Russia's War Against Ukraine
OP-ED
Roland Flamini: Putin’s war for gas and oil in Crimea
Sunday’s New York Times may have fitted the final piece into the puzzle of what Vladimir Putin’s costly Ukrainian landgrab is really about: offshore oil and gas. Putin has portrayed himself as a man with a mission, namely to protect ethnic Russians from an increasingly oppressive Ukrainian government. But that’s the story for domestic consumption, including the Russian Orthodox Church. In annexing Crimea, the Russians can also claim ownership of—or at any rate, control over—an enormous area of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, off the Crimean shoreline, and with them their underwater resources.