The Crimea Catalyst

FTFA:

>pro-Russian Kyiv is vital to Moscow because:

The presence of a pro-Western EU/NATO member state on the Northern European Plain (a corridor straight into Russia) is too great a threat to allow...<

The idea that today one can use flat-earth geography in warfare just as was done in previous centuries is fatally flawed. Mountains and rivers remain effective barriers to men, horses and tanks but aircraft/missiles/drones go right over them.

Thinking in terms of of 12th-17th (and even older) century battles and bold cavalry charges is a mistake on today's "battlefield".