08/05/2024 – Translated from Ukrainian via Google and OFP
The Russian Central Bank announced a catastrophic situation in the Russian economy. It has “overheated” on a record scale over the past decade and a half, its reserves are practically exhausted. Does this mean that soon the head of the Kremlin,
Vladimir Putin, will be forced to end the war of aggression in Ukraine – simply because there will be no more money for the army and weapons?
Theoretically, this is exactly how it should be, but the realities of Putin’s Russia are different. In fact, the Kremlin dictator has sole control over all the resources available in the country. At the same time, the peculiarities of the mentality of Russians are such that people are ready to accept an even greater decrease in the standard of living, to conditionally switch to bread by cards. The good news is that there are fewer and fewer Russians willing to participate in Putin’s war, and that the F-16 fighter jets and new Western weapons could dramatically change the picture of this war.
Russian human rights defender Mark Feigin expressed this opinion in an exclusive interview with OBOZ.UA.
– Head of the Central Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, said that the economy of the Russian Federation was in a state of “overheating” – the most on record in the last 16 years, that reserves of labor and industry were practically exhausted and the situation was really difficult. In your opinion, have there been objective reasons that prevent Putin from waging a long war? First of all, economic reasons.
– There are probably economic reasons. Other experts, more experienced in economics than I, clearly testify to what Nabiullina stated. They emphasize that indeed the factors that arose due to sanctions and due to the bias towards military expenditures of the budget, the factors of the necessary investments in the military industry, have certainly accumulated at the moment. Actually, the economy really works on the edge.
The problem is that the reserve of what the Russian government and the Kremlin can afford is much larger than we think. That is, they are able to further reduce, for example, the level of population consumption, budget allocations for the non-military sphere. They are ready to turn on the printing press. In other words, inflation and the rest are permissible expenses, where the government is ready to go. And we do not understand how much they can worsen the situation with the economy and what conclusions to draw.
Roughly speaking, they can distribute bread by cards. Of course I’m exaggerating. But the main factor is the indignation of the population, is it ready to live like in North Korea or not? And here we do not see signs of any organized discontent. The problem is this.
That is, economic factors certainly indicate that the economy cannot exist in this way, the system ceases to function fully. But I want to emphasize that the reserve of the population’s willingness to accept these changes for the worse is inexhaustible – we can see it.
Therefore, all these factors do not add up to a desire to immediately end the war. Yes, they are making efforts, yes, Putin is interested in negotiations and a ceasefire, yes, he is interested in achieving a result. But the trouble is that the factors that force him to immediately end the war are overestimated in Ukraine and in the West, even the economic factor.
So Putin launched missiles, each worth 200 million, a billion of money was spent, but there is no effect. He is stupid, spends money… But they don’t think about it. They do not have this factor of money from the point of view of achieving military and political goals. It is secondary. They can continue on the mobilization resource, produce the necessary products, drive people to the front. They have this reserve, and it is very difficult to measure it. They can do this for another year or two. Hell knows, I can’t say.
These factors increased both in 2022 and 2023. They continue in 2024, but so far nothing has happened that would have a catastrophic effect on this situation. To simply stop the production of tanks, planes, missiles, cartridges, etc. This is not there either.
We do not fully understand the reserves and possibilities of the Russian economy in relation to the Russian population. If the Russians were indignant that they would no longer work, if a general strike were to be declared, it would be an expression of the lack of economic capacity to continue the war. That would be a trigger. And what are the rest? Well, wages will decrease, well, purchasing power will decrease, well, the level of consumption will decrease, so what? And then everything will continue as it was.
– Of course, you and I are not economists, but could you guess what the main source of these inexhaustible resources is? Could it be, for example, “Putin’s wallet” or the income from the sale of oil and gas?
– Do you remember how in Charles Perrault’s fairy tale the cat ran and said: this is all the property of Marquis Karabas? So, everything that exists in Russia belongs to Putin and no one else. He simply manages everything himself. He can spend everything he has on everything he wants. As a dictator, he has no limitations. Who will limit it? State Duma? People? Where is this factor that can make him do this and not that?
Therefore, in fact, we are talking about the reserve of the Russian economy in general. Putin’s “wallet”? Suppose he has some assets concentrated in various places abroad, hundreds of billions of dollars. But it is problematic to use them as investments in war. There is some NZ, but it is incomparable to the capabilities of the Russian economy, because in the end, all that is, is the Russian economy. And he uses it. There is no such personal stash, a trillion dollars, which he has lying around and he does not touch it. It doesn’t work like that. Putin owns everything.
– But there is another factor that cannot be avoided. The Kremlin is forced to increase payments to contract workers, as there are fewer and fewer people willing to go to war in Ukraine. Why are there fewer of them?
– Because those who wanted, who felt an urgent need for money, have already died or been mutilated. Undoubtedly, the resource potential is decreasing. And again, trying to stimulate recruitment for the war in big cities is also pointless, because they can make comparable money anyway. There are no such problems in large agglomerations.
Plus it is associated with the risk of death. More than two and a half years have passed, people are coming back and telling what is happening there, not from the propaganda vanguard, but real people. They say that this is not fishing, not entertainment, that people will die there like flies. That is why we have to stimulate with money. What other stimulants are there? To announce a new mobilization? And if they don’t go, and if they get angry?
– Summarizing, could you suggest where the process is moving, how events may develop further? You said that the aggressor country has the resource, the advance of the occupying forces in the east of Ukraine, in the Pokrovsky direction, unfortunately, also continues.
– When I was recently in Ukraine, I was in the Pokrovsky direction, practically on the front line. And I want to say that new weapons, primarily F-16 aircraft and other means that can be provided to Ukraine, can change the course of the movement of troops in this direction and generally stop the Russian offensive.
As for the forecast in general, everyone is waiting for the US elections, who will win – Trump or Harris. This political factor will affect military circumstances as well.
“Because those who wanted, who felt an urgent need for money, have already died or been mutilated.”
That about puts it in a nutshell. In mafia land, even the most backward, dim-witted, hog-breathed, moron has got to realize that the money is one thing, but surviving to spend it is quite another. Then there’s the problem of broken promises, which the kremlin is very famous for. Meaning, no money being paid regardless of what happens to the meat puppet.
I won’t even go into other details, like getting raped by your commander, getting your teeth kicked in if you screw up, having half rotten food to eat and water from greenish or brownish stagnant water puddles as drinking source, and so on.