In the first six months of 2023, total budget expenditure rose to almost 15 trillion rubles (€142.3 billion), an increase of 2.5 trillion rubles (€23.7 billion) on the previous year, with defence spending responsible for almost the entire difference, economic analyst Boris Grozovsky says. The Russian government has simultaneously increased military spending while decreasing spending in other sectors, which is “why budget statistics are no longer being released,” Grozovsky added.
as long as there’re still european countries buying stuff from Russia (yes, I’m looking at you, Austria, Hungary, Poland…) and therefore financing the whole war, I fear we won’t see an end of all of this in the near future.
Plus it’s beyond me why PayPal and all other payment processing sites don’t block stuff like Boosty, which is used by almost exclusively russian firms to bypass western sanctions and receive cash - which does, in the end, also fuel the war business of Russia.
PayPal, and every other company doesn’t actually give a fuck. They pretend to, so they don’t upset their customers. They wouldn’t spend a dime they don’t have to turning away business. That’s just not good capitalism. Businessmen gotta do business.
As far as I understand Russia spending most of their money in the country itself to pay for the salaries of soldiers and manufacturing.
If Austria is really financing the war, then only if Russia used that money to buy war stuff from elsewhere. For that I have no information. (I know that they buy from Iran and north Korea. However both of these countries do not use the euro?)
Parts of a lot of Russian weapons are of Western origin. That is stuff designed for civilian use, but can be used in weapons as well. For example GDS chips are used in smartphones, but also can be used in drones. That is the kind of stuff Russia needs hard money for. Then you have machining tools and similar products as well, which can be used to make weapons.
At the same time it enables Russia to focus its production on military products, if it can use hard currency for civilan goods.
Shouldn’t these thing fall under one oft the 11(?) sanctions packs we put on Russia so far?
what good are sanctions packs if they aren’t properly enforced?
Just as an example, some of the Western chips found in Russian weapons are also installed in dish washers. You can buy them online without anybody really looking into it and have them delivered to say Kazhkhstan and then transport them into Russia. It is basicly impossible to enforce, as anybody can buy them with such ease.
Does not compute. Money from Europe helps financing the war even if it’s domestic production. Money is fungible, you can’t say this specific euro or ruble is not used for weapons and therefore it’s ok to pay them. Western business helps prop up ruble exchange rate which limits inflation and domestic discontent, which allows Putin to spend more on domestic weapon production.
what are you talking about? countries buying from russia gives russia money that they can use to import stuff. without the foreign spending theyd lack that money
Sure, I’m not disputing that.
The message I was reacting to claimed that since the money Austria pays to Russia isn’t spent directly on weapons in foreign countries, there’s no moral issue in doing that. Which is not true.
Poland? What are they buying?
Polish state energy giant Orlen explains increased Russian oil imports | Notes From Poland https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/06/12/polish-state-energy-giant-orlen-explains-increased-russian-oil-imports/
Interesting, thanks.
Terribly disappointing to hear, especially given how much Poland has otherwise gone to bat for Ukraine lately…