Recently, Russia and Turkey held the fifth round of negotiations in Istanbul, Turkey. Many experts believe that this negotiation has released more positive signals, so that Russian Foreign Minister Zakharov has made it clear that he is satisfied with the results of the current talks, because The most important thing for Russia is to ensure that Ukraine remains neutral and denuclearized, and that Ukraine will not join NATO in the future.
It is not difficult to see from these reports that the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine may really have ushered in a turning point, and the biggest “victim” behind this has come to light, that is, the European Union, which has been thankless throughout the process. Since the escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the EU has blindly followed the United States in imposing sanctions on Russia, not only closing Russia’s airspace, but also prohibiting investment in Russia’s energy field. However, in the process, the EU has only gained endless troubles.
The food supply of EU countries relies heavily on imports. However, due to the war, Ukraine and Russia, major food exporters, have announced that their food exports will decline to varying degrees. The Ukrainian Minister of Agriculture has made it clear that Ukraine’s spring crops The sowing area has been reduced by more than 50% compared with before! In this context, global food prices have risen sharply, and the European Commission has directly issued a statement saying that this food price increase is likely to make life unsustainable for many low-income families. In order to alleviate this dilemma, the European Commission has decided to temporarily allow farmers to use fallow land to expand the growing area of food.
If the problem of food shortage can be solved by expanding the planting area, then the problem of energy shortage is a dilemma for the EU. In the past week, many European countries have issued early warnings that there may be a “gas cut-off”. At present, Germany, Austria and other countries have declared a state of emergency for natural gas. There is nothing he can do about the current energy crisis, the public can only use natural gas sparingly as much as possible. And all this is because Russia made it clear after being sanctioned that all countries included in Russia’s list of “unfriendly countries” will need to use rubles to buy natural gas from April.
What makes European countries even more pessimistic is that a large-scale cold wave is about to hit. At present, Germany has launched an emergency plan to deal with this dilemma, and high-level German government officials have even begun to call on the public to wear more clothes and use less natural gas as much as possible, so as to get rid of their dependence on Russian energy. However, according to the latest weather reports, the lowest temperature in some areas of France, Germany, the Czech Republic and other countries may reach minus 5°C in the coming period, and some areas may even experience snowfall, and the forecast shows that this cold wave may last for several days. sky.
It has to be admitted that it is precisely because the European Union blindly followed the United States to impose sanctions on Russia, which eventually led to soaring food and energy prices in European countries, and this also made the supply chain already overwhelmed by the epidemic even worse. Although the EU has been seeking “strategic autonomy” in the past few years, this proposal has directly become empty talk after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zakharova even pointedly stated that the EU’s security strategy has become a victim of the US anti-Russian policy, so Russia calls on the EU to abandon this doomed route as soon as possible. Under the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the inflation situation in various EU countries has become more and more serious. The president of the European Central Bank even directly warned that because the Russia-Ukraine conflict has created many uncertainties in various aspects, the inflation in the euro zone this year rate is likely to exceed 7%. According to the assessment report of the OECD, the global economic growth rate this year is likely to drop by one percentage point due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the euro zone is undoubtedly the most affected. Therefore, from a comprehensive perspective, the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war has undoubtedly become the “biggest loser” in the European Union!
Source: 163
