Russia needs deepwater warm ports that aren't iced over for months at a time. They have very few and Sevastopol in Ukraine was one they've had access to for centuries. And it's a very strategically important one because it's where they have access to the whole Black Sea, Mediterranean, and via the Suez Canal, the Middle East for both their commercial and naval needs. They house a naval fleet there so it's akin to our own Norfolk or Pearl Harbor to them.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine and Russia split up. They agreed to a 20 year unrestricted lease of the port for Russia. That expired in 2014. Coincidentally, Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and seized significant territory including, even more coincidentally, Sevastopol. They recently built a bridge over a narrow strait between their seized Ukrainian territory to their own mainland. This essentially cut off the entire Sea of Azov to Ukrainian shipping to/from the Black Sea from their territories on that sea because Russia claims the entire strait is now theirs. However the recognized border between Ukraine and Russia still runs down the middle of that strait.
Russia claimed Ukrainian naval vessels were illegally steaming through Russian waters without permission. I presume Ukraine says "those aren't your waters, we don't need your permission". And here we are.
That about right? I had another Freeper here last night tell me that this was really Ukrainian aggression because they threatened to blow up the bridge the Russians built but that presumes that Russia is in the right in occupying the Ukrainian side of the bridge and redrawing the international boundaries and I don't see it that way given what I understand here.
good encapsulation
Not our fight But
Azov is not a Russian lake any more than the Black sea is a Turkish lake
OR the S china sea is a Chinese lake.