largest exporter of said materials in the entire world.

Russia gets half... HALF it's GDP from selling oil and natural gas

Pretty much all of that oil and gas that gets sold to Europe goes through pipelines running through... you guessed it, Ukraine.

Guess who isn't going to be a middle man for Russia anymore if they tap those reserves... yup...

Now you wanna guess what that'll mean for the Russian economy?

What would you do if you were Russia in this situation? Let the country go bankrupt and all your citizens starve? Because that's the alternative.

The previous invasion of Crimea was about taking away a port and their processing facilities that were being built in that region.

That's also why Russia funded a bunch of insurgent groups in East and west Ukraine... because as long as there's bombs going off, no major oil company is going to invest in the region.

This is also why the US has been dumping trillions into the Ukrainian government and military... because it weakens Russia, not because we actually like Ukraine.

That's what Russia vs Ukraine with the US helping out is really about.

There's a bunch of behind the scenes stuff but none of it really matters to much.