alt Hacker NewsChernihiv is 280 miles, I was off my a bit. Kaliningrad is not the concern. Sevastopol is a different type of concern (navy power). Russia has a long insecurity about its western boarder going back way before Putin, no leadership there unless in the pocket of the US was going to allow that in the same way China ain’t building an alliance with Mexico. This is geopolitics 101, day 1 material.
Exactly the same way the Russians are uneasy about Chernihiv, Western countries are uneasy about Kaliningrad with it's nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles.
https://metro.co.uk/2025/06/17/russia-upgrades-nuclear-sites...
Geopolitics 101 also says that in a war between countries armed with ICBMs delivering nuclear weapons, distance doesn't matter, everyone dies. Especially with second-strike capability like Dead Hand (Sistema "Perimetr").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_hand