holds peace summit, Ukraine wants to "trial Putin "?
Since achieving certain results in the Kherson counterattack, Ukraine seems to have lost interest in peace talks and has begun to open its mouth to the Russian lion. First of all, Zelensky signed the bill and refused to engage in peace negotiations with Putin. Unless Putin steps down, Ukraine will not engage in peace talks with Russia. Secondly, Ukraine has also set a high threshold for negotiations. Unless the Russian army completely withdraws from Ukraine and Russia gives up Crimea , Ukraine will not negotiate with Russia.
Not only that, even after Putin said on the 25th that the sooner the conflict ends, the better, and that the conflict would be resolved through negotiation, Ukraine still did not relent and continued to reject the positive signals released by Russia. According to the " Guardian " report, Ukraine plans to hold a "peace summit" at the end of February next year. When asked whether Russia would be allowed to participate in the meeting, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba said that Russia needs to be tried for war crimes in the international court before it may receive an invitation. In other words, As long as Ukraine has not completed the trial and liquidation of Russia and even Putin himself, Ukraine has no intention of reaching peace with Russia and ending the war.
In response to Ukraine’s tough declaration, Russian Presidential Press Secretary Peskov responded on the 26th. He said that Russia never complies with other people's conditions and always acts in accordance with its own conditions and common sense. Peskov's response showed Russia's attitude, that is, Russia will not accept Ukraine's lion's opening and will continue to work hard to achieve its set goals.
Although Kuleba's statement was only a continuation of the peace plan proposed by Ukraine in November, compared with Ukraine's remarks in October, the Ukrainian government at that time had a greater appetite and had begun to settle accounts with Russia. The reason why Ukraine has the confidence to do this is probably because Zelensky requested US$1.85 billion in military aid for the Ukrainian army when he visited the United States on the 21st. This assistance not only includes the Patriot air defense system, but also a large number of weapons and ammunition, which can just improve the Ukrainian army's arms supply.
Ukraine is too confident.
With the United States leading the entire West, Ukraine does have the confidence to continue fighting. Moreover, the Ukrainian army still has a numerical advantage and is relatively dominant at the tactical level. However, while the Ukrainian army has been strengthened, the Russian army has also been relatively fully supplemented. Recently, the Russian army has increased its military strength, and has also added 200 tanks to the front line, many of which are relatively high-end products such as T90MS. In addition, the Russian army is preparing to expand to 1.5 million troops next year. The production capacity of Russian military industrial enterprise has also been increased. It seems that it is already preparing for a protracted war.
After the Russian army regroups its troops and replenishes sufficient equipment supplies, it may launch a new offensive to drive the Ukrainian army out of the four Udong states and protect the territory that has been nominally incorporated into Russia. Facing the new Russian offensive, can the Ukrainian army still be able to withstand it? After all, in Bahmut, where the gap in strength was not obvious, the Ukrainian army could not withstand the attack of Wagner's mercenaries, and suffered heavy losses not only losing the city and the territory.
With the current strength of the Ukrainian army, it is unrealistic to continue to achieve major results. Moreover, as the cold winter has arrived, they have to invest a lot of energy in defending and repairing key infrastructure, and the military resources they can freely use are even more limited. At present, the Ukrainian army no longer holds an absolute advantage, and a reversal of the situation may occur at any time.
Although the current situation is no longer unilaterally beneficial to Ukraine, the Zelensky government is still talking tough. They are not only setting a higher threshold for peace talks, but also intend to create a so-called "Christmas miracle", perhaps because they still have illusions about Western aid. However, after 10 months of war, not only other NATO countries have been depleted of their inventories, but also the United States. Therefore, the West may not necessarily be able to count on it now, and the situation of the Ukrainian army will not be very good.
In fact, Zelensky's refusal to negotiate with Russia is a bad move, because Russia does have a need to end the war as soon as possible, and may also make certain concessions.In fact, Russia's main opponent in Ukraine has never been the Ukrainian army, but NATO, led by the United States. Stimulated by Russia, the entire NATO is gearing up, and the United States will also purchase 1,700 tactical ballistic missiles next year, which may pose a direct threat to Russia at any time. Russia now needs to withdraw from the war as soon as possible and concentrate on dealing with NATO. Otherwise, it may not only face military failure, but also the risk of national survival.
