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Independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reports that an investigation on military courts across the country reveals that over 20,500 soldiers have been prosecuted for refusing to follow orders from the Kremlin.
Independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reports that an investigation on military courts across the country reveals that over 20,500 soldiers have been prosecuted for refusing to follow orders from the Kremlin.
Vladimir Putin has announced plans to scale back military spending after Kremlin officials warned that Russia is “on the brink of recession”.
The Russian leader said he would reduce defence spending “next year and the year after, over the next three-year period” at an economic summit of five post-Soviet states in Minsk on Friday.
Responding to Nato’s plans to raise defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP, Putin said the alliance’s members would spend on “purchases from the USA and on supporting their military-industrial complex”.
“So who is preparing for some kind of aggressive actions? Us or them?” he added.
The comments came after Maxim Reshetnikov, the Russian minister of economic development, last week announced that the country is “on the brink of going into a recession”.
Elvira Nabiullina, governor of the Bank of Russia, also warned that the country’s wartime economic momentum – driven by massive state defence sector spending – was grinding to a halt.
“We grew for two years at a fairly high pace because free resources were activated,” she said. “We need to understand that many of those resources have truly been exhausted.”
Russia’s economy grew by 4.3 per cent in 2024, however, in an effort to kerb rampant inflation, interest rates were held at a staggering 21 per cent since October, before being cut marginally to 20 per cent this month as pressure eased slightly.
Inflation has largely been driven by sanctions creating higher import costs. Wage growth has also soared to a 16-year high due to labour shortages caused by syphoning off workers into the defence sectors and the military.
Moscow’s Higher School of Economics estimated that there was a deficit of 2.6 million employees at the end of 2024.
The Kremlin has also offered high wages and generous signing-on bonuses to soldiers in an effort to fill the ranks on the front line.
Although the military-industrial complex has benefitted from increased state spending, private-sector industries have been impacted by lower demand, rising costs and large debt exposure due to sky-high interest rates.
Russian banking officials have privately warned of a risk of a crisis over the coming year due to a growing number of businesses unable to make loan payments, Bloomberg News reported.
Future costs could include that of reintegrating veterans of the war in Ukraine. Of the almost 140,000 Russian soldiers who have returned to civilian life, half reportedly remain unemployed.
Putin, however, brushed off claims that the Russian economy was faltering at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum last week.