With the further development of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Europe has become the main victim of this war: on the one hand, it has to fund Ukraine to maintain the war, on the other hand, it has to purchase natural gas from Russia - even so, Europe still Don’t forget to show your “tough backbone”!
(Russia-Ukraine fight EU suffers)
In the past few months, European countries have launched rounds of sanctions against Russia. It is currently the sixth round, and the focus is on Russian oil, which Europe is highly dependent on. , natural gas and other fossil energy; among these European countries, Eastern European and Baltic countries such as Poland, Lithuania, etc. have the highest anti-Russian sentiment, even completely disregarding their own interests, saying "even if you risk your life, to defeat Russia".
Although the political wisdom, crisis response capabilities and "suicidal" courage shown by the outside world in the rounds of sanctions against Europe make people cry, Russia has indeed suffered losses and of course has to fight back; it is just that Russia was surprised He suddenly discovered that the opponent fell down before he even exerted much force.
According to RIA Novosti news agency , Dmitry Birichevsky, Director of the Department of Economic Cooperation of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, warned in an interview that European countries must understand that Russia has not done its best to counterattack and impose sanctions on Russia. The consequences would be "very painful."
RIA Novosti quoted statistical data as saying that since the beginning of the "special military operation", the list of European sanctions against Russia has become longer and longer. The number of sanctions has reached thousands, and it is still increasing. However, Russia has only one major countermeasure so far: the ruble settlement order; even so, European countries have been complaining, especially in the reality that European energy needs are highly dependent on Russia.
Before the Russia-Ukraine conflict, 41% of Europe's natural gas, 46% of coal and 27% of oil needed to be imported from Russia; even if European countries tried their best, they could not completely get rid of energy imports from Russia in the end, and even Instead of looking far away, they have to import expensive oil and natural gas from the United States, which has led to European countries generally falling into a high-inflation economic crisis .
(The EU underestimated the importance of Russian energy)
Some time ago, Lithuania, one of the three Baltic countries, launched a "backstab" against Russia, trying to cut off transportation links between the Russian mainland and the enclave Kaliningrad ; but in exchange As a result, the EU took the lead and demanded that the Lithuanian authorities abandon this dangerous move.
On the 13th, the European Commission stated that Russian goods can be transited through the EU by rail transportation, but goods transported by road are not allowed. The Russian "Izvestia" newspaper also quoted sources on the same day as saying that the EU and Russia have reached relevant agreements on the transit of materials in Kaliningrad, and the EU has provided a document that "completely satisfies" Russia. Therefore, under pressure from the EU, the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also issued a statement that day saying that it would comply with the EU's recommendations and allow Russian goods to be transited to Kaliningrad.
A very important reason why Europe surrendered was that it could not count on the United States. At the moment, the United States seems to be trying to find ways to solve the energy crisis, but the chips in its hands are too few; when Macron told Biden at the G7 summit that "Saudi Arabia does not have much spare capacity," Biden Den also expressed that he was “preparing to go there personally.”
In the past two days, he did leave for the Middle East . The first stop was Israel and the second stop was Saudi Arabia. But before the people arrived, Saudi Arabia said it first - "If you want to talk about spare capacity, there is no way"! This means that Washington's idea of trying to solve the energy crisis through the Middle East was bankrupt from the beginning.
(Biden still cannot solve the energy crisis when he goes to the Middle East)
The combined economic strength of European countries is several times that of Russia; the EU believes that it can bring Russia into collapse through sanctions. This confidence comes from their arrogance; however, the facts It proves that Europe thinks it has mastered the rules of transactions, but Russia has hard currency in its hands - this reflects from the side that the Western-led economic system is unfair and very fragile!
The fact is that Europe fell before Russia even exerted its efforts; this is a very simple truth: the wealth piled up by finance will never be worth the hard currency of real money.
