Crimea in exchange for the economy

From an economic point of view, the war has already taken place and it is impossible to fully win back the situation

One heavy defeat in the war with Ukraine, regardless of whether large-scale hostilities will be launched at all and how much foreign territory Russia chop off, we have already suffered. First of all, it was you and me, ordinary Russians, who lost, regardless of our attitude to the introduction of Russian troops into Ukraine, the possibility of which the Russian president himself described a little more than two months ago as follows: “This is complete nonsense, there is nothing like this and cannot be.” The Russian government has made the final choice in favor of an imaginary empire against the national economy.

From an economic point of view, the war has already taken place and it is impossible to fully reverse the situation, even if we immediately withdraw all military personnel from Ukraine, recognize the new Ukrainian government and do not give Crimean Prime Minister Sergei “Goblin” Aksenov carte blanche to hold a referendum on the status of the peninsula. Actually, the scenery of the restoration of the empire should obscure the final economic defeat of the Russian authorities within the country for those who agree to the jingoistic frenzy of Russians. And of course, to distract the nation from talking about the thieves of the Russian government, which is no different in this respect from the Yanukovych regime. Putin, however, said at a press conference that we never dreamed of Ukrainian corruption, which means that there is something to strive for.

The struggle for the revival of the empire will write off any lawlessness within the country - such is the calculation of the Russian authorities. Moreover, she doesn’t care to leave before the nation realizes all the catastrophic consequences of this deal - “the ghost of an empire in exchange for the Russian economy.”

The accounts of imperial frenzy have been paid since the time of the war with Georgia, and now ordinary Russians will pay an order of magnitude more - both in the event of sanctions against Russia and without these sanctions. Rising inflation, unemployment, impoverishment. “Stop feeding the Caucasus,” shouted the Russian nationalists. Now, in addition to the Caucasus, they will feed at least Crimea.

Under the bravura patriotic ringing, social decrees of the president are buried. There was not enough money for them even before the start of the new Crimean campaign, and now it will not be enough even more so. The funded part of the pensions of future pensioners has already gone to finance the Olympics, the whole meaning of which for Russia is now crossed out. Investment in fixed assets in the country in January 2014 - without any war - fell by 7%, even compared with the not outstanding results of January 2013. The net outflow of capital from Russia in January amounted to 20 billion dollars, in February another 15 billion were expected - also without any war, while the initial annual forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development was 25 billion. How much will leak now, it's better not to even count.

Even before the war, the Central Bank lowered its forecast for the growth of the Russian economy in 2014 to 1.5-2%, although some economists spoke of the inevitability of a recession. Now the debate will only be about the size of the recession. The first forecasts have already appeared - in 2014 Russia will lose 3% of GDP in the war. Let's ban the dollar in Russia - now, after all, nothing can be ruled out in the country of the victorious Kashchenko - at the same time we will crash the domestic banking system.

Russian foreign policy has taken a decisive step towards the domestic policy of returning the country to the literal, not metaphorical Middle Ages. But quite recently, Russian officials were raving about the investment climate, about the international financial center in Moscow, Putin personally wanted to raise the country to the top twenty world powers in terms of ease of doing business.

Actually, as always in Russian history, the choice between the inhabitants of their own country and the abstract geopolitical interests of the state is made in favor of complexes of the first person and the state.

The impoverished country is trying to annex or take over the even poorer territories of the neighboring devastated country. If, in addition to Crimea, we get the Lugansk, Donetsk and Kharkiv regions (this is the maximum that Russia can count on if it nevertheless starts a full-scale military aggression), we will get direct competitors of Russian depressed regions in the field of coal mining and metallurgy. Imperialism will begin to take jobs from Russian miners and metallurgists.

Russia has no way to win the war with Ukraine. And it looks like it has already lost its economy in the coming years.