The EU has been fleeced again, and Ukraine has raised crude oil transit fees
Although the EU has become an important back-up for Ukraine after the Russian-Ukrainian conflict began, in order to provide greater confidence for its own side to refuse peace talks and to maintain the cost of the war, Ukraine will not easily give up the opportunity to fleece. According to reports from Russia Today, Ukraine will increase transit fees for Russian oil from January 1 next year, and is expected to increase tariffs on oil shipments to Hungary and Slovakia by 2.1 euros per ton.
This is not the first time that Ukraine has raised prices. As early as April, Ukraine had completed two price increases this year, causing the oil transit fee to increase by 51% this year. Judging from this trend, Ukraine will continue to raise prices next year to extract more wool from the EU. After all, every time a cannon is fired, gold is worth ten thousand taels. The Ukrainian government needs to spend US$5 billion per month on the war, and rebuilding infrastructure will consume more money. Western aid alone may not be enough.
Perhaps because of this, Ukraine has focused on oil transit fees. After all, the Druzhba oil pipeline is still there and has not been blown up like the Beixi pipeline. It can also be used to collect more wool. With the European Union's price limit order on Russian crude oil, Russia may adjust its oil exports to Europe at any time. It is not yet known when this pipeline will be used. Therefore, Ukraine can make an extra profit before Russia stops transporting oil.
It’s also interesting to say that Ukraine blames Russia for the increase in crude oil transit fees. It believes that the Russian army’s continued destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure has led to operators’ power shortages, lack of fuel and spare parts, which in turn has led to rising costs. In short, judging from Ukraine’s explanation, everything that went wrong was Russia’s fault, and the price increase was only out of necessity. But is this really the case?
As early as April this year, Ukraine had completed two price increases for crude oil transit fees. At that time, the Russian army had limited damage to Ukraine's infrastructure and did not cut off Ukraine's power supply on a large scale. However, Ukraine still opened its mouth and carried out large-scale price increases. Perhaps since then, the Zelensky government has planned to gain more wool from the EU and pass on Ukraine's war expenses.
Ukraine "stands begging"
In fact, when it comes to seeking Western aid, the Ukrainian government's tone has always been rude. On November 22, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba publicly stated that he "forbids" the West from getting tired of aiding Ukraine. He even said that "if the Ukrainians are not tired, other European countries have neither the moral power nor the political power to get tired."
On May 26, Ukraine did something even more egregious. On that day, the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany posted a photo of a snail carrying a bullet, mocking the German aid for being too slow to arrive. Not only that, he also accused German Chancellor Scholz of not being decisive enough. Germany's traffic light government has slowed down the progress of aid to Ukraine. It can be said that he has offended the German political arena from top to bottom.
Ukraine’s attempts to pry the West don’t stop there. In addition to repeatedly urging the West to provide more aid, the Zelensky government even hopes that Europe will take over Ukraine's post-war reconstruction, and has even formulated specific targets. However, this time the West failed to make Zelensky achieve his wish, because the cost of rebuilding Ukraine is too huge, and it cannot be accomplished without a minimum of US$200 billion.Even for wealthy European countries, this expenditure is too huge, and the economic situation in Europe has not been very good in the past two years. They simply cannot afford such an expense, so they rejected Zelensky's suggestion.
It can also be seen from this that Zelensky has relied on the West. He seems to know very well who is supporting Ukraine behind it, and he also regards it as a basis for Ukraine to act recklessly. As long as this war continues, Ukraine will definitely continue to vigorously harvest Europe's wool and let the West continue to support itself.
Medvedev made ten predictions, and 2023 may witness history
While the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is still going on, and Ukraine and the West are entangled, Medvedev made ten predictions for 2023. If these predictions come true, then we may witness history.
