What are we going out for?

On January 14, at a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an agreement was reached to provide Budapest with a $14 billion loan.

It seems that on New Year's Eve, Vladimir Putin decided to put on a Santa Claus costume and give loans from the master's shoulder to almost half the world. Hungary should receive $14 billion for the construction of two new power units at the Paks nuclear power plant, which is 100 km from Budapest; $15 billion was offered in December to Kyiv for refusing to sign an association agreement with the European Union; finally, $ 8 billion was offered to Vietnam, also for the construction of a nuclear power plant, but Hanoi refused the offer, postponing the construction to the next decade.

The feeling is that in Europe Russia is distributing loans not just like that, but certainly in defiance of Brussels: in exchange for billions, Viktor Orban, known among European leaders for his authoritarian style of government, said that he would not obstruct the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline, in the need for which its European neighbors doubt. By the way, on the 14th, against the background of the meeting between Putin and Orban, EU Ambassador to Russia Vygaudas Usackas announced that the format of the Russia-EU summit on January 28 in Brussels would be significantly reduced. Coincidence? Quite possibly... But still, a comparison with the USSR, which also tirelessly supported the leftist regimes from Cuba to Sri Lanka with multibillion-dollar loans, suggests itself. And what? Many of these billions are now either written off or unlikely to ever be returned.

However, if Russia was at the peak of its economic recovery, there would probably be no questions: why not take care of geopolitics, at the same time throwing work to Rosatom. But the fact of the matter is that the fat years have passed, and the Russian leadership knows this. So, on January 15, Dmitry Medvedev, speaking at the Gaidar Forum in Moscow, admitted that the global crisis has not bypassed Russia, and economic growth in 2014 will, God forbid, be 2%. And the head of the Ministry of Finance, Anton Siluanov, on the same day, announced the need to raise the retirement age in Russia - the hole in the Pension Fund in 2014 will be as much as $ 62.5 billion.

So why are we walking, Santa Claus? And what will be left for the country when we finish with foreign gifts?