Russian President Vladimir Putin has not ceased in his efforts against Ukraine and this Tuesday, days before the one-year anniversary of the invasion of the country, he delivered a speech lasting more than two hours in which he announced more military investments to reach “until the final”. In addition, he has warned the West, whom he continues to point to as a central role in the conflict, that if it continues to send long-range weapons to Zelensky’s country, he will be forced to “remove the threat” from Russia’s borders.
Along these lines, it has promised to continue investing in the military industry with projects that promote the development of new types of weapons. He has also reported the creation of a state fund to help the relatives of deceased soldiers as a form of gratitude for the services rendered. His words once again threaten the world economy, after the Kremlin leader has also winked at China by launching a project to create “international corridors” for infrastructure between the two countries.
measures to promote the Russian economy
He has added to his list of promises a significant reduction in the tax burden and the implementation of financial aid to Russian companies to boost the domestic economy, which the Russian has congratulated, referring to the initial forecast of a reduction of 25 % that has managed to dodge. “They told us that the economy was going to sink 25%, 10%, then 2.9%, 2.5%… Total, that we have gone down, but only 2.1%.”
In turn, the president of Russia has urged the national oligarchs to invest and do business in the country, and has recalled that those who took their capital abroad, where they planned to live, have lost a lot. “Recent events have shown that the image of the West as a quiet haven for capital turned out to be false, a mirage,” Putin said in his state of the nation address to both houses of Parliament.
With the implementation of these new promises, military spending will continue to rise while the arcades continue to decline. Already in January, Russian military spending increased by more than half, by 59%, while revenue to tax coffers fell by 35% compared to the same month in 2022, resulting in a budget deficit of 1.76 trillion rubles ( about 24,000 million dollars), which represents more than half of what was forecast for all of 2023.
Putin opens his arms to relations with Asia
Leaving aside the war, which seems to have reached a ‘stand-by’ point, Putin dedicated part of his speech to announcing his intention to recover international relations. In this way, he has assured that he wants to create new infrastructure “international corridors” that will connect Russia with China, Mongolia and the rest of East Asia.
Among the projects that the Kremlin has in mind: the construction of a highway to Vladivostok that reaches the Asian region together with a railway network, the renewal of the ports on the Black and Azov Seas and the Volga-Caspian Sea canal and the development of the international corridor “North-South”, which “will open new routes for cooperation with India, Iran, Pakistan, the countries of the Middle East.” With all this, Russia will improve “In the year 2024, 85% of the roads in large agglomerations and half of the regional ones” as announced by the president of the country.
