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This is the only port that Russia has with access to a coastline that doesn't freeze in winter.
When people say this I wonder why they can't just stick in a port at Novorossiysk or somewhere? Surely it's easier to do a bit of dredging than it is to invade a country?
I don't know anything about ports but according to Google they only need to be 30ft deep... there must be a good reason for them wanting Sevastopol?
frankenbike-
I guess they'd take they view - why should we have to, when it's ours?
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Crimea conveniently comes with rights to a large swathe of the Black Sea, and with it large deposits of relatively straightforward to exploit oil.
Otherwise, russia's options for future petrochemical exploration are mostly limited to expensive and difficult to extract Arctic caches.
hugo7
ectoplasmosis
My Russian colleague at work pointed out that the original invasion of Crimea was to secure access to the Black sea. This is the only port that Russia has with access to a coastline that doesn't freeze in winter. He also pointed out that Crimea is historically short of water, which is piped in from mainland Crimea.
We know that Ukraine cut this supply off as one of their responses to the invasion of the Crimea, so you can see how this all feeds into their paranoia.