The Russian army has landed in Kiev, but NATO is still a shrunken-headed turtle.
On the evening of the 24th local time, Biden made a speech at the White House, saying that he would not send US troops into Ukraine to fight.
The only action the little old man has done so far is to block Putin's friends on social platforms.
Ukrainian President Zelenskiy even more bluntly called out: The Western international has abandoned Ukraine.
In fact, Russia is now strategically singled out NATO.
However, NATO, led by the United States, has always been accustomed to interfering in various issues, so why does it now have to behave so "only promises" on the Ukraine issue?
(Putin vs Biden)
First, the heavy weapon of the country is ready to go
On February 19, Russia conducted a strategic deterrent exercise.
In the exercise, Russian services, under Putin's direct command, simulated a strike against a formidable military adversary.
This adversary is clearly not Ukraine.
After all, Russia's Strategic Missile Force and the Northern Fleet were also involved in the exercises, and the two forces were not in the same way as the fighting in Ukraine.
According to Russian media reports, the Russian Strategic Missile Force successfully launched ballistic missiles during the exercise.
This is one of the reasons why NATO does not dare to face Russia, and it is also Russia's first trump card.
Russia, the greatest inheritor of the Soviet mantle, controls the legacy of strategic strike forces left by the Soviet Union, and to this day remains the country with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
As of March 2021, Russia still has 1,456 nuclear warheads on strategic duty, more than the United States' 1,357.
These nuclear warheads are deployed on a variety of vehicles capable of launching intercontinental strikes.
For example, Russia's current nuclear strike force, the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile.
(In the picture, it is "Yars" at the top and "poplar" at the bottom)
There are many military fans and readers on the mainland who will confuse Russia's "Poplar", "Poplar-M" and "Yars" ICBMs because the launchers of the three are very similar in appearance.
But in fact they are completely different, NATO gave these three code names "SS-25", "SS-27" and "SS-29", all three of which are a series.
The first model in the series, the SS-25 Poplar ICBD, was the first ICBM developed by the former Soviet Union to use solid fuel for all graded boosters.
(Poplar ICBM)
Previous generations of ballistic missiles, such as Russia's SS-16, used liquid fuel.
The liquid fuel of the missile is divided into two parts, one is combustible and the other is oxidant, and the reason for carrying the additional oxidizer is because the ballistic missile needs to operate outside the atmosphere that lacks oxygen.
Xylene as a combustible agent is highly toxic, while nitrous tetroxide as an oxidant can cause it to spontaneously combust even when exposed to most items.
These two substances must be stored in special anti-corrosion containers and stored at low temperatures, so they cannot be installed on missile launchers for maneuvering like solid-fuel missiles.
In wartime, if the enemy launches nuclear weapons first, these liquid-fueled ICBMs are likely to be wiped out in silos.
(Poplar-M launch moment)
Russia's SS-25 "Poplar" avoids this problem, and after using solid fuel, it can maneuver along Russia's huge road network to any position.
America is nowhere to be found!
The "Poplar-M" and "Yars" intercontinental ballistic missiles are a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles manufactured on the basis of the "Poplar" with a large number of upgrades and improvements.
The Poplar-M has greatly increased its range, from 9,000 km to more than 11,000 km.
The increase in range allowed the Poplar-M to launch strategic strikes in the hinterland of territory farther from the border, thus avoiding targeted uprooting by the enemy's naval and air forces.
Yars, on the other hand, improved its missile head, unlike the Poplar and Poplar-M, which can only fire one nuclear warhead at a time.
Yars can carry eight nuclear warheads of the 500,000-ton TNT explosive equivalent class at a time, each hitting eight different targets.
(Russian "Yars" intercontinental missile sub-missile)
With the blessing of these equipment, Russia's intercontinental ballistic missile force has advanced capabilities for mobile launch and split missile strikes, which makes NATO very jealous.
If NATO dares to intervene directly in the war in Ukraine and clash with Russia, it will most likely lead to a Nuclear Strike from Russia.
