As Russia's military operations against Ukraine continue, there are different voices within Russia about the significance of Russian military operations. Although Putin has gained high popularity at home, there is still a wave of anti-war protests in 53 cities in Russia, including St. Petersburg, calling on all parties to stop the conflict. In order to stabilize the internal situation, the Russian internal security services have taken measures to control the situation. According to Russian media reports, many of the people involved in the protest are from the literary and sports circles, these groups of people have previously been "die-hard fans" who strongly support Putin, and now they have taken to the streets to call on all parties to exercise restraint, which shows that some people in Russia have insufficient understanding of the significance of this military action. Putin once again explained the significance of this military operation to the people of the whole country on the 25th, although the 10,000-word speech basically expressed Russia's demands and motives, but in the long run, there may be no winner in the Ukrainian war, and the difficulties faced by Russia may be aggravated.
Western sanctions against Russia have escalated
The means of financial sanctions imposed by the United States on Russia mainly include freezing or confiscating assets, cutting off international financing channels, and restricting access to the international payment system. The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) freezes the assets of individuals and businesses through a specially designated national list, while also prohibiting U.S. citizens from transacting with relevant entities on the list. In March 2014, following Crimea's announcement of a Canadian Russia, U.S. President Barack Obama issued two executive orders in succession imposing financial sanctions on Russian officials linked to the incident and freezing their assets in the United States. Since then, the list of sanctioned targets has been expanded. According to of THEAC's relevant announcements, as of July this year, a total of 308 Russian individuals and enterprises have been listed as specially designated nationals. In addition to the List of Specially Designated Nationals, OFAC also has an Industry Sanctions Identification List, where individuals or businesses on the Sanctioned Industries List will not only be frozen in assets, but also restricted from trading. On March 20, 2014, Obama issued Executive Order No. 13662, which placed Russia's financial services, energy, metals and mining, engineering, defense or related raw material industries on the industry sanctions identification list. According to the order, OFAC issued four specific instructions prohibiting INDIVIDUALs or enterprises in the United States from purchasing or trading bonds or stocks of a certain period of time issued by individuals or enterprises in relevant industries in Russia, and prohibiting the provision of financing support to the targets of Russian sanctions. For example, on July 29, 2014, the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against the three major Russian financial institutions, the Bank of Moscow, the Russian Agricultural Bank, and the Russian Foreign Trade Bank, in accordance with Executive Order No. 13662, prohibiting U.S. residents from providing financing to them and restricting their access to the U.S. capital market. The U.S. government has also adopted other legal measures to restrict the external financing of Russian enterprises and financial institutions. For example, the United States announced sanctions in August 2019, including preventing international financial institutions from providing any loans or financial assistance to Russia, prohibiting U.S. banks from participating in primary market purchases of Non-ruble-priced Russian sovereign debt, and prohibiting the provision of non-ruble-priced funds to the Russian government. At present, western countries represented by the United States have restricted or even severed Russia's ties with the international payment system, thus making it impossible for Russia to conduct normal international economic transactions with the outside world. For example, with the implementation of financial sanctions imposed by the United States on Russia, the United States Visa Company and MasterCard Company stopped providing payment services to bank cards issued by relevant Russian banks. More seriously, the United States has been considering banning the "Global Interbank Financial Telecommunication Association" (SWIFT) system from providing services to Russian financial institutions. SWIFT is a non-profit international interbanking partnership. Once a financial institution is listed as a target of sanctions by SWIFT, regardless of any correspondent bank or agent account, all payment and settlement instructions issued by it will be suspended and the transaction of US dollar funds will be cut off. The Republican Research Committee of the US House of Representatives issued a strategic report pointing out that although the United States cannot control SWIFT, it can authorize sanctions on SWIFT through legislation until Russia is excluded from SWIFT.
Protests erupted in several Russian cities
Although the Russian security services controlled the situation on the evening of the 24th, some of the claims of the protesters caused extensive discussion on the Internet. In Moscow, many people questioned the legitimacy of the Kremlin's decisions, and many believed that "in the civilized 21st century, we should never see such a war." According to the data quoted by foreign media, the proportion of people in Russia who support the independence of the two countries in Eastern Ukraine has just reached 50%, and the Russian people's understanding of the Ukrainian issue before the 24th has a clear polarization trend. Many well-known figures in the Russian literary and sports circles who previously firmly supported Putin also expressed the hope that the Russian government would readjust its strategy and avoid more bloodshed. On the whole, after the completion of the Russian military operation against Ukraine, Moscow not only needs to come up with policies and resources to calm the chaos in Ukraine, but also needs to spend more resources to explain the merits of the operation to the domestic public, which increases the political and military costs of the military operation. On the 25th, after Putin delivered a 10,000-word speech, the understanding of the Ukrainian issue in Russia began to converge, but the Russian government still needs to continue to work hard to maintain the rationality of its actions.
There's nothing new under the sun
After the end of the conflict in the Debalycevo region in 2015, the Ukrainian army basically lost its main heavy equipment and lost its war potential. However, under the blood transfusion of the West, from 2021, the Ukrainian army returned to its previous state and enriched a large number of Ukrainian militants into the army, although these extremists obeyed the command of Kiev, but there was a great randomness in the implementation of orders, which directly led to the continuous friction between the Ukrainian forces in the east of Ukraine and the militia in Eastern Ukraine. As Ukraine and NATO become more and more connected, the geopolitical landscape in Russia has deteriorated dramatically. From Russia's point of view, instead of spending 1-2 years to eliminate the main force of the Ukrainian army again, and then waiting for it to "make a comeback" after a few years, it is better to solve the problem completely by itself and make Ukraine incapacitated, which is the direct purpose of Russia's military operation. Although the sanctions imposed by Western countries on Russia look grandiose, who remembers how many countries NATO has divided and caused many wars since the end of the Cold War, and why are NATO countries that owe blood debts to other countries qualified to lead this sanction against Russia? The behavior of the Russian military has indeed caused a lot of controversy, but if it is really necessary to implement intervention measures, the United Nations and other agencies can also intervene, how can some Western countries come to pretend to be this calf? There is nothing new under the sun, and the West's disregard and arrogance toward geopolitics and the sovereignty of other countries are the root causes of this tragedy, and as China, we can only view this geopolitical tragedy from the perspective of historical merits and demerits.