There's a gentleman by the name of George Freeman And a site called GPS or geopolitical futures dot com I was unaware of it I saw it on independent Glenn Reynolds great sight and Glenn Reynolds is a great guy And the gentleman writes in part as we consider how the war in Ukraine will end We must first understand how it began Russia invaded the geostrategic for geostrategic reasons having Ukraine as a buffer state safeguards Moscow from invasion from the west and for economic reasons which have often gone overlooked The transition from the Soviet Union to the Russian Federation wasn't exactly lucrative It may have increased total wealth by Russia remains a poor country Its gross domestic product ranks just behind South Korea A respectable placement but hardly wears superpowers should be in terms of per CAPiTA GDP Russia ranks 85th Nestled between Bulgarian Malaysia Economic statistics rarely tell the whole story of course but in Russia's case they fairly accurately present a country that is poor than it appears mass superficially by a top layer of the super rich elite Life and major cities like saints St. Petersburg and Moscow is luxurious for the wealthy and bearable for the rest Life in the countryside is something else entirely Individual regimes can't be solely blamed for Russian poverty The size of the nation the difficulties in areas such as transport associated with its side make Russia difficult to govern And from the time of the tsars it's been the state rather than Sheridan economic prosperity that has kept Russia together Often this has been achieved through the security services which are tasked with maintaining state power not with building an economy It's a little wonder that the country that boasted the apron also produced a president who cut his teeth in the KGB