Paul Goble
Staunton, Aug. 13 – Since Vladimir Putin began his expanded war in Ukraine, gaps in income levels as well as alcohol consumption and serious crime both among and within Russia’s federal subjects have increased, and residents are starting to take notice, according to Berta Shapiro who writes on economic issues for The Insider portal.
The Kremlin, which has neither the resources nor the will to address these growing divides, has worked hard to conceal them by blocking the release of data about them; but in an impressive display of what still can be gleaned from various sources, the Insider commentator provides data for some devastating conclusions (theins.ru/ekonomika/282391).
According to the data Shapiro provides, “three years of war have increased the gap between well-off and lagging regions” in terms of income and access and that in turn has increased differences between serious crime and alcohol consumption.” Regions connected with defense industries have changed positions in the ranking but the overall pattern holds.
Indeed, she says, “differences in the level of incomes remain significant: average pay in the leading regions exceeds by an order of magnitude or more incomes in the poorer regions,” a pattern that is reproduced within federal subjects between the capitals, on the one hand, and smaller cities and rural areas, on the other.
These economic differences lead to economic problems like “unemployment, poverty, inequality and instability” and those in turn contribute to a growth in the consumption of alcohol and serious criminality along the same lines. And in contrast to earlier times, Russians are beginning to notice and express their anger about it, Shapiro says.
In order to reduce these differences and the anger they are generating, the commentator continues, the Russian government during wartime does not have “either the money or the political will” to address. As a result, both the differences and popular anger are likely to continue to intensify.
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