At a Time of Crisis, Moscow Cuts Spending on Medicine But Boosts it For Force Structures

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 6 – Despite the pandemic and the economic hardships associated with it, the Russian government is cutting back on spending for the economy, education and medicine while boosting the amount of money it is giving to the force structures and to the upper reaches of the government, according to a new analysis of budget figures.

            The Finanz.ru portal reports that the finance ministry is planning to cut back on government spending in all areas except the siloviki and the financing of the top leadership of the country over the next three years so that the government can avoid a current account deficit (finanz.ru/novosti/aktsii/pravitelstvo-pustit-pod-nozh-ekonomiku-obrazovanie-i-medicinu-radi-finansirovaniya-silovikov-1029472090).

            To put it bluntly, the Russian government at a time of widespread suffering in the population is choosing guns over butter, buying more of the former and less of the latter and thus compounding the difficulties the Russian people face while ensuring that their rulers have the resources to defend themselves against the people.

            The financial portal emphasizes that this is exactly the reverse of what other developing countries are doing in the face of the pandemic. Unlike Russia, they are spending vastly more both absolutely and as a percentage of their budgets on social needs than on force structures and are running deficits in order to do so.

            The portal provides detailed descriptions of the changes in the amounts of money being allocated to the various sectors, with social needs getting ten percent or more less and the military and police getting a corresponding boost instead.