Text/Fat Guy Eggplant
Recently, Putin waved a huge amount of money to the Donbass region with a huge amount of money, and the local people were overjoyed. However, some US officials could not sit still, but they could not find a better reason to splash dirty water, so they had to accuse Putin of "buying people's hearts and minds by money."
According to the Russian news agency reported by the Global Network, on Saturday, local time, Putin officially signed a new legal document, approving the Russian financial department to allocate more than 10 million rubles of huge funds to the Luhansk and Donetsk governments in the Donbass region. And this huge amount of money is not for anything else, but to provide economic support to the local people. It is reported that up to 5 million rubles of this money will be distributed to the local people for resettlement and living, 3 million rubles will be awarded to Russian officials who support the construction in the local area, and the remaining money will be awarded in cash to veterans and disabled people of the "Great Patriotic War" (i.e., World War II) in the Donbass region, and it is expected that each person will receive 10,000 rubles.
This is not the first time that the Kremlin has thrown money at the aid of the local people, as early as the beginning of the war, the Russian government provided a few thousand rubles each to refugees who moved from Donbass to take refuge in Russian territory. For those who have been displaced in the war and have broken up their families, Putin's assistance can be described as a "long drought and a long drought", and the local people's support for the Russian government will be further improved. But this incident caused some U.S. officials to be dissatisfied, Minnesota politician, Rep. Paul Colby said that the Russian government's behavior is "relying on the economy to buy the hearts and minds of the local people", bluntly saying that "this method can only be effective in the short term, can not be sustained for a long time", as to whether his views are correct, it will take time to prove.
However, Putin's aid to Theonbass is obviously not a "whim", and this money must have its political purpose. First of all, in Russia and even in the Russian-speaking areas of eastern Ukraine, veterans who participated in the Second World War are widely respected by society, especially with victory day approaching, Putin took this opportunity to send money to the veterans, on the one hand, to comfort these heroes who fought against the Nazis, and on the other hand, to better unite the people of the country and the Donbass region and make Russia more stable and secure internally. In addition, Russia's allocation of money to "Donetsk and Luhansk" further declared Its support for the independence of these two "republics" and warned Western countries "not to try to overthrow my allies." However, only a very small number of countries now endorse Russia's position, and most countries, including China, have not yet recognized the political status of the two countries, so Russia still has a long way to go to guarantee the independence of the two countries.
But why would Russia prefer to give up fighting Kiev, the political center of Ukraine, instead of defending the Donbass region? This is mainly due to the fact that the Eastern Ukraine region is a traditional coal and steel producing region of Ukraine, so it can also be called the traditional industrial center of Ukraine, whether it is Mariupol or Kharkiv, which is a top priority for the Ukrainian industrial system. Once these industrial centers are taken, Ukraine, which has lost its industrial base, will not even be able to organize a counter-offensive.
In addition, the eastern Ukrainian region is home to a large number of Ethnic Russian-speaking Russians who are politically broadly inclined to the Russian side, and Mariupol has even been called "the most pro-Russian Ukrainian city". Therefore, it is obviously easier and more meaningful for Russia to control these regions than it is for Kiev and Lviv, where Ukrainian nationalism is rife and anti-Russian ideas are rife.
Therefore, Putin will choose to focus his strategic focus on the offensive on the Eastern Front, temporarily abandon the siege of Kiev, and use good steel on the blade. However, what is not optimistic is that two weeks have passed since Russia launched a major offensive on the eastern front, but most of the territory of the Donbass region is still controlled by Ukraine, which makes the Russian army only try to sandwich the Ukrainian army from the north, east and south, and only by completely withdrawing the Ukrainian army can the independence of the east Ukrainian region be ensured.
It can be said that although Putin has spent a lot of money, there is still a long way to go to achieve his strategic goals.