I’m confident the attack on the whole Ukraine is to prevent Western weapon supplied counter attacks. I doubt they have long term plans for occupation for the entire country.
You think it's easier to invade a country in home territory, while they had years to prepare between the previous invasion and now, than it is to defend against some attack that Ukraine might hope to mount against Russia? That sounds... unlikely. It's apparently also what supporters of Russia are saying, so I doubt this is the whole truth, even if there were a grain of truth to an all-out attack being "self defense".
Of the three options of don't invade, invade a little, or invade the whole country, invading a little would allow Ukraine to mount an attack against the breakaway regions and the West was bound to supply advanced weapons to make sure they would be successful at it. So when Putin said they were going to secure the breakaway regions my first thoughts was that there would be no way to do that unless you neutralize the entirety of Ukraine.
The map seems to show that Russia has ports on the Black sea especially since they took Crimea. Turkey owns the mouth of the Black Sea and it is already part of NATO
Do you mean what they said or what others said that they said because unfortunately they are different and not enough people know that despite how easy it is to check?
That page is what people are using to suggest he is reestablishing USSR which is not my read of it. On the subsequent page which I’m going by memory because it is inaccessible they state that they will neutralize and de-nazify the country. From that I don’t see how people are getting to long term occupation (except for the breakaway regions). Their objectives can be met by demilitarization which is what I assume they mean by neutralization of Ukraine and I think that is something everyone could come to terms with as a reasonable compromise. If Ukraine starts re-arming then Russia would come back and prevent it.
Russia doesn't have the logistical power to have an occupational force. They need to implement a strawman government and hope that the military falls into place.
Russia has the Donbass separatist militias, which would make for a perfect occupation force - they are ideologically motivated, but also, they know that they'll be treated as traitors by any Ukrainian state with more than a semblance of independence.
Many of those 44 million will become refugees in Europe. And some - not many, but probably at least a couple million more - will support the occupying forces.
Authoritarian regimes manage to keep their population in check with forces smaller than that.
