The Ukrainian-Russian conflict has been going on for a long time, and when diplomacy is difficult to achieve its strategic objectives, war has become the best method. Since he wants to fight, he will inevitably have a series of combined actions, the so-called "upper soldiers cutting plots, second cutting exchanges, second cutting troops, and attacking the city under them." At the level of "cutting plots", "cutting diplomatic relations" and "cutting down soldiers", Putin cannot be said to be unwise.
In terms of time nodes, he chose after the Beijing Winter Olympics. Moreover, he personally visited Beijing and started after signing the "Sino-Russian Joint Declaration" in a high-profile manner. In doing so, we have not only given China enough face, but also made use of all the international imagination space that can be used. Quite the flavor of Mao Zedong's shelling of Kinmen as soon as Khrushchev's visit to China ended, and Deng Xiaoping's immediate war on Vietnam after his visit to the United States, showing the skillful methods of a top international political player of an old empire, good at creating and exploiting crises, and making full use of the imagination space of the international game to expand their own interests.
And before that, on January 3 this year, russia proposed that the "five permanent members" of the United Nations Security Council also pass an anti-nuclear war agreement to demarcate the borders for the war that was planned at the time. In addition, he specifically chose to go to war a few days before Russia's upcoming presidency of the Security Council in order to take the lead in the United Nations.
In terms of tactical choice, Putin launched a pincer offensive in the north and south of Ukraine, in coordination with large-scale combat operations in the east, divided into three directions, and tried to encircle and encircle the main forces deployed in the eastern region militarily; quickly occupied Kiev politically, supported the proxy government to reduce war losses; politically divided Ukraine along the Dinieber River, controlled the east, threatened the west, and manipulated Ukraine's domestic and foreign affairs and military through the Kiev puppet government. Achieve the goal of demilitarizing Ukraine.
In the aftermath of the war, we look at this vein, and President Putin has done all this very cleverly, and he has taken into account the tactical actions of the key war objectives.
However, entering the "siege" phase, the weaknesses of the Russian army were soon exposed. The pincer offensive of the Russian army divided into encirclements inherited the typical color of the former Soviet army, and the big roundabout and large-scale copying combat ideas, which needed to be supported by a strong iron armor torrent, but the logistics supply and high-tech war capabilities of the Russian army were obviously insufficient, and the mobilization for war was not sufficient.
In addition, it may be that taking into account the compatriot feelings of Russia and Ukraine who are both Slavs, in order to achieve the effect of "attacking the heart first", minimizing civilian casualties, and helping to control after the war and achieve the purpose of "promoting talks with fighting", Putin did not exhaust all his strength in Kiev and other places, did not use heavy weapons, resulting in the Obstruction of the Russian army's "siege of the city", and the battlefield situation showed a dangerous situation of "high opening and low walking".
With the progress of the war, the will to resist of the Ukrainian military and civilians is rising, and the parties in Ukraine have now been thoroughly mobilized. The ukrainian president of the comedian gave full play to his advantages in acting, and created a national hero role at home and in the Western world, under which he would inevitably rather die and resist to the end, leaving a great suspense for the war situation in Ukraine.
The most dangerous, and most unexpected for Russia before the war, was the supportive attitude of Europe and the Entire Western society toward Ukraine. The attitude of Putin in Europe and the United States should be fully prepared, but his attitude is so resolute that I am afraid that it is a bit beyond Putin's expectations.
Andrei Fedorov, a former deputy minister of foreign affairs, said in an interview with the media: "Ukraine's resistance and western sanctions are stronger than Russia predicted before the start of the operation." ”
After the war began, the United States and Europe imposed the most severe economic and financial sanctions ever imposed on Russia and Putin himself, froze all hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian assets in the United States and Europe, kicked several major Russian banks out of the SWIFT system, and banned Russian aircraft from flying over the airspace of European and American countries.
The damage to the Russian economy, people's livelihood and financial system was immediately apparent, the stock market plummeted, the ruble plummeted, and the deposit rate was forced to increase from the original 9.5% to 20%, and such interest rates were basically difficult to carry out normal economic activities.
Its long-term impact is even more incalculable. The analysis believes that because of the severe sanctions, the Russian economy will shrink by at least half (the less severe sanctions in 2014 have led to a shrinkage of more than 50%), at least in 10-20 years, the Russian economy may not be able to slow down.
More critically, at the military level, the sense of crisis has led Europe to increase its military assistance to Ukraine. In the past period of time, the United States has increased its weapons assistance to Ukraine, the European Union has provided warplanes for Ukraine, France has provided light and heavy weapons and air defense systems, Belgium and Poland have provided machine gun tanks and fuel, Poland and the three Baltic countries have organized volunteer troops to enter Ukraine, germany has also changed its previous vacillation state, cut off with Russia, and provided Ukraine with a large number of anti-tank weapons and surface-to-air missiles that are extremely threatening to the Heavy Equipment of the Russian Army.
When we started fighting, we found that this was not a war between Russia and Ukraine at all, but a war between Russia and Europe (or NATO). Ukraine is nothing more than a war agent in Europe and the United States.
Western democracies have even torn off the cloak of "freedom and democracy" and completely banned the activities of the pro-Russian media, and public opinion is completely one-sided. Russian literati, entertainers, and even cats have been sanctioned.
In the face of this situation, Putin's other two clever strategies have partially alleviated this pressure. One is to come up with a nuclear deterrent in advance, declaring all sanctions that are both declarations of war with Russia and pouring cold water on Western forces; the other is to temporarily cease fire and open up humanitarian aid channels to let the people understand that he is not the initiator of this disaster, and Ukraine is the inevitable loser of this war.
The United States was the biggest beneficiary of the war. It does not have to worry about the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the war, it will not be affected by the refugee tide, but at the same time, it destroys the fragile relationship between Germany and France and Russia through the war, achieves the purpose of isolating and weakening Russia, and at the same time sells arms, satisfies the interests of its own military-industrial complex, and opens up the European market for its own shale gas. Therefore, on the day of the war, the stock markets of various countries plummeted, but the US stock market opened low and went high.
Because of this, if the war continues for a long time and turns into a war of attrition, it will be extremely unfavorable to Russia.
Modern warfare is about economic and technological power, and in both areas Russia is no match for the United States and Europe. In particular, the economy, with Russia accounting for 2% of the world economy and the United States and Europe combining close to 40% of the total global economic volume, has long-term confrontation with consumption, and Russia will certainly not be able to bear it. In this way, even if Russia can win on the battlefield, it will not be worth the loss in terms of overall economic and political calculations.
Therefore, the question now is no longer how to carry out the war. I believe that on the battlefield, Russia will definitely win, the Ukrainian capital and the eastern region will certainly not be able to survive, and when it will be taken is only a matter of time and cost.
The crux of the matter is that the involvement of Europe and the United States has substantially expanded the scale of the war, leaving Russia with an enemy that is not firing head-on on the battlefield, but is a hundred times more powerful than Ukraine. Therefore, for Putin, whether he can make a quick decision and avoid being dragged into the trap of a war of attrition by Europe and the United States is an extreme test of his ability and wisdom.