In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which is about to turn one year on February 24, Russia has never officially declared war on Ukraine, but has given its actions a strange name: a special military operation.
At the beginning of the conflict, Russia tried to quickly capture the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. However, because of the failure of the blitzkrieg, he had to turn to stir up trouble in the eastern part of the country. And through the form of referendums, the four prefectures of eastern Ukraine were occupied.
This may seem like a desperate move, but now there is more and more evidence that this is the real purpose of Russia's military operation, and it can be said that it has achieved a phased goal.
I thought it was NATO's eastward expansion, which Russia couldn't stand anymore and had to launch this operation. In fact, it is Putin's conspiracy to stop the United States before the United States.
Since 2014, the United States has joined forces with its allies to vigorously aid and arm Ukraine, ostensibly to give Ukraine the ability to challenge Russia, but in fact the United States wants to use the rare mineral resources in Ukraine, such as titanium ore and rare earth ores, which happen to be in the eastern part of Ukraine.
As soon as the Ukrainian army takes control of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, it will hand over the mineral resources there to American companies for exploitation and disposal. At that time, it will be difficult for Russia to resist again.
We can assume that Putin has adopted a strategy from the outset, disguised his desire to occupy the four regions of eastern Ukraine and control mineral resources by pretending to attack the capital Kyiv and deliberately showing weakness on certain battlefields.
And because the United States has been annexed by Russia, their expectations for the return of Ukrainian aid for many years have been disappointed, and all their investment has been wasted. Let the value of Ukraine in the eyes of the Americans be greatly reduced.
In fact, with the former Eastern European countries, the United States does not lack low-level thugs to confront Russia. But these countries are very poor in resources, and the United States, which wanted to make money back from Ukraine, was stirred up by Putin's sudden special military operation, resulting in the loss of both wives and soldiers.
The United States, which is already a large grain producer, is not interested in Ukrainian grain exports, but is a competitor. And European countries need Ukrainian grain to replenish their granaries. This is also a realistic reason why they are willing to follow the United States to assist Ukraine in fighting Russia.
So Russia never thought of blocking the export of Ukrainian grain.