Russia’s increasing military spending and losing credibility in the war against Ukraine are giving many lessons to the world

The increasing steps of Russia in the war against Ukraine have now come to a standstill as Russia has also suffered huge loss of life and property. President Vladimir Putin does not understand what to do if he does. In fact, since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia was facing various sanctions imposed by the western countries. Economic sanctions against Russia increased after the start of the war against Ukraine, which put Russia’s economy under severe pressure. Along with this, contrary to Putin’s thinking, the war is going on for a long time due to which Russia’s loss is increasing. If seen, the war which was initially started by Russia thinking it as a small military operation, now seems to be endless. For Russia, this struggle has become a long and costly war.

war expenses

The Economist has estimated Russia’s military spending at five trillion rubles (£49bn) a year, or three per cent of its GDP. However, the German Council on Foreign Relations (GDAP) estimates Russia’s military spending on the war at USD 90 billion (£72 billion), or more than five per cent of GDP. Due to the incalculable expenditure being incurred in the war, the morale of the Russians has also started responding.

What will happen if the war continues like this?

As far as international sanctions are concerned, it has caused huge damage to Russia’s economy. The sanctions have affected Russia’s ability to access international markets, foreign exchange and products. Also, the rate at which the Russian army is currently receiving defense equipment and ammunition from friendly countries is also putting pressure on the country’s defense industry. The option before Russia to overcome this situation is to massively increase its military efforts to achieve a decisive breakthrough in one go. If the war continues like this, then Ukraine will continue to get help from the world because even though two countries are fighting this war, it is affecting the economies globally. In such a situation, big countries of the world will continue to support Ukraine to stop Russia and make Ukraine win.

What did Russia lose?

If we look at the war so far, Russia has lost a large amount of arms and ammunition. In March 2023, James Happy, Britain’s Minister of the Armed Forces, estimated that Russia had 1,900 main battle tanks, 3,300 other armored fighting vehicles, 73 crewed fixed-wing aircraft, several hundred unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) of all types. ), 78 helicopters, 550 tube artillery systems, 190 rocket artillery systems and eight naval ships. In addition, Russia is also facing several important military and industrial challenges. In fact, Russia is also dependent on foreign technology for many precision-targeting weapons, which it is no longer getting due to sanctions. There are also reports that most of the high-tech electronic products used by the Russian military are manufactured by American companies. Perhaps this is the reason why at present the Russian army is using low grade weapons more and cutting edge technology weapons are being used sparingly. Russia is doing this because the situation worsens, then real work can be taken from them. It has also come to the fore that the cannon balls on which Russia had a lot of faith are also now falling short.

If you want to understand the impact of global sanctions on Russia, then you can see the report of US Thinktank Center for Security and International Studies. In this report, quoting the estimates of US intelligence agencies, it has been told that Russia has become so upset that it has stopped the work that it wanted to replace or upgrade its more than 6000 military equipment because it has to adopt foreign technology and technology. Equipment related to defense production is not available. The upgrade of Russian tanks and military aircraft has also stalled due to these sanctions.

What is Russia doing now?

The reports coming out from Russia are showing that now Putin’s government is insisting on manufacturing weapons completely domestically. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, recently presented a plan to produce 1,500 advanced tanks. Russian news agency Tass has reported that Medvedev is also planning mass production of surveillance drones. The government is said to be providing adequate loans to arms manufacturers and has even issued orders to banks to do so. It is also being reported that many Russian arms plants are working three shifts for six or seven days a week and are also offering higher wages to the employees. This is being done so that they can increase the production of weapons systems like those which Russia is not able to import due to sanctions.

However, Russia’s rising military spending and eroding credibility once again underscore the importance of India’s message to the world, under which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that this is not an era of war. Russia may have won some areas of Ukraine from the war, but the pride it had of its military power has been shattered. The way the army of a small country with limited resources has confused a superpower of the world for one and a half years has become one of the major events in global history.

-Neeraj Kumar Dubey