Wednesday, October 4, 2023
Putin goes “all in”! Kremlin makes a clear decision in the Ukraine war
The West Putin goes “all in”! Kremlin makes a clear decision in the Ukraine war Article by Marcel Görmann • 1 H. Now it’s official: Putin is going “all in”! He is clearly not planning to withdraw from Ukraine in 2024, but rather the complete opposite. For the West, the new announcement from Moscow is a “wake-up call,” as one expert says. The war could enter a new phase. Putin is not giving in: the army is a clear priority On Friday, the Russian Finance Ministry confirmed that military spending will grow enormously in 2024. The arms budget is increasing explosively by almost 70 percent! The Kremlin wants to invest 10.8 trillion rubles (the equivalent of around 106 billion euros) in the army. That would be around six percent of Russia's expected gross domestic product in the coming year. Despite high inflation and although the ruble lost around 30 percent of its value in 2023, Putin wants to take things to the next level and invest even more in weapons. The priorities are therefore crystal clear: According to calculations by the AFP news agency, around three times as much money will flow into the army than into the budgets for education, health and environmental protection combined! Expert warns West: “Much greater effort required” v Eastern Europe expert Janis Kluge from the “Science and Politics Foundation” sounds the alarm on X (formerly Twitter): “The Russian budget plan for 2024 must be a wake-up call for the West. Putin wants to win. It will require a much greater effort and spending by the West to stop him.” Russian army must compensate for losses Putin also needs the many billions to make up for the massive losses of his troops. The Ukrainian General Staff claims that Putin's army had already lost almost 4,700 tanks on Ukraine's battlefields by the end of September. The Ukrainian side also states that around 9,000 armored fighting vehicles and hundreds of aircraft and helicopters have been destroyed since the start of the war. Even if these numbers cannot be verified, the losses are likely to be severe. According to media reports, Russia wants to restart production of the old Soviet T-80 tank. That would fit the picture if Putin wanted to quickly compensate for the high losses. Christoph Wanner, Moscow correspondent for “Welt,” reported on Friday that Russia wants to buy short- and medium-range missiles from Iran. The UN export embargo expires on October 18th. “It seems that Russia will then strike,” said Wanner. These missiles would be a complementary weapon to the kamikaze threats that Putin has already purchased from Iran for his war.