Paul Goble
Staunton, July 12 – Dmigry Skvortsov, a military commentator for Moscow’s Vzglyad newspaper, says that “in 2022, Russia’s needs for ships have grown sharply,” given sanctions and the reorientation of the Russian economy from Europe to Asia and its inability to rely on foreign lines or rent ships for its own use (vz.ru/economy/2023/7/11/1220540.html).
His conclusion that Russia desperately needs to build more ships reflects the situation not only in the world oceans but on Russia’s domestic waterways (jamestown.org/program/growing-problems-with-russias-waterways-restrict-moscows-ability-to-achieve-its-goals/, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/08/russian-river-highways-east-of-urals.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/04/finlands-accession-to-nato-death-knell.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/12/russia-has-only-75-percent-of-tankers.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/11/russia-lacks-ships-and-icebreakers.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/10/moscow-increasingly-relying-on-sea.html).
But Russia’s shipbuilding yards aren’t up to the task and few foreign countries are ready to provide it with serious assistance (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/10/russian-navy-and-its-shipbuilding.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/iranian-wharf-now-repairing-russian-ship.html).
As is usual in such circumstances, Russian officials and analysts like Skvortsov say that yet another new program will allow Moscow to solve all its problems in ten to fifteen years, yet another confirmation of the longstanding Russian anecdote that despite everything that is wrong now, everything will be wonderful soon, making Russia truly a country of the future.
The problem is that like communism in the past and the horizon always, that is unlikely to happen, something that those who read the speeches of Putin and other Russian officials predicting how great everything is going to be after only a few years despite all the problems now should keep in mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment