According to media reports, a few days ago, US President Joe Biden specially invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to visit the United States in order to persuade Congress to approve his foreign aid application. However, despite Zelensky's impassioned speech in the US House of Representatives, explaining the importance of continuing to support Ukraine for US interests, US House Speaker Johnson poured cold water on him, and the House of Representatives will not vote on any aid bill for Ukraine until Congress adjourns at the end of this year.
Johnson's remarks show that Zelensky's visit to the United States has come in vain. Recent signs suggest that the Russia-Ukraine conflict seems to have come to an end due to the precipitous reduction in Western aid. Arestovych, a former military adviser to the President of Ukraine, told the media that it is time for Ukraine to start thinking about peace talks with Russia. When Arestovych was previously a military adviser to Zelensky, he gave an optimistic assessment of the prospects of the Ukrainian side almost every day. Later, he lost his post as military adviser to the president for making a mistake, so his recent assessment of the Russia-Ukraine conflict seems much more objective. According to foreign media, Arestovych has recently announced that he will end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as his campaign platform to compete for the presidency of Ukraine.
Clearly, Arestovich is running for president with the goal of ending the conflict, and substantive action is needed to create an opportunity to end the conflict. Therefore, in an interview with the media, he not only demolished Zelensky's platform, but also rarely criticized the West for their goal of supporting Ukraine not to help Kyiv win, but only to weaken Russia's strength. So he believes that public opinion is turning to calls for an end to the fighting, and the morale of the Ukrainian army at the front is declining, so it is time for peace talks with Russia.
Arestovych's views are obviously very different from Zelensky, who is currently seeking military aid from the United States, but this does not mean that he is on the wrong side, because the United States is the largest donor to Ukraine, and without a new round of military aid from the United States, Ukraine will not be able to resist the attack of the Russian army. And the U.S. Congress has not changed its attitude because of Zelensky's visit, which has made Ukraine's prospects even bleaker. After all, the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer has made the West's disappointment with Kyiv almost to the extreme. Therefore, many public opinion believes that Western countries are conducting secret contacts, hoping to persuade Ukraine to abandon its attempt to regain lost territory and take the initiative to sue for peace with Russia. Obviously, regardless of whether Ukraine will eventually be forced to sue for peace with Moscow, there are signs that the Russia-Ukraine conflict seems to be coming to an end.
As the conflict between Russia and Ukraine gradually comes to an end, the sanctions imposed by the West on Russia due to the outbreak of the conflict are becoming the focus of international public opinion on where they will go after the war. According to media reports, in October this year, Bulgaria announced a transit tax on Russian gas in transit, which caused great dissatisfaction among some European countries that rely on Russian energy, thus forcing Bulgaria to "consider canceling this tax."
Prior to this, the tougher the attitude towards Russia, the more praised it was in Europe, and it was in this situation that Bulgaria announced a tax on energy transit through Russia. Now, Bulgaria's previous tough measures against Russia have become the target of verbal criticism from its allies for raising the price of natural gas in Europe. It can be seen that the European energy embargo on Russia is becoming an international joke.
After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the United States and European countries imposed severe sanctions on Russian energy exports, and in response, European countries have taken measures to stop importing oil and gas from Russia. Even if these measures in Europe cause an energy crisis, for the sake of so-called "democratic values", these countries would rather wave their own knives and stop importing Russian energy as a manifestation of their support for Ukraine.
However, the energy crisis and inflation caused by the refusal of European countries to import Russian energy have had a serious impact on their economies. Especially after the outbreak of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the turbulent situation in the Middle East has further soared the cost of European energy imports from the Middle East, forcing them to re-import Russian energy. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz even hit Russia a few days ago: because Putin stopped energy supplies to Europe, prices in Europe have skyrocketed.
It is no wonder that Bulgaria will be scolded, because as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine gradually comes to an end, many European countries are gradually resuming imports of Russian energy. Gazprom recently announced that in the near future they will increase the scale of natural gas exports to Europe to more than 20 million cubic meters per day. It can be seen that the West's energy embargo against Russia has almost become a null and void.