The world-renowned Russian-Ukrainian negotiations were finally held in Minsk.
Judging from the information received so far, the talks are in a state of different words.
According to the latest reports, Ukraine has demanded that Russian forces withdraw from its occupied areas including Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk.
Combined with yesterday's Ukrainian President Zelenskiy's claim that Ukraine must join the European Union. It is normal for such a situation to emerge in today's negotiations. The question is: Why is Ukraine getting tougher and tougher?
Zelenskiy was tough
A commentary I wrote today said that, combined with Russia's economic power, the "decapitation operation" must paralyze Ukraine's war machine and destroy Ukraine's potential military capabilities as soon as possible. Then control Ukraine and then negotiate bilaterally with NATO, preferably the United States, to stop NATO's eastward expansion (relevant information refers to NATO's eastward resistance).
The second point is to control Ukraine and use it as an outpost against NATO.
The worst part is negotiating with Ukraine, which is worse than no military action.
Otherwise, not to mention sanctions, the cost of war alone will make Russia unbearable.
But as the war progressed, the results were not as beautiful as expected.
Leaving aside the sanctions imposed by Europe and the United States, let's talk about it militarily:
The first wave of cruise missile attacks, because of the number of attacks launched and the accuracy of the strikes, did not reach the stage of destroying the other side's high-value military targets, including command centers and air defense systems.
It can be said that this wave of attacks has laid the foundation for today's negotiations.
In fact, the day after the military operation was launched, the news showed a video of Russian warplanes shot down in Ukraine. What is clear is that Ukraine not only has a firm grip on the airspace they deem necessary to control, but the entire decision-making and command system is very efficient.
This may be the reason for the poor evaluation after the first wave of more than 160 missile attacks, and the failure of the Russian army to launch a similar attack again. However, the result was the loss of air supremacy and the inability of the Russians to carry out air strikes. In this way, the task of destroying Ukrainian ground targets fell on the Russian armored forces, and more importantly, because there was no air superiority and even the army's helicopter gunships could not enter the battlefield. This can only be shaken by Russian soldiers.
In this way, on the one hand, Zelenskiy has assistance behind him, sitting on the Diaoyutai, and it does not matter how long he fights slowly and for how long; on the other hand, when the battle must be quickly ended, the advance is slow (the Battle for Kiev Airport has entered the third day, tomorrow is the fourth day), and it is extremely unfavorable to Russia to drag it out for a long time, which is a dilemma.
Kiev Airport is highly contested
Sure enough, on the fifth day of the war today, in essence yesterday, it was rumored that Russia had proposed negotiations on consumption.
In this way, Zelenskiy became a situation where it was completely possible to ask for a price and wait for Russia to land and repay the money.
If the Kiev airport cannot be occupied tomorrow, the follow-up will be more passive.
The battle in Kiev is more difficult
So the war really has to be based on the economy, and it's based on the long-term thriving economy, otherwise it's very troublesome.