[djao]

Study some geography. The US is blessed with wide open coastal access to, not one, but two oceans, with innumerable natural harbors on each coast (Chesapeake Bay, the San Francisco Bay Area, Puget Sound, Port of NY&NJ, Port of Los Angeles, etc. etc. etc.). The US has more and better natural harbors than all of Africa. We tend to take this for granted, and forget that other countries are severely limited in comparison. These limitations are exploitable.

Russia needs Crimea because without it they have very limited access to the Black Sea, and by extension the Mediterranean and the Atlantic; their other coasts, on the Baltic and in East Asia, are not adequate substitutes. The Baltic ports in particular tend to freeze in the winter -- not good if you have global superpower aspirations.

In the case of Taiwan, look at a map of China. Although China is comparable in land mass to the US, their sea access is limited to an eastern coast enclosed almost entirely by the South China Sea / East China Sea. Look at all the countries on the other side of the Chinese coast: Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, South Korea, and of course Taiwan. The US has military and naval bases in most of them. In the case of Philippines, Japan, and South Korea, the US has a LOT of naval bases, notably in Okinawa, halfway between Japan and Taiwan. This is no accident. In the event of conflict, the US could easily blockade China. A quick glance at the map shows how critical Taiwan is to this calculation. If the US controls Taiwan, it owns a huge island (a.k.a. unsinkable aircraft carrier) staring down the middle of the Chinese coast. If China owns Taiwan, the east coast of Taiwan has direct access to the rest of the Pacific.

US geography is so OP that we don't realize how bad other countries have it.

(By the way, the other countries mentioned are also geographically strategic assets. Kuwait has 10 times more coastline than Iraq. Without Kuwait, Iraq has only a few ports available to ship out their oil, and no other ocean access anywhere. Israel also controls a huge chunk of the Middle East's Mediterranean coastline.)

[racional]

Russia doesn't need to have territorial sovereignty over the Crimea.

The ideologues currently running Russia desire to have the Crimea for its symbolic significance -- as a means of projecting power, and of thumbing its nose at the West. And for their various internal narratives (Наш Крым and all that). Which gets a lot closer to the core issue of what the war is actually about.

It was never about Russia "needing" the Crimea in any meaningful sense. Any more than WW II was about Germany "needing" to annex the Danzig Corridor.

[djao]

To the contrary, Russia does need Crimea, although military naval ports is not the main reason why. Crimean waters contain huge natural gas and oil deposits. If Ukraine were left to develop Crimea unhindered, it would overturn Russia's gas monopoly in Europe, which is practically their only source of cash. The same motive lies behind Russia's interference in Eastern Ukraine -- therein lies the rest of Ukraine's fossil fuel resources.

Russia does not actually need to extract oil and gas from Crimea, although it would be a nice bonus for them if they could. The main imperative is to prevent Ukraine from having it.

Once Russia captured Crimea, the "land corridor" to Crimea became a necessary next domino. Crimea's only source of fresh water is overland via Ukraine. Obviously the first thing Ukraine did when Russia annexed Crimea was turn off the taps. (Would you keep sending freshwater into enemy territory?) In order to maintain power in Crimea in the long run, it is necessary for Russia to invade enough of Ukraine to take over the freshwater canals that supply Crimea.

[Paradigma11]

Russia also has Novorossiysk on the black sea which is a bigger port than Sevastopol anyway. Putin had planned to move the black sea HQ there but then got a leasing arrangement with Ukraine. Was apparently still too expensive though.