With the intensification of the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine has been pushed to the cusp of the game between Russia and the United States and the European Union.
Ukrainians born with the "Golden Key":
Ukraine was once one of the best-endowed countries on the planet for natural resources.
Most of Ukraine belongs to the Eastern European Plain, with a land area of more than 600,000 square kilometers ranking second in Europe, and black soil area accounts for two-thirds of its land area.
Ukraine's vast black land
The black earth is the most fertile soil in the world. Although the continent is vast, only the three eastern provinces have black land, and the total area of black land arable land is only more than 185,000 kilometers, about half of Ukraine.
Fertile soil resources have made Ukraine "wear" the laurel of the "granary of Europe".
However, The "favor" of Heaven seems to be more than that, in addition to the fertile land resources, the rich mineral resources have also been "donated" to Ukraine.
More than 80 kinds of rich minerals have been proved to be available for mining, including coal, iron, manganese, nickel, titanium and so on. Among them, the proven reserves of iron ore reached 27.5 billion tons, and the reserves of manganese ore exceeded 2.1 billion tons, ranking the forefront of the world.
In the former Soviet Union, Ukraine once accounted for 40% of the former Soviet Union's steel production.
In addition to its remarkable natural endowments, Ukraine once had a fearful military industrial prowess. In the former Soviet Union, Ukraine's scientific and technological strength accounted for about 1/4 of the Soviet Union, and the proportion of practical inventions and patents reached 40%.
Weapons and equipment of Ukraine during the Soviet period
To put it more intuitively, the continent's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was built in Ukraine, and two of the continent's large hovercraft carriers, the Bison, were also made in Ukraine.
It can be said that around 2010, Ukraine still has a lot of places worth learning from China in terms of military industry.
When Ukraine first became independent, it continued the Soviet Union's large number of formed weapons and equipment, including more than 1,500 combat aircraft, more than 7,000 armored vehicles, more than 6,000 tanks, and more than 350 large and small warships. This naval and land military might be enough to destroy any medium-sized country at the time.
At the same time, more than 1,200 intercontinental missile nuclear warheads and more than 2,500 tactical nuclear weapons exceeded the sum of all the nuclear-armed countries in the world except the United States and Russia, and was the world's third-largest nuclear power worthy of the name at that time.
The Decline of Ukraine:
But all this is just what it once was, since Ukraine's independence in 1991, and now 31 years later, the ukrainian population has plummeted from 51 million to more than 44 million.
As the economic powerhouse of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine once accounted for 0.41% of the world's GDP, but now it accounts for only 0.18%.
Kiev in the 80s
In 1988, Ukraine's per capita GDP was $1,449, while China's per capita GDP at the time was only $283, five times ours.
However, although Ukraine's per capita GDP has grown to $3,700 in 2020, it seems to have more than doubled, but the mainland's per capita GDP has reached $11,400, and Ukraine's per capita GDP has gone from five times that of China to only one-third of China, which only took 30 years.
Ukraine's currency: the hryvnia, which was converted to the dollar in 1991, is basically a 1-to-1 ratio, but today, 28 hryvnia can be exchanged for 1 dollar.
Economic intransigence has left ordinary Ukrainians struggling to feed themselves.
The salaries of teachers and nurses in Ukraine are equivalent to about two thousand yuan, and Ukraine is similar to Russia, the development of light industry is backward, and the basic use of clothing depends on imports, so the price level is much higher than that of the mainland.
The income of ordinary Ukrainians barely balances after barely meeting their monthly basic expenses.
Relief food for the poor people of Ukraine
As the world's former industrial and scientific and technological power, which has produced aircraft carriers and nuclear bombs, it is reasonable to say that Ukraine should now also be a major exporter of weapons and high value-added products.
But today Ukraine's main exports are metallurgy, agricultural products and ores, and it has been completely reduced to one of the poorest countries in Europe that relies on the export of primary commodities and agricultural products.
Self-deprecating martial arts:
Ukraine can be said to have "degenerated" from a king in full-level god costume to a bronze that abolished its martial arts in thirty years. So we can't help but ask, what exactly happened to Ukraine?
First of all, after independence, Ukraine began to copy the routine of the Western countries at that time to "develop" the economy, and implemented "shock therapy", that is, the so-called "economic liberalization and economic privatization", but the result was to feed the domestic oligarchs and suck the country dry.
Ukraine's powerful politicians at that time frantically sold state assets, and even more directly transferred state assets to foreign capital without compensation, so that they could only become agents of Western countries in Ukraine.
Female Prime Minister of Ukraine - Tymoshenko
In the "turbulent" domestic economic situation, Ukraine's original industrial system was rapidly destroyed by the West, and those politicians who betrayed Ukraine's interests took the opportunity to unite with Western capital to "control" ukraine's economic lifeline, transformed into an oligarch.
The rapid collapse of Ukraine's domestic economy has turned powerful military weapons into a drag, and the state's finances cannot afford to pay huge weapons maintenance costs.
In 1994, under the ruse of the Western countries led by the United States and Britain, Ukraine decided to eliminate all nuclear weapons and become a non-nuclear state.
In exchange, the United States, Britain and other Western countries have given Ukraine strong economic support while protecting the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine's existing territory.
But in hindsight, the Ukrainians kept their promise to completely destroy their nuclear weapons and destroyed even the supporting mature missile silos.
The Economic Assistance to Ukraine by Western countries, led by the United States and Britain, has been delayed again and again, and the commitment to protect Ukraine's territorial integrity is now empty talk.
The current president of Ukraine
The above-mentioned seemingly "confused" decision is actually the epitome of a series of failed decisions after Ukraine's independence, and Ukraine, which is in the "land of four wars", has not yet found its own positioning, and suddenly pro-Europe and the United States, suddenly close to Russia.
Oligarchs, politicians, you sing me, let Ukraine sink deeper and deeper into the quagmire of decline.
Since 2014, under the control of Ukrainian energy giants, the price of electricity in Ukraine has risen dozens of times, and natural gas has also risen dozens of times, but the income of ordinary people has basically not increased much, and many poor people in Ukraine do not even need electricity.
The domestic economy is shrinking, the most unfortunate is the middle and lower classes of the people, millions of Ukrainian young adults can only be forced to go abroad to earn a living, especially many Ukrainian girls, after arriving in Western Europe, can only be reduced to a tragic tool, they also have another "name": "the womb of Europe".
It is not only Ukraine who have become tool people, but also Ukraine, which has lost control of its economy and declined national strength, has naturally become a "tool man" in the great power game.
Women of Ukraine
And when Ukraine needed the people of ukraine the most, those oligarchs who usually sucked the "blood" of the country fled Ukraine early and sang abroad night and night by relying on the people's fat extracted in Ukraine.
Before ukraine's conflict with Russia intensified, Ukraine's top 100 billionaires ran 96.
epilogue:
I hope that Ukraine will find the right direction in the years to come, perhaps abide by diplomatic neutrality, embrace China's "Belt and Road" initiative, and make every effort to develop its domestic economy so that the people can live a happy life first.
China-Europe Express
With a solid economic foundation and Ukraine's industrial heritage, it is natural for the country to be strong.
Here, I only hope that Ukraine, which has experienced vicissitudes and devastation, can get out of the haze of war as soon as possible and return the normal life of ordinary Ukrainian people.
No matter the scale of the war, it is bound to be cruel, the decline of the country is bound to be beaten, and development is the last word!