Russia's 4 million square kilometers of territory is not to say no, is it helpless, or is it a wise move? Russia currently has 17.1 million square kilometers of territory, ranking first in the world, if Russia has another 4 million square kilometers of territory, then Russia's territory area will exceed 20 million square kilometers, in fact, in the former Soviet Union, Russia already had 22.4 million square kilometers of territory.
The predecessor of the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire, was once a small Muscovite principality in Eastern Europe, the Russian Empire in three or four hundred years, the territorial area expanded by more than 170 times, their history is a history of territorial expansion in search of the sea, to the Soviet Union has grown into a world power across the Eurasian continent, but also with the United States at that time one of the two superpowers. However, as powerful as the Soviet Union, it disintegrated into 15 countries in 1991 under the struggle with the United States. As the largest heir of the Soviet Union, Russia inherited most of the military power and territory of the Soviet Union, so could Russia have a larger territory when it was divided, and how did it give up 4 million square kilometers of land?
First, let's look at how these former brothers were doing with Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which had fallen into the arms of the West at the beginning of their independence and had turned against Russia, had historically passively joined the Russian Empire and the subsequent Soviet Union, using coercive means in the process of incorporation, causing many tragedies, especially the persecution of the former Soviet Union's Grand Chauvinism, which directly settled the account with russia, the largest heir after the separation. These three countries not only directly declared Russia to be the enemy of the state, but also banned Russian ships from passing through their territorial waters in the Baltic Sea. Belarus shares the same ancestry as Russia, the two countries are as close as brothers, and are the country with the best relations with Russia among all the republics of the Soviet Union. Moldova was historically annexed by the Russian Empire and is not a people of Russia, and is now more inclined to the West. Because they do not border Russia, the relationship between the two countries is neither good nor bad.
Ukraine is the second largest heir of the Soviet Union, and it was in Ukraine that the former leader of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev, was once close to Russia. With the territorial dispute between the two countries, especially Russia's forcible annexation into Crimea, the two countries turned against each other, and ukraine has now completely turned to the Western camp and has been seeking to become a member of the European Union. Of the three countries in the South Caucasus, Armenia has relatively good relations with Russia, Azerbaijan has thrown itself into the arms of the West, Georgia was once the hometown of former Soviet leader Stalin, and now Georgia and Russia are enemies because of territorial disputes. The former Soviet Union in central Asia five member states, the total area of these five stans is about 4 million square kilometers, due to the harsh geographical environment of these five countries, poor resources, in the Soviet union period all rely on the Soviet Union's frontier financial subsidy policy to live, even if they do nothing, follow the powerful Soviet Union can also live a very moist, they can be said to be forced to become independent when the Soviet Union disintegrated.
At present, these five countries except Kazakhstan, the other four countries are very poor, at the time of independence, these five countries did not have any industry to hand, their hearts were very panicked and confused, but also cut off the financial subsidy income. If Russia had been able to retain it at that time, the 4 million square kilometers of territory would have been at its fingertips, but none of this would have been if, and the newly independent Russia was also in internal and external difficulties, and even the normal functioning of the whole country would be a problem, and if these five impoverished brothers were brought with them, let alone increased territory, even if the existing territory could not be maintained, it was still a big problem. In the circumstances, abandoning them may have been a wise decision, or at least to lighten the financial burden and go light. After the dust settled on their respective founding, Russia did not completely abandon them and gave a lot of help to these five countries when it could. Since these five Stanis are landlocked, their commodity energy exports depend on Russia's access to the sea. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are very rich in oil and gas resources, and Russia uses its own pipelines to help them export oil to Europe to earn a lot of foreign exchange.
From a geographical point of view, these countries and Russia belong to the cold relations, Russia tied to them can prevent the infiltration of Western forces, these countries are not willing to become the western countries and Russia game of goods. Unlike Eastern Europe, which except for Belarus, which has turned to the West, the United States and Europe have always been helpless against these five countries, and today's Russia has avoided the situation of being enemies on both sides, so as far as the situation at that time was concerned, the independence of these countries was beneficial to Russia. In fact, for the territory of Russia is eager, to give up their wise and helpless choice at that time, what do you think?