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Not a huge geopolitics expert but seems like a major escalation.
> Not a huge geopolitics expert but seems like a major escalation.

I only know the foundations, but this is not an unexpected development if you've been reading more than what your teachers tell you

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics#Con...

If you read carefully, RU plans to play the anti nuclear states like DE against those aligned with Francophone aligned countries like Belgium to create a buffer zone.

Turn over Kaliningrad to the Germans, insist on a "special status" for Poland, then play the CIA (and it's five eyes) against DGSE as they take large swathes of the Ukraine, as China stands by ready to stretch folks thin at a moment's notice while playing up it's no second strike policy and lack of wars of aggression as it riddles the South Taiwain Straits with little islands.

But I'm not a geopolitics expert, just an unemployed guy pounding espresso in a hipster café, you probably shouldn't listen to me... I don't even have a PhD :-)

Yeah, that's pretty disgusting stuff. Fortunately, Ukraine hasn't been willing to play their assigned role. May others also be as unwilling, and as stalwart.
To me, too. If nothing else, it's handing Putin an excuse to escalate on a silver platter. That seems unwise, even if he is stretched rather thin at the moment.
Nuke-armed rogue state. What not to like. The world seems to be recapitulating the 1930’s after doing the 1920’s. These didn’t turn out too well.
I saw this video on the history of Kaliningrad the other day, quite well done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2f9Zf-MDtU

Russia has at various times tried to give away Kaliningrad to several countries, who refused it because... it's full of Russians, and Russia will inevitably invade whoever has native Russian speakers to "come to their rescue". It wasn't Putin that invented this, as it turns out.

Did the offer include all Kaliningrad, or the plan was that Russia keep the naval base?