Oppositionist and lawyer Mark Feygin in an interview with Unian, spoke about the sacred meaning of Crimea for the Russian Federation.
"He will lose Crimea, Donbas, and everything else. On the battlefield or after that, it doesn't matter, but he will lose, because if you start losing, you will not start winning. It's like in a casino.
It seems that Putin is throwing all the last chips on the table. The September 21 mobilization was one of those tricks.
What chips does he still have? Nuclear bomb? And there is nothing more. That's all. Yes, he can launch another wave of mobilization and still catch up with the "raw meat". What can he lose? Roughly speaking, if they lose Melitopol, they will survive it, because political virginity has already been lost after Kherson. And Crimea is very important. This is something without which the whole structure crumbles.
The fact is that Russia, historically as an empire, did not grow at the expense of overseas colonies - it did not have them. The Russian people moved to the neighboring limits and occupied them. He stuck a flag, and arranged his orders. Crimea is a form of expansion of the empire. If it is cut, it will be a heavier loss because they gave it some archaic, historical and sacred meaning.
Russia is a poor country. This is the great steppe. Somewhere there are endless expanses of fields and forests, but there is no sea. And here it is so close, in the south… There are many temptations in possession of the Crimea. At least some blooming edge. All this adds up to a loss of losses, so Crimea will probably be such a point."
