It's not that his country was short on resources. But it seems likely that he simply calculated that the cost of the invasion would be more than offset by the gain in resources.
No doubt the manpower (and financial) costs have been much higher than expected. But it seems that his country's tolerance thresholds on these dimensions have turned out to be significantly higher than he was expecting at the outset, also.
But now when the economy is dominated by tech I'm not sure it pays.
Right - for modern empires, which dominate primarily through their economic, technological and cultural prowess (and which have grown tired of slaughtering their own peoples in mass numbers for speculative geopolitical gain), it doesn't make sense at all.
But Putin knows his empire can't compete on any of those fronts. And since he has comparatively few restrictions on the number of his people's lives he can throw down the drain for the sake of his various projects - we can see how the 19th century model starts to seem all the more appealing to him.
No doubt the manpower (and financial) costs have been much higher than expected. But it seems that his country's tolerance thresholds on these dimensions have turned out to be significantly higher than he was expecting at the outset, also.
But now when the economy is dominated by tech I'm not sure it pays.
Right - for modern empires, which dominate primarily through their economic, technological and cultural prowess (and which have grown tired of slaughtering their own peoples in mass numbers for speculative geopolitical gain), it doesn't make sense at all.
But Putin knows his empire can't compete on any of those fronts. And since he has comparatively few restrictions on the number of his people's lives he can throw down the drain for the sake of his various projects - we can see how the 19th century model starts to seem all the more appealing to him.