Paul Goble
Staunton, Aug. 16 – Vladimir Putin has not only increased the amount Moscow will pay men to sign up for military service in Ukraine but asked that Russia’s federal subject governments do the same. But the latter are frequently telling him that they won’t be able to do so unless the center transfers more resources to them.
Some better off regions have been able to offer enormous bonuses, but many can’t; and if Moscow insists on their doing so anyway, they will have to take money away from other tasks and the population will suffer (moscowtimes.ru/2024/08/16/u-regionov-ne-okazalos-deneg-na-obeschannie-putinim-viplati-za-otpravku-na-voinu-a139660).
According to the BBC, only 27 of Russia’s more than 80 oblasts, krays and republics are currently paying the amount to new recruits that the Kremlin wants, a figure that reflects the fact that many are hard pressed to do so (bbc.com/russian/articles/czx67007nxqo and raexpert.ru/researches/regions/economic_regions_1h2024/).
Besides highlighting the absurdities of Russian government financing in which Moscow takes most tax revenues from the federal subjects and then returns only a portion of it, this situation calls into question those in Moscow who have presented regional subsidies to military recruits as evidence that regional officials support the war.
In fact, as the requests of the governors show, they mostly see the war as a burden that will overwhelm them unless Moscow comes to their aid, something the Kremlin appears to be ever less willing or even able to do – and an outcome which may lead ever more of them to adopt a critical stance toward the center on a wide variety of issues.
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