The crisis in Ukraine has been going on for more than half a month, at least so far there is no sign of an end in sight, and to be honest, almost all people did not realize at the beginning that the crisis would last for so long.
I still remember to this day when the battle began, and one of my colleagues sent a circle of friends saying that ukraine would be gone when I left work, and almost all people, whether pro-Russian or anti-Russian, felt that with Russia's powerful force, the war seemed to end in a few days, and then everything was calm like Georgia and Crimea.
However, things have come to everyone's surprise, at least to this day we are far from predicting when the crisis will actually end, and it is clear that this soft knife cutting meat will be more damaging to the world's economy.
Today, western countries led by the United States continue to propose various sanctions against Russia, so we see that the Russian central bank's foreign exchange reserves of more than 300 billion yuan have been frozen, and Russia's state-owned property and even the private property of ordinary people have been seized and frozen and confiscated by governments.
Even a large number of Western companies, from aircraft companies and software companies to Coca-Cola and McDonald's, which provide civil biological resources, have also withdrawn from Russia, and it is obvious that for the Russian people, the future will be a period of hard life, or a period of time without Western products.
But as our previous programs have pointed out, in fact, these Western sanctions are difficult to shake the fundamentals of Russia, and to this day many Western economists are nothing more than predicting that because of Western sanctions, Russia's economy may decline by 5% to 10%, which cannot hurt the fundamentals, to know that Russia is such a country, people have energy and food, it is difficult to attack it from the outside.
In the past, Western countries engaged in economic blockades and embargoes, and high-tech products could not be bought by others, but people themselves had a large amount of oil and gas, and people could produce a large number of grain crops, and there was no problem in maintaining their livelihood. What's more, today under the sanctions of the United States, the international crude oil price has soared, Russia has made a lot of money, and it is not only the Western countries that want oil, there are many developing countries that also need oil, so Russia's oil is not worried about selling at all.
In such a state, Russia's economy will hardly collapse because of Western sanctions, but it is clear that Western sanctions may have a counter-phagocytic effect, the so-called killing 1000 self-inflicted damage 800. Today, the International Monetary Fund has made a prediction that if the Ukrainian crisis is not resolved in the short term, it will be a huge threat to the world economy and may trigger a worldwide economic crisis.
Today it is the United States that provokes sanctions against Russia, but if you look at the introduction of a series of sanctions, the United States hardly needs to bear any cost, the United States said that I am not allowed to import Russian oil and gas, I want to block the way to make money, but the problem is that the United States itself is now an oil producer, only about 8% of the oil imported by the United States every year comes from Russia, and banning this point has almost no impact on the US economy.
The US government also said that I would abolish Russia's most-favored-nation treatment, and even I would ban the import of Russian seafood, vodka, etc., but the scale of Russian-US trade has always been very small, in other words, sanctions on Russia will not make the lives of ordinary Americans much impact. In turn, due to the turmoil in today's European situation, a large amount of money has fled, but the return of the US dollar may solve the economic problems of the United States today, so the United States has spared no effort to sanction Russia.
But the real victim is probably the European Union, today because of the crisis in Ukraine, the EU will encounter three major crises in the future, the first is the refugee crisis that can be seen immediately, Ukraine is fighting, bullets are not long eyes, especially as many people imagine.
At the beginning we felt that the modern war should be far away from the civilians beyond the visual distance, the missiles were sent from the Russian mainland, knocking out almost all the important military facilities in Ukraine, and then the Ukrainian army could only surrender, the war would soon end, the intensity would not be too great, and the people would not be too damaged.
However, now it is different, with the advancement of the war, we find that the Russian army is not as strong as we thought, but we do not know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for the Ukrainian people, because its army is not strong enough, so it must expand the intensity of the war, a city a city, and even a street fight with the Ukrainian army, which makes many civilians also become the target of the war, the building will collapse Civilians will die, So there are a large number of Ukrainian people who want to quickly escape from this land of right and wrong.
So far, about 2 million to 3 million Ukrainians have fled abroad, but this is obviously just the beginning, some relevant scholars predict that the number of Ukrainian refugees fleeing in the future will be at least more than 5 million, where will so many refugees flee? Of course, they had to flee to Europe, so the countries bordering Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, Romania, had already taken in a lot of Ukrainian refugees, and then these refugees would flock to Germany, to France and even to Britain.
Some countries are initially open supply, as long as you are a Ukrainian citizen, I will accept as much as you come, but the problem is that with the passage of time, these countries have also found that their ability to accept refugees has been almost saturated, can they accept more refugees in the future? You must know that as early as a few years ago, due to the problem of the Syrian war, the European Union led by Germany accepted millions of refugees, which caused a downturn in the European economy, this person came to eat or live, and European countries took out a lot of money to support these refugees, so that their own economies also suffered.
