(by Francesco Matera) If anyone was thinking of negotiations started with Moscow to end the war in Ukraine, unfortunately, the evidence shows the opposite. According to a Bloomberg analysis, Moscow intends to increase military spending during 2024 to 6 percent of its GDP. The defense budget would skyrocket like this 67 billion dollars annually to 112 billion.
Considering that 96 rubles are needed for one dollar at today's exchange rate, the funding for defense takes on an enormous value as a large part of the raw materials and labor come from within Russia where the standard of living is still relatively low.
As an indicator let's take the average salary in Moscow as an example: it is around 800 per month (without any substantial difference between workers, miners and engineers). They are not many, but still more than the national average: according to the numbers provided by the Moscow statistics office, in fact, the average salary in Russia today is around 450 euros per month. And if they seem few, you have to think that until a few years ago they were half as many, 290 euros in 2010.
Il International Monetary Fund has recently certified the resistance of the economy of Russia to Western sanctions. Also the World Economic Outlook last July ha Russian GDP estimates revised upwards of 2023, growth is expected to be 1,5% instead of the 0,7% forecast in April, up 0,8%. The IMF forecasts for 2024 remain unchanged, at +1,3%. The constant increase in Russian GDP is probably due to revenues from oil and gas exports which, according to Bloomberg analysis, have even increased despite the sanctions.
To support the war effort, a third of the Russian economy, according to Western intelligence, was converted to military needs. Therefore, the implementation of the war economy was important, transforming the production of factories from civilian to military, working seven days a week with related night shifts.
The result is, in fact, there for all to see because for over twenty months the army has been carrying out incessant bombings in Ukraine every day and every night.
As for the quality components such as i microchip Moscow However, it manages to obtain supplies in Asia but also in the West via third countries, once in the orbit of the former Soviet Union. For rockets and artillery shells, an agreement was recently activated with North Korea which has depots full of precious ammunition which, even if dated, can still favor the Kremlin's strategy in the constant bombing of Ukraine.
Gianluca Di Feo on Repubblica also revealed Putin's new strategy: all efforts will have to be concentrated on the weapons tested during the conflict. No more wasting engineers and rubles to invent new things. Better to concentrate on the production of KH-55 cruise missiles, dating back to the early XNUMXs, updating their navigation systems to escape Ukrainian anti-aircraft fire.
Therefore, the construction of the proven T90 tanks and the recent versions of the Soviet T72s continues: in 2021, 100 were delivered per year, now the number has gone up to 200 and the aim is to go further. Even the revision of the armaments stacked in the depots has become a priority, like the T62 and T55 tanks that experienced the invasion of Czechoslovakia and that of Afghanistan. There are thousands already available for an upgrade. In fact, a supply chain was invented from scratch to resurrect them, repairing engines, transmissions and cannons. In addition, aiming visors, reactive protections and encrypted radios are added. Two Siberian plants take care of it full time.
La Progress Arsenyev, writes Repubblica, has doubled the helicopters Kamov Alligator. In the field of killer drones the Russians produce hundreds of Shahed Iranians and the fearsome Lancet. The production of the drones would have been organized in the Ikea warehouses, abandoned following the sanctions.
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