In response to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis, we must first ask a few questions. Why did Putin suddenly press down on Ukraine at this time? What does he want? How can the parties react?
The Russian-Ukrainian crisis began in March 2021. Putin has staged several rounds of troop increase and withdrawal, and alternate use of military and diplomatic means, but the risk of entering a war in 2022 has risen sharply and has become very realistic. In January 2021, the Tank Army of Russia’s Western Military Region received a batch of new equipment, and the atmosphere began to become abnormal. In March, Russia had already sent 100,000 troops outside the Ukrainian border; but with the meeting in June of Putin and Biden in Geneva, Switzerland, Russia withdrew some of its troops on the border, the atmosphere seems to have eased, and the global stock market in 2021 has not been greatly affected by this. In the last two months of 2021, especially near the end of the year, the atmosphere suddenly became tense again, and Russia increased its troops and mobilized heavy weapons. , the deployment of the Ukrainian half-package has been formed.
As of mid-January 2022, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense believes that the pre-invasion deployment of the Russian army has basically been completed, with about 127,000 troops, 106,000 ground troops, and the rest are sea and air troops; once the invasion occurs, Russia will also have as many as tens of thousands of reserves waiting to enter the battlefield. Add to that 35,000 Russian-backed separatist militants in Eastern Ukraine, and more than 3,000 Russian security forces that have infiltrated Ukraine’s eastern provinces. Therefore, in this future war, Russia can invest nearly 200,000 troops without large-scale mobilization. The Russian army’s firepower includes more than 1,000 tanks, hundreds of self-propelled artillery and rocket launchers, and dozens of short-range tactical missile systems with a range of 500-700 kilometers, which can hit the Ukrainian capital Kiev. Of course, once the Russian army invades, it will be supported by firepower from its Black Sea Fleet and tactical air force, and the number of Russian troops entering the Crimean Peninsula has also greatly increased.
There is not much information about Ukraine’s military strength, and the quantity is not too bad. Without further mobilization, the army has a total force of about 200,000 people, more than 2,000 tanks, and hundreds of tactical missile systems. However, most of its equipment was inherited from the Soviet Union at the beginning of independence. It has been in service for more than 30 years and is either in stock or out of date. The difficulty for Ukraine to develop its national defense is that, under constant pressure from Russia, it is inconvenient for the West to sell its advanced military equipment, which would be considered extremely hostile by Russia. The modernization and upgrading have been together like this, and they gave up nuclear weapons at the beginning of independence, so it has a small chance of winning a high-intensity conventional war with Russia alone, and it is not an opponent of the same magnitude.
Why does Putin suddenly become enthusiastic and want to use force to settle Ukraine from 2021? This is actually a continuation of the Crimea incident in 2014, which Russia claims is to prevent Ukraine from becoming a member of NATO and to ensure Russia’s security. In 2019, Ukraine established the route of joining NATO and the European Union through constitutional amendments, but did not reach a specific timetable with the European Union and NATO. At that time, President Trump did not want to have a deadlock with Russia and was not active in Ukraine’s accession to the alliance. Not in a hurry. Things are different now. I guess that Putin’s motive for attacking at this time is similar to Hitler’s idea of the crisis of annexing the Czech Sudetenland in 1938.
In 1938, Hitler saw the pain of Britain and France, two major European powers struggling after the Great Depression. the result you want. Putin probably also saw the pain of European and American societies struggling with the epidemic. People just want to get through the epidemic and return to normal as soon as possible, and never want to go into another war. So he wanted to get rid of the confidant that had been delayed for several years after the Ukrainian Color Revolution in one fell swoop, turn Ukraine into a small follower of Russia like Belarus and Kazakhstan, and restore the sphere of influence before the disintegration of the Soviet Union. This is his ultimate goal.
However, the current list of prices that Putin can offer is still uncertain and has great flexibility, which depends on the firmness of the will of all parties to fight against Russia. His lower-level demands are: NATO to shrink, a commitment not to include Ukraine in NATO, and to make the pro-Russian eastern provinces of Ukraine more independent. If these goals are not achieved, the labor and teachers will get nothing. Putin has always called the disintegration of the Soviet Union the “disaster of the century”. Russia’s population is only 51.5% of the Soviet era, and its GDP has lost about 40%. Tens of millions of Russians have been drawn beyond the border. Putin’s first step is to re-incorporate into Russia the areas where the majority of Russians are abroad. This is the first goal of the rise of Germany before World War II. is consistent.
What about the reaction of Western countries, because Ukraine is not a member of NATO, so it has not sent troops to protect it after being invaded by NATO. In fact, it is impossible for the parliaments of various countries to approve such a plan to send troops. U.S. President Biden also made it clear that sending troops to Ukraine is not an option, and all that can be done militarily is NATO members in Eastern Europe and members of the Baltic Sea to increase troops to deter Russia. The main counterattack is that the action is at the level of economic sanctions. There have been discussions on the possibility of kicking Russia out of the international banking communication system SWIFT, which is equivalent to expelling Russia from the world in the financial field and making it an economic island. The economic consequences will be Destructive, but it is very likely that this step will not be reached. It will cause too much pain to Western companies with ties to Russia, and it will also hit the global stock market too much, which is not conducive to the recovery of economic confidence after the epidemic.
