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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March
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It is too early to judge the obscene Crocus City massacre as evidence has still to be collected from the captured perpetrators, their enablers and captured phones but it does not look like a typical Islamic State operation. Freenations will cover it soon.
In the Russian elections Vladimir Putin got 87% of the vote on a 77.44% turnout (UK general elections since 2001 have averaged 64%).
The main opposition in Russia to Putin are the communists, who got 4.31% of the vote – about the same level achieved in opinion polls by the late western sponsored Navalny. Although electorally weak the Communists are organisationally strong with an inherited cross national party infrastructure.
Putin is a Christian (whose late mother was devoted to the Church) and has the fervent support of Russian Orthodoxy. He has on many occasions made his opposition to communism clear and said it would be “brainless” to recreate the old Soviet Union. On the centenary of Solzhenitsyn’s birth Putin unveiled a statue to him and on 30th October 2017 he attended the unveiling of the ‘Wall of Grief’, a monument erected in Moscow to the victims of communist repression. The results of the Russian Presidential election were:
The 87% support for Putin was fully in line with the polling of the Levada Center – a Russian independent, polling organization founded in 1987 which was labelled a foreign agent under the 2012 Russian Foreign Agent law but managed to survive without being seen as a tool of government.
Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000 after the most disastrous years under Boris Yeltsin when economic collapse, social degradation and political powerlessness (with western officials virtually dictating policies and western corporations moving in) dominated Russia.
The turnaround since the 1990s has been extraordinary, not least considering the 15,000 sanctions imposed on Russia by NATO and the EU and the costs of fighting a war in Ukraine. Today the Russian economy is growing at a rate half as much again as the USA and about 20 times the rate of the EU.
The cost of living for the average Russian is far lower than in the West. For example a German analyst worked out the wage to costs ratio for a typical restaurant worker: In Russia he would earn post tax 783 Euros a month and in that restaurant a full meal would cost 3.5 Euros. His salary would therefore cover 223 meals. In Germany where the post tax salary would be 1,340 Euros and a full meal would cost 8.5 Euros the worker could buy only 157 meals – 30% worse than the Russian. The income tax for this worker would be 13% in Russia and 25% in Germany!
A simple example but one which shows how important Purchasing Power Parity is when assessing a country’s real GDP and how Russia can for example produce far cheaper war materials than the West. In Ukraine some Russian missiles costing a few thousands are confronted by US Patriot Missiles costing several millions.
Russian income taxes are very low – 13% rising to 15% with property taxes at between 0.1 and 2% of property value. Vladimir Putin has just announced that all soldiers fighting in Ukraine will be relieved of property taxes. The war economy since the start of the Russian intervention in Ukraine has meant a big boost for industrial wages. A welder in a manufacturing plant for instance, who made 25,000 prior to the onset of the Russian intervention has seen his wage quadrupled to 100,000 rubles, and in the former territories of Ukraine to 300,000 rubles. For the details of Putin’s remarkable economic record see below.
Social Legislation
The Financial Times noted that Russia saw a remarkable 3.6% economic growth in 2023, positioning itself as the foremost economy in Europe and the fifth globally with Russians experiencing a 5.4% increase in real disposable income and unemployment at a record low.
Even with the blatant theft by NATO/EU of some $300 bn of Russian foreign exchange reserves the country has moved up to 6th place in the global table with reserves of $442 bn.
Despite EU and USA sanctions, they still take hundreds of millions of Dollars worth of oil, gas, LNG and Uranium from Russia, boosting Russian Government revenues. Exports to China have reached record levels. Vladimir Putin has used these revenues not just to create a war production economy but to boost social provision. Some examples:
The Russian people know that their President opposes mass immigrations, supranational powers like the EU and the West’s “new world order”, is supportive of his country’s sovereignty, domestic industry and jobs, the traditional family and marriage, protecting children from sexual abuse, the Christian religion (building hundreds of new churches), low taxes, generous social support and a “multi-polar” world order.
They agree with him and have voted accordingly in a show of support which western leaders can only dream of. That support will have increased after the obscene massacre at the Crocus City Hall in the suburbs of Moscow and all four perpetrators were captured along with 11 accomplices.
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