The referendum in four eastern Ukraine has ended. If nothing unexpected happens, the decision to "enter Russia" has been passed, and the approval rating is still very high. Russian Federation Commission Chairman Matviyanko said that it may pass a resolution on October 4 to receive Donetsk , Lugansk , Zaporoze , Khelson to join the Russian Federation.
However, this move has aroused opposition internationally. The United States and Germany, such as Western countries that already support Ukraine, have not said that they have always had good relations with Russia. Even Kazakhstan and Serbia also stood up and publicly opposed the referendum of Ukraine in eastern Russia.
Although the national conditions of these two countries are relatively special, Serbia is due to the problem of Kosovo . Kosovo was "split" from Serbia through referendums with the support of the West. If Serbia admitted to the referendum on Ukraine and Russia, it would mean that it would be passive on the Kosovo issue.
Kazakhstan is because there are Russian ethnic clusters in China. Once the referendum in the east of Ukraine is recognized, it is likely to cause disaster for the future, so it can only stand up and oppose it publicly.
But there is no doubt that compared with Russia's previous war against Ukraine in the name of special military operations, the referendum in the four eastern Ukraine regions has prompted Russia to suffer greater public opinion backlash internationally.
The reason is not complicated, because Russia started a war against Ukraine because NATO insisted on expanding eastward, and Ukraine planned to agree to allow NATO to deploy missile in Ukraine, which poses a direct threat to Russia's strategic security. Therefore, Russia's attack on Ukraine can only be considered "overdefense" at most. Except for the United States and Western countries, most small and medium-sized countries can still understand it.
But Russia supports the referendum in eastern Ukraine to Russia, which is absolutely unacceptable for small and medium-sized countries, because if this referendum is supported, the integrity of any small and medium-sized country will not be guaranteed. The Kazakh President has a precise argument on this. If it is strictly implemented in accordance with the so-called "national self-determination", then there will be hundreds of more countries in the world, which will only make the situation even more chaotic.
Therefore, small countries oppose the referendum of Ukraine and Russia, which has nothing to do with morality, but only with the self-interest of each country.
So does this mean that Putin supports the referendum in the eastern Ukraine region and Russia is wrong in this move? Of course not, because from Russia's perspective, this is a choice in helplessness. If you don't do this, you may lose the war. That is the real disaster for Russia.
Previously, Ukraine assembled a large army to counterattack in Kharkov Oblast, and the Russian army failed, on the one hand because of a strategic error: Russia has always believed that Ukraine's counterattack would be in the southern region, but was "reported to the east and attacked the west".
But more importantly, it is because Russia itself lacks military strength. Ukraine mobilizes nationwide. A country with a population of more than 40 million can mobilize at least a few million troops. In addition, the military aid provided by the United States and the West to Ukraine, even if Russia can keep winning, it will fall into the dilemma of Germany fighting Britain and France during the first battle of . It always wins at the tactical level, but at the strategic level, it is eventually pushed back by others because of the long front line and insufficient troops. In the context of
, if Putin wants to stabilize Russia's basic foundation, he can only increase troops to the battlefield. But the problem is that increasing troops requires money. Now that the Russian-Ukraine war is like this, it will obviously become a long-term war of attrition. Russia cannot compare with the West in economic consumption. In the end, to protect the interests that have already been eaten, he can only take advantage of the large land and the wider population, and spend it with NATO at the lowest cost.
at least also needs to show this attitude in order to make NATO retreat. At this time, it is inevitable to send conscripts to the battlefield. But according to the Russian Constitution, the reformed conscripts had the responsibility to defend their country and had no obligation to go abroad to fight.
In other words, to make full use of Russia's huge conscript team, we can only turn the battlefield in eastern Ukraine into Russian territory, so promoting the referendum in eastern Ukraine became the only choice.
Putin must know that after doing this, it will be easy for Russia to be attacked by the United States and the West in public. However, if he does not do this and accept the result of the failure of the war, then the "great power aura" that Russia finally gathered since Putin came to power will disappear.
By then, without the need for the United States and NATO to take action, all kinds of ethnic conflicts within Russia may cause Russia to disintegrate. On the one hand, he lost his international status and caused chaos within himself; on the other hand, he supported the referendum of Wudong to Russia and was under pressure in public opinion. Compared with the two, it is obviously the latter that harms Russia a little less.
So it is a bit too early to judge that Putin is a wrong move to promote the referendum in Wudong. This public opinion momentum looks scary, but the actual effect it can have on Russia is actually not too great.
Otherwise, the United States and NATO supported Kosovo's referendum on independence, which had long been backfired by public opinion opposing the international community. But the result is that the United States and EU are still good now, and even use Kosovo to threaten Serbia from time to time. The truth is only within the range of the cannon, and this statement is true.