And this time the number of Ukrainian refugees is probably several times that of Syria, especially because the war is still fighting, Ukraine now stipulates that young men aged 18 to 60 cannot go abroad, so the refugees who are now displaced overseas are old and weak women and children, and they are afraid that no Syrian refugees can contribute more labor, so we say that the longer the Ukrainian crisis is pushed, the more the soft knife cuts the flesh, so that the more blood will be lost in the whole of Europe.
Even today there are many criminals who have hit the idea of Ukrainian refugees, which makes a variety of public security criminal incidents in many european countries in the future, it is obvious that dragged down by refugees, the economy of European countries in the next few years may not be better, but compared to the refugee crisis, the energy crisis may be more of a headache for countries.
Originally, since the second half of last year, European countries have encountered an energy crisis, insufficient natural gas supply, natural gas prices are too high, but now European countries still face a more difficult choice is not to follow the United States on energy sanctions against Russia. The policy of the United States has given me that I am resolutely not allowed to import Russian oil and gas, why?
Because Russia's main export income comes from its energy, now it has to fight, modern warfare costs money, how much is a shell, how much is a missile, every dollar that Russia exports oil can be converted into its weapons, so the United States says of course I can't import Russian energy.
But the problem is that the United States hardly needs Russian energy, and Europe must purchase Russian energy, so on this issue Europe follows or does not follow, if you choose to follow the United States, in the energy issue and Russia completely break, then it is obvious that Europe and not Russia are the first to fall.
Russia's oil is hard currency, not sold to Europe can be sold to other countries, nothing more than a long transport distance freight a little cheaper, people make less money, Europe pays the price is no energy available, so today Europe does not dare to say that I do not import Russian energy, but only to say that in the next year or two we have to reduce our dependence on Russia's energy.
But how to reduce, is it possible for you to build nuclear power plants on a large scale like France? Or is it to abandon the 10-year-old European carbon reduction direction and re-burn coal, or to import heavily from the United States? It is clear that buying energy from Russia is the most in line with the direction of European development, but this direction is now being snuffed out by the Ukrainian crisis or by the United States.
There is a third major crisis, that is, the military crisis, the events in Ukraine caused many European countries to now feel that they need to rearm themselves, Germany immediately offered to spend 100 billion euros on a special budget to procure various armed forces. From next year, Germany's military expenditure will account for more than 2% of GDP, and the Polish parliament has even unanimously passed the latest law, and from next year, military spending will account for more than 3% of GDP, and a new round of arms race will even begin.
In the past few decades, most european countries are almost unarmed, they feel that the Cold War is over, they can put knives and guns into the warehouse, horses and mountains, so many countries can not even account for 1% of GDP, many countries even have so-called professional soldiers.
What is a professional soldier? You join the army like going to work, Monday to Friday in the barracks, Saturday and Sunday is to go home on vacation to rest, why the European armament is so collapsed, on the one hand, everyone feels that there is no opposite, there is no need to spend so much money on the military, on the other hand, there is the United States to protect anyway, let the United States be this wronged head to let it spend money, so it is no wonder that successive US presidents are very unhappy, often ask European countries to raise military expenses, but people just do not agree.
Now that the Ukrainian crisis is in trouble, there is no need for the United States to command behind, and European countries have to upgrade their armaments, to be honest, it is not only a matter of spending money to upgrade armaments, of course, money will definitely be spent more. Take Germany as an example, it is the world's fourth largest economy, by next year its military expenditure will double, how much more to spend, to know that the European economy over the years is not very good, in the past every money spent is to be cautious, and now suddenly can come up with hundreds of billions of euros to rearm themselves.
On the other hand, what is particularly worrying is not only the problem of spending money, but also the problem of future guns and guns, you think that the past two world wars were mainly fought in Europe, and several major powers were beaten into second-rate countries, originally after the Cold War, everyone felt that the world was peaceful, there was no need to engage in armaments.
Now that countries have re-armed themselves and hatred and fear between countries are intensifying, we are really worried about the possibility that European countries will go haywire in the future. It is necessary to know that there are many contradictions between European countries due to nationalities, territories, religions, beliefs, etc., not only between Russia and Ukraine, but if new conflicts break out as a result, then this crisis may be even greater.
More than 20 years ago, the EU economy ranked first in the world, and the United States had to be relegated to it, but today, more than 20 years later, not only the United States has long been far ahead, but even the mainland economy is stronger than the entire EU, and Europe today because of the three major crises encountered by the Ukraine incident, if not handled well, we are really worried that Europe's future economy is in jeopardy.