That is the risk that NATO countries cannot afford.
So in this new era of superpowers and superpowers, a new proverb has emerged: "When the United States accuses you of weapons of mass destruction, you better really have them." ”
If you don't, what awaits you may be the U.N. General Assembly's allegations against a white detergent solution, and the ensuing U.S. military strike.
Second, grasp the lifeblood of energy and pinch the throat of Europe
Russia is a large energy producer, and its territory is very rich in crude oil resources.
Russia has so far explored oil resources with reserves of 80 billion barrels, ranking eighth in the world.
But thanks to an excellent industrial base and efficient extraction technology, Russia is currently one of the world's largest oil producers, with an annual output of more than 10 million barrels.
At the same time, Russia also has a large amount of natural gas known as the clean energy of the 21st century, with reserves of nearly 50 trillion cubic meters, accounting for nearly 30% of the world's total reserves, ranking first in the world.
How precious are these precious energy products for Europe?
(LNG vessels are very inefficient in seaborne natural gas)
Europe wants to import a lot of natural gas resources. There are only two ways to meet the needs of national life and economic construction:
1. Establish gas pipelines between Western Europe and Russia and directly import Russian natural gas;
2, a large number of LNG ships, imported from the Middle East or the United States.
The geography of Europe dictates that the first option is more cost-effective.
As a result, of the more than 600 billion cubic meters of natural gas produced by Russia every year, Europe will buy a third of it, or more than 200 billion cubic meters.
If Russian-European relations deteriorate, Europe will face a situation of "no gas available", and such a stake will make it impossible for Europe to completely oppose Russia.
This is Russia's second trump card.
(Europe-Russia Gas Pipeline)
After the Ukraine crisis broke out in 2014, Europe also launched sanctions against Russia under pressure from the United States, but how long the sanctions began, Europe found that they were caught in the United States' "tiger and wolf" strategy.
Unlike the conflict of interests of the United States and Russia, which is almost a "zero-sum game", the interests of Russia and Europe are highly bound, and Europe blindly follows the United States to carry out sanctions against Russia, which will only lead to a lose-lose situation in which Europe cuts off "gas" and Russia lacks "money".
So when the Minsk Agreement was signed in 2015, the first thing that warmed relations between Russia and Europe came to mind was to expand a gas pipeline that was not affected by the situation in Ukraine.
This is what we know as "Nord Stream-2".
(Schematic diagram of the Nord Stream Pipeline)
With "Nord Stream-2" there must be "Nord Stream-1", the two gas pipelines have exactly the same path, both starting from St. Petersburg, passing through the bottom of the Baltic Sea, and finally entering Germany.
This pipeline perfectly circumvents ukraine, which is likely to be at war.
Even Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, known as the "three small Baltic states", are avoided, because these three countries are extremely anti-Russian and are likely to bring insecurity to the pipeline.
Nord Stream-2, an expansion of Nord Stream-1, was originally planned to deliver 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Europe a year, but has now been suspended due to a new round of crisis in Ukraine.
Parallel to Nord Stream-2 was shut down at the same time as the Yamal gas pipeline.
(The yellow line in the picture is the Yamal pipeline)
Although this natural gas pipeline is not as interesting as nord stream-2, it also has a flow of 40 billion cubic meters per year, accounting for 20% of the European-Russian natural gas trade.
And unlike the "Nord Stream-2" stopped by Germany, "Yamal" is Russia's initiative to stop gas transmission, and the reason given by the Russian side is that the use of natural gas in the country has increased, and it is necessary to give priority to its own use.
With natural gas trade hampered, natural gas prices in Europe skyrocketed.
For the civilian population of European countries, the winter that is about to pass is certainly not less frostbitten.
In the face of such an energy crisis, and with the lessons of the last Ukrainian crisis, it is difficult for Europe to follow the United States and impose sanctions on Russia without reservation.
Unless, of course, Europe mobilizes the entire population to dig coal down the well to replace natural gas.
