On the Home Front, Putin ‘has No Fewer Problems than Ukraine Does,’ Koch Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 3 – As Putin’s war in Ukraine grinds on, ever more people are shifting their attention from the battlefield to home fronts in the two countries involved and concluding that, in a war of attrition, Russia the larger has the advantage over Ukraine. But Alfred Koch says that “Putin’s Russia has no fewer problems there than Ukraine does.”

            The former Russian official and economist says that this becomes clear if one focuses on key sectors of the Russian economy, such as manufacturing, and the way they have reacted since the start of the expanded Russian military action in Ukraine in February 2022 (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=656D6C637D04D).

            Koch points out that in the six months following that date, the output of the manufacturing sector in Russia fell by ten percent. Then, with the influx of government spending on military goods, the sector as a whole began to grow again and reached its pre-war level in January 2023.

            But since April of this year, he continues, “there has been no growth in Russian manufacturing.” And it is unlikely to grow quickly anytime soon. The reason for this pattern is simple: government money was able to boost production back to where it was but not to increase production beyond that, something that would require building new plants.

            That is a far more difficult and expensive task, “especially since Russia does not have access to high-quality machines and equipment due to sanctions.” That means that those who talk about the revival of “the mighty Soviet military industrial sector” on the basis of the recovery at the end of this year are wrong.

            It can’t grow beyond its current capacity anytime soon, Koch argues; and Putin’s recent decision to expand the number of soldiers in his army is further confirmation of this fact. He could order the army to increase its number of soldiers, but he cannot and will not soon be in a position to increase the munitions sent to them.

            Ukrainians and their Western supporters have to stop thinking that they are “faced with some kind of irresistible force and that the Russian military-industrial complex has come back and now is all is lost because there is no army in the world that could resist it” – and certainly the Ukrainian military whose own military industrial complex is half destroyed.

            Putin’s decision to increase the size of his army, Koch says, is thus not a reflection of the growth of Russia’s military-industrial complex but rather of the fact that the Kremlin leader can’t increase production in that sector any further and so will try to win by simply throwing more cannon fodder into the front lines.