Paul Goble
Staunton, April 27 – Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov, head of the Republic of Ingushetia, has freely admitted what everyone in Russia certainly knows: their federal subjects have been forced to cut back on programs for their own residents in order to pay for Putin’s expanded invasion of Ukraine.
Most regional and republic heads are extremely cautious about making this link explicit, but Kalimatov is blunt: “In the conditions of the Special Military Operation … it is sometimes necessary to put off some projects so that other more important tasks can be carried out” (fortanga.org/2026/04/vlasti-ingushetii-priznalis-chto-vynuzhdeny-otkladyvat-byudzhetnye-proekty-v-svyazi-s-tratami-na-vojnu-v-ukraine/).
Ingushetia, he continues, has sent nearly 500 million rubles (6 million US dollars) in humanitarian help, to rebuilding a region in Zaporozhye Oblast, and to provide summer camps for children displaced by the fighting. This is no small sum for a small republic that has lost several hundred dead in combat there.
What makes remarks like Kalimatov’s so important is that they will make it easier for others to connect the dots and complain about what the war is costing them not only in lives and treasure but in their daily lives as money for basic needs disappears to fuel Putin’s military aggression.
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