According to reports from Satellite News Agency, Medvedev made the following predictions for next year: . Oil prices will be raised to US$150 per barrel, and natural gas prices will be raised to US$5,000 per thousand cubic meters. 2. The UK returns to the EU. 3. After the UK returned to the EU, the EU disintegrated and the circulation of the euro was abolished. 4. Poland and Hungary occupy the western Ukrainian states. 5. Germany established the Fourth Reich based on its satellite state . 6. War broke out between France and Germany, Europe was divided, and Poland was divided. 7. Northern Ireland separated from the United Kingdom and merged into the Republic of Ireland. 8. A civil war broke out in the United States, California and Texas became independent, and then Texas joined Mexico, and Musk won the election after the civil war. 9. All major stocks and financial trading markets have moved from Europe and the United States to Asia. 10. The Bretton Woods system collapsed, the World Fund and the World Bank collapsed. The U.S. dollar and the euro were no longer regarded as global reserve currencies. The gold standard returned and began to actively shift to the use of digital currencies.
The first prediction is uncertain, because OPEC+ is not prepared to increase production, and the world economy is expected to enter a recovery period, which will most likely lead to a sharp rise in oil and gas prices. At the same time, emerging economies in Southeast Asia and other regions have entered a period of rapid development, and their demand for energy will also increase, which may further push up international energy prices.
The second prediction is also full of uncertainty, because in the past few years of Brexit, a large number of British people have begun to return to support the decision to leave the European Union, and there are still some unresolved conflicts between the United Kingdom and the European Union. If it continues, it will not be of any benefit to the British economy. However, it is still too early to talk about whether the UK will return to the EU, because there are still many uncertainties. The possibility of the third prediction of
being realized is not high, because regardless of whether the second prediction can be realized, the acceptance of the euro is still relatively high in Europe, especially for European countries with poor economic fundamentals, these countries will not support the abolition of the euro.
’s fourth prediction is hard to say, because it does not rule out the possibility that the West will sell Ukraine at a good price and then take the opportunity to recover some of its historical territory. After all, the western territory of Ukraine does have some relationship with Poland and Hungary. Of course, there is another possibility that Ukraine, at the expense of these territories, requires Poland and Hungary to step down personally and confront Russia head-on.
The fifth prediction should be the least reliable. After all, Germany's current armaments are not ordinary. Not only is the air force's availability rate only 15%, but the army's available tanks are only 115. The availability rate of other equipment is also not optimistic. Moreover, after supporting Ukraine, the German ammunition reserves were only enough for 5 days, which could not even meet the minimum reserves.
Since Germany may not even be able to defeat the neighboring countries with relatively weak military strength, it will be even less able to defeat France. Therefore, a German-French war is almost impossible, and Europe will not be divided for a while. As long as Europe is not divided, Poland won't have much of a problem. Moreover, Poland itself has a strong military strength. Unless the Russian army comes over, it still has a good chance of winning against other European countries.
However, the seventh prediction, which is that Northern Ireland will break away from the United Kingdom and merge into the Republic of Ireland, has a higher possibility of being realized.Northern Ireland has been seeking to leave the United Kingdom and has been in conflict with the British government on the issue of Brexit. If the time comes, it is really possible for Northern Ireland to complete the independence referendum and then join the Republic of Ireland in some form, realizing its long-cherished historical wish. The eighth prediction of
seems possible, but in fact it is unlikely to come true. Whether it is California or Texas politicians, the purpose of making independent statements is to seek more benefits from the White House and gain more autonomy. In addition, if you look at political influence alone, Musk is not really popular with people across the United States, because some of his recent actions are too controversial and there are many people who oppose him. The ninth prediction of
may be realized in the future, but it is still too early because there are still a large number of developed countries in the West. Before other developing countries grow up, the West will still be an important economic center in the world. However, with the development of China and Southeast Asia, the financial and stock trading markets are indeed moving to the East, but this process will last for a relatively long time and cannot be accomplished overnight.
In the case where the third and ninth predictions may not be realized, the last prediction may not be realized either. Although the hegemony of the U.S. dollar has been challenged, the U.S. dollar and the euro are still important trade settlement currencies, and they are still indispensable for international trade. At most, emerging settlement currencies such as the renminbi are beginning to rise, but it will take some time to replace the U.S. dollar and the euro.
Generally speaking, these predictions of Medvedev partly represent future trends, but they may not be able to realize much next year. However, even if only a small part of it is realized, we will witness history and a major change in the world structure.
