Russia’s Economy isn’t Growing Much Outside Military Industry Sector, Aleksashenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 20 – Sergey Aleksashenko, an economist who helped prepare Russian budgets in the 1990s, says that despite the Russian government’s failure to discuss this openly, Moscow has provided enough data to conclude that the Russian economy is not growing very much outside of the military industry sector.

            On the one hand, that is not surprising given that Russia is at war in Ukraine; but on the other, it means that the growth in the military sector is not trickling down into the civilian sector but if anything is doing so less and less with each passing month (hronika.substack.com/p/400 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/est-li-v-rossii-rost-nevoennoj-ekonomiki).

            And that in turn means that military spending is doing ever less to help other branches of the economy and the standard of living of the Russian people than many now think, something that his analysis suggests will be increasingly true as Putin’s war in Ukraine and potentially elsewhere drags on.

            Aleksashenko provides a detailed discussion of the methodology he employs to exploit what data have been released to reach his conclusion that military spending is not boosting overall GDP by anything like the amount the Kremlin claims and that many still uncritically accept.