Kremlin Reducing Support for Population Groups which Can’t Provide Workers or Soldiers More than for Those who Can, Orekh Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 30 – Putin has reduced social spending across the board to finance his war in Ukraine, but he hasn’t done so equally. Instead, Anton Orekh says, he has cut programs for groups that can’t provide workers or soldiers far more deeply than he has for those groups which can do so.

            No one says that people who can’t help the economy or the military are “superfluous,” commentator Anton Orekh says. Instead, the Kremlin talks about fiscal responsibility and national security. But the regime’s message is clear: some Russians are more worthy of support and survival than others (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/03/30/optimizatsiia-naseleniia).

            This difference helps explain why government spending for young people who won’t be able to be workers or soldiers anytime soon and for the elderly who no longer can serve in those capacities suffer more than others and thus why Russia’s demographic numbers are tanking, the commentator adds.

            He concludes his jeremiad on this point by quoting Russian satirist Mikhail Zhvanetsky’s observation that “patriotism is a precise, clear and well-argumented explanation of why we must live worse than others.” Tragically, Putin’s Russia is not the only country on earth whose government is following his short-sighted and morally indefensible approach.