(European gas price curve)
It is foreseeable that in this Ukrainian crisis, Europe will most likely play the role of mediation and try to restore Russian and European gas trade as soon as possible.
This has brought voices within NATO against the expansion of the situation by the United States, and has reduced the pressure on Russia's actions.
The actions of EU countries also confirm this view.
So far, EU member states have only introduced a series of sanctions against Russian leaders, such as freezing the assets of President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov in Europe.
These sanctions can only be said to be painless, or even only symbolic, because everyone knows, where did Putin get his assets in Europe?
Third, choose strategic partners and get rid of international isolation
In 2019, China and Russia upgraded their relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination.
The partnership with China, the world's second-largest economy, is Russia's third trump card.
In the last Ukraine crisis, Russia was at a time very passive after being subjected to economic sanctions.
In the years following crimea, Russia's GDP continued to grow in reverse, from $2.2 trillion in 2013 before the Ukraine crisis began to $1.27 trillion in 2016.
Nearly half of the gross national product evaporated out of thin air.
Therefore, today's Russia desperately needs an economic needle to avoid the risk of possible sanctions.
The mainland also happens to have a huge demand for Russia's abundant natural resources.
The two sides hit it off, so on February 8, taking advantage of Putin's visit to China at the Winter Olympics, China and Russia signed a long-term energy trade agreement.
How big is this energy trade agreement?
First, the agreement plans a new Sino-Russian natural gas pipeline, which, when completed, will initially deliver 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China per year, and will gradually reach 60 billion cubic meters per year in the later stage.
After the formation of a complete gas transmission capacity, the transmission capacity of this natural gas pipeline will account for more than 1/3 of the total import quota of natural gas in the mainland, and provide the mainland with natural gas resources accounting for nearly 1/6 of the annual consumption.
At the same time, Russia will also provide China with 100 million tons of crude oil within ten years, an average of 10 million tons per year, accounting for 10% of China's total imports and nearly 2% of the country's total consumption.
This agreement, while addressing the continent's growing energy needs, could also help Russia withstand possible economic sanctions.
At the same time, Russia's action against Ukraine this time consciously or unconsciously avoided the mainland's Olympic event in the choice of time, and did not bring too much trouble to the mainland.
It can be said that the mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Russia will continue for a long time in the future, and can provide strong support for each side when it needs to take strategic measures to break the situation.
Fourth, the three aces are played, and the Ukrainian issue may be a foregone conclusion
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued a statement today saying that Russia's aim is to restore "Donetsk and Luhansk to their original borders" and "guarantee Ukraine's neutrality," and that when these goals are accomplished, Russian troops will withdraw from Ukraine.
NATO did not respond to this statement, and it is clear that they can only accept it.
Putin also said that he would send a delegation to Kiev to negotiate with Ukrainian President Zelenskiy.
Lavrov's voice and the Russian negotiating group were complemented by the mechanized russian forces that had already encircled the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.
With only a little assembly, this force can launch a general offensive against Kiev.
(Ukrainian army in the arming)
Current intelligence indicates that the Russian army has not invested its full strength, and there are still two airborne battalions and a mechanized division equipped with at least 150 helicopters of various types on the Border of Belarus that have not been put into combat.
The target of this reserve is likely to be the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, which will be largely cut off once Lviv is taken by Russia.
And as time goes on, Russia will only mobilize more troops to fight in Ukraine, and Russia's Chechen Republic Army has already begun pre-war mobilization, ready to enter Ukraine at any time for missions.
(Chechen army under pre-war mobilization)
Known for its proficiency in guerrilla warfare and street warfare, this unit once caused great trouble for Russia in several Chechen wars, but it also chose to return and be loyal to Russia under putin's rigidity and softness.
NATO, on the other hand, was suppressed by Russia's three trump cards to the point of not daring to move, and only dared to shout verbal encouragement to Ukraine.
Ukraine must make a decision as soon as possible.
It is clear that the time left for Zelenskiy is running out...