To survive Putin: what will hurt the Russian Federation and help the event in the military marathon
But in the new year, he will have to face the third dangerous rival - the war itself. The fighting in Ukraine will probably increase the load on the lives of most Russians and will now be more and more dangerous, since the war, as a voracious mole, devours the Kremlin's stocks of money and people. In 2024, the Kremlin will increase defense costs by 68 percent compared to last year. Combined with the costs of law enforcement agencies, the military will consume 40 percent of the country's budget.
Where will the money come from? Given the prices for oil and natural gas exports, most of which previously went to Western Europe (it decreased by about 60 percent compared to 2021), the annual income of the state from these sources decreased by 24 percent. If there is no wider war in the Middle East, the price of oil is unlikely to increase so much to compensate for the cost of defense.
Increasing energy exports will also not be able to bring much more money: Russia is already pumped all oil, which can be obtained by selling most of it with high discounts of China and India. In any case, sales can be reduced as the event continues to repress the owners of a "shadow fleet" that transports Russian oil, breaking the price limit of 60 dollars per barrel a barrel installed by a "large seven", and some ports tend to refuse many of the entrance to many of these old uninsured vessels.
Last year, the Russian government raised taxes on oil and gas and hit the enterprises with a lump sum tax on unforeseen income. Putin also climbed to the National Welfare Fund, which is kept on a rainy day to withdraw $ 38 billion, or one fifth of the total. At this rate, the piggy bank will soon empty, and the Kremlin will not have a different choice but to raise taxes. The most likely tactic is to raise 20 percent value added tax for manufacturers and retailers who will probably shift consumers.
Since Joseph Stalin's USSR is becoming more and more model for the Kremlin Putin, another very unpopular method is the "voluntary" subscription to government bonds. Whatever military cunning, time for the raid on Russian wallets is clearly unfavorable. Despite the fact that before Christmas, the Central Bank added another point to a 15 percent base rate to contain inflation (now it is 7. 5 percent), prices for basic food continue to rise.
Eggs cost 43 percent more than a year ago, the chicken went up by almost 27 percent, and sugar has risen more than 10 percent. For its part, to compensate for the fall of foreign sales, Gazprom gas giant raised the internal gas prices by 11 percent for the second half last year and plans to raise them by another 8 percent in 2024. Last year, the ruble fell to 100 US dollar and probably continue falling. Social costs, already scanty, continue to decline.
Health care is planned to be reduced by 10 percent. The financing of the maintenance and repair of engineering communications - water supply, sewage, electricity, heat - in 2025 will be halved. At the same time, in the first week of January, when the temperature dropped to 4 degrees below zero, Podolsk Podolsk was left without heat for several days.
The most dangerous incidents are probably waiting for Russian airlines, which in 2023 suffered more than 180 events and malfunctions, which is three times more than in the previous year. As about 70 percent of the country's commercial airlines are in foreign production, the planes do not have spare parts and do not undergo mandatory maintenance. Any replacement materials and details are almost probably not certified by manufacturers. Fatal accidents are just a matter of time.
However, young people of Russia will be the greatest danger in 2024. Apparently, the call to the army held last fall did not bring enough recruits, and Putin signed a decree to extend the armed forces by 170,000 soldiers to a total number of 1. 3 million servicemen. Some experts believe that to achieve this figure, given the losses on the front line, the Kremlin may have to mobilize up to 300,000 recruits.
In an effort to fulfill their quotas, conscript power often ignores medical restrictions and, at least in one reported case, mental disorders. Students who have real deferrals are taken from hostels and Muslims are mosques. Although Putin promised not to send "stitches" to Ukraine, many of them, as reported, exert pressure, forcing them to sign "contracts", turning them into "volunteers" who have their place in the trenches.
Despite the fact that Putin is exhausting the latter, amnestying convicted killers, rapists, and lately Satanists and Cannibals, after six months of service in special units "Storm-C" in Ukraine the stream of prisoners-volunteers seems to be reduced. At the same time, reservists sent to the front during "partial mobilization" in September 2022, are still in Ukraine with small prospects of rotation, and even more so.
Another nationwide call, which is most likely to follow Putin's re-election, appointed on March 17, on the 10th anniversary of the annexation of Crimea, will be extremely unpopular, which will cause new protests by the movement of wives and mothers of growing reservists. Despite the strong support for the war in public opinion polls, the vast majority of Russians are just beginning to feel wandering and personal casualties.
After almost a quarter of a century, the reign of the regime, which is likely to be equal in modern Russian history in cynicism and corruption, most Russians have become apathetic, affected by a state that leading Russian political sociologists called "studied indifference. " They can support the mode in words, and in reality - to expect when "all" is over. Liven face enough to wage a long war for exhaustion.