Now Europe and the United States are suffering from inflation caused by over-issued currency during the epidemic. Leaders of various countries do not want to delay the recovery of their economies in order to impose sanctions on Russia. So Putin is also looking at the weakness of Western leaders at this point. So far, we haven’t seen any consensus among Western leaders on how to sanction Russia’s aggression. Everyone only said that the consequences would be serious, but there was no consensus on what specific consequences would be conveyed to Putin.
The latest diplomatic news is: Russia-Ufa-German Quartet reached a temporary cooling agreement in Paris on January 26, maintaining the “Minsk Agreement” reached in 2015, a ceasefire on the Russian-Ukrainian border, and next month’s talks in Berlin. . Maintaining the ceasefire means that a large-scale invasion will not happen for a few weeks. Some interpretations believe that this is because Putin demolished Xi Jinping in order to give face to Xi Jinping, and the war broke out in Europe during the Winter Olympics. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Sherman estimates Putin’s deadline to use force against Ukraine is mid-February, well into the late stages of the Winter Olympics. Because one of Putin’s trump cards to threaten Europe is the supply of natural gas, most of the winter will be over after the end of February, and his trump card will be greatly reduced. It seems that February is indeed a critical moment for him to decide whether to use force.
Every time such a crisis occurs, there is a great power that plays the role of appeasement, this time Germany. Germany’s natural gas dependence on Russia has reached 55%, and it has been increasing year by year since the Crimea crisis. Germany’s energy policy and Ukraine’s security and independence are also in direct conflict. Once the “Nord Stream-2” gas pipeline between Germany and Russia is completed, Russia’s natural gas to Europe will not have to pass through Ukraine, and Ukraine will lose its checks and balances against Putin. The most powerful economic weapon, Putin is even more reckless with Ukraine. Germany is also not in favor of providing Ukraine with defensive weapons. At present, it has assisted 5,000 helmets. The mayor of Kiev was mocked as “Let’s play, do you want to give us pillows next time?”
How do you view the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis on the world situation? Many friends who are concerned about the situation in China are very worried that once Russia invades Ukraine, fighting against Russia will become the number one task in the West, and the CCP will get a chance to breathe. It is even possible that Xi Jinping may send troops to the Taiwan Strait while the United States and Europe have no time to look east. Could it be that the heavens do not bless and the tyranny of the Chinese people will continue to suffer?
First of all, compared to Hitler in 1938, Putin’s domestic support is much lower. Russia has a fairly basic opposition force. In early 2021, due to the poisoning of opposition leaders, anti-Putin demonstrations broke out in many cities in Russia. In the freezing weather, tens of thousands of citizens took to the streets in Moscow and thousands in St. Petersburg. popular assembly. Putin would not have the same one-sided domestic support that Hitler did to wage war.
Economically, Russia’s national strength is still too weak. In the preliminary estimated GDP ranking of countries in the world in 2021, Russia will fall out of 10 again, behind Canada, and possibly behind South Korea, and Australia with a population of 25 million is in the same place. In terms of per capita GDP, Russia will be even worse in 2020, falling to the 60th place in the world, even behind Turkey and Malaysia. In 2013, before the Crimean crisis, Russia’s GDP per capita was among the top 50 in the world. Nearly 10 years have passed, and people’s livelihood in Russia has seriously regressed, which is completely contrary to Hitler’s economic achievements in saving Germany from the Great Depression before World War II. Hitler entered the war with the support of the German economic machine and the backing of popular fanaticism. Putin has neither, except a still young, adventurous heart.
Secondly, Ukraine is a big country with more than 44 million people. It is also a big European country in terms of population size. Germany has more than 80 million and France has more than 67 million. Putin must consider the cost of occupation and control after the invasion. Unless he can bring up a puppet after he has overthrown President Volodymyr Zelensky by force that can effectively control the domestic situation in Ukraine, it will become a quagmire that holds him back. It is not yet clear that any influential political figure in Ukraine would be willing to play the puppet. In 1979, an Afghanistan with a population of more than 10 million could boast of the Soviet Empire, not to mention a Ukraine with a population of more than 44 million compared with a Russia whose national strength has been weakened? This bun is too big for Putin’s appetite.
Of course, this does not mean that Putin is bluffing. In 2008, he subdued the South Ossetian war in Georgia, annexed Crimea in 2014, and intervened in Kazakhstan in 2022. The success of a series of actions may make him very High self-evaluation; Western divisions and weakness, and Biden’s confusion over the Afghan withdrawal may all make him feel that luck is on his side.
Russia’s economic weakness may in turn lead him to believe that military adventures are necessary, and control of more land and population may lead him to believe that it will make Russia economically stronger. In short, until the end of this winter, the risk of his use of force against Wu is still very high, and once the invasion occurs, I think the risk of his failure is even greater.
Going back to the question that everyone is most concerned about, the significance of the Russia-Ukraine crisis to China lies in whether it will make Russia stronger or weaker. If Russia is weakened, more resources will be used to contain the CCP, which is bad news for the CCP. Once Putin takes the step of intrusion, it provokes a complex and systemic response. We can’t guess the details of the process, but I expect the high probability consequence: Western countries will want stronger leaders. Like the rise of Churchill and the resignation of Chamberlain in 1940 after the outbreak of World War II, Western countries also hope for more united actions; compared with the consequences of sanctions, controlling Ukraine will not be enough to bring economic benefits to Russia, but will become a A burden that consumes national power. For the sake of his imperial dream, Putin will make the country enter a dead end and increase the instability in his own country. For the CCP, the bleakness of Russia’s great backer will be transformed into its own burden. In short, in February next month, the answer will be unfolded.
