The world watched with horror as Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Now the world is wondering if Vladimir Putin will follow the same pattern in eastern Ukraine.

Time will tell because Putin must weigh Russia’s security needs of having buffer states between it and Europe, and Russia’s economic need to sell its oil and natural gas to keep its economy afloat.

To understand the crisis in Ukraine, geography and history must be taken into account. Geography has played a major part in Russia’s entire history. Most of western Russia is flat with no natural barriers to stop an invader from the west. Russia has been invaded several times in its history from that direction: Vikings, Swedes, Poles, the French under Napoleon and Germans in World Wars I and II.

The Mongols in 1240, led by Batu Khan, grandson of Kublai Khan, captured Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, from the east. The Steppes (a flat, often treeless plain) of Russia provided no barriers to those ravaging hordes on horseback.

Put yourself in Russia’s historical mindset for a moment. You live in a house that has been burglarized seven or more times. What are you going to do? If you are like most people, you would find yourself becoming very suspicious and on edge, building high fences, getting ferocious dogs, perhaps even hiring guards to patrol your property.

If you examine its history, that is what has happened to Russia due to numerous invasions. Russians are very security conscious.

Bring that thinking up to the late 20th century. Joseph Stalin took over and occupied eastern Europe at the end of World War II after the Nazis had invaded the Soviet Union along a 1,000-mile front. The communists kept eastern Europe in subjection from 1945 until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Russia needs buffer zones to protect itself. It’s part of the Russian mentality.

Let’s now look at what happened in Ukraine. (The word Ukraine means borderlands.) Ukraine has been fought over for centuries, being first controlled by the Russians and then the Poles and Germans. The western part of Ukraine tends to favor European perspectives. The eastern part tends to be made up of Russophiles. They desire to be part of Russia again. Western Ukraine is primarily agricultural, while eastern Ukraine is where most of the heavy industry is located.

Western Ukrainians have pushed to come under the protective umbrella of the European Union and NATO. Putin’s goal has been to keep that from happening.

In November 2013 Victor Yanukovych rejected a pending EU association agreement that would have tied Ukraine more tightly to Europe. He chose instead to link Ukraine to Russia. These decisions caused street protests in Kiev by those who were angry at his move.

As we have seen in recent news, those demonstrations resulted in a near civil war that caused the injuries and deaths of many Ukrainians. In February 2014 Yanukovych fled the capital, eventually ending up in Russia. With the departure of Yanukovych, Putin’s plan to keep Ukraine nonaligned failed. The occupation and annexation of Crimea came as a result of that failure. Russia needs Ukraine as a physical buffer to future invasions from Europe.

Economically, the Ukrainian crisis has also damaged Russia. Thirty percent of Europe’s natural gas comes from Russia, most of it through Ukraine. When Russia puts pressure on Ukraine, that dispute tends to spill over into Europe as it has on several recent occasions. Since much of Russia’s cash comes from sales of natural gas, this crisis makes Europeans both hesitant to challenge Russia about its actions in Ukraine and at the same time insecure about its needed supplies of fuel. As a result of the Ukrainian crisis, Russia’s GDP has dropped to .5 percent from 2.5 percent as capital has fled Russia for more secure areas.

Putin is caught in something of a Catch-22. If he pushes too hard in Ukraine, he’ll lose the trust of his European customers and Russian income will diminish. This may cause Putin to look to China as a potential new customer. This will also push Europe back into the arms of the United States, something Putin doesn’t want.

If Putin doesn’t push Ukraine enough, Russia is caught with insecure western borders, something that is frightening to the Russians with their long history of invasions from the West.

To understand both Ukraine and Russian actions, one has to understand both how history and geography interplay in this part of the world.