There is no money for doctors’ salaries in 2017–2019.
Six months ago, the cost of the Syrian operation was estimated at 38 billion rubles.
Now, taking into account official and unofficial losses, as well as today’s ratification of the law allowing the air group to remain in Syria indefinitely, I think the total cost can be estimated at more than the 71 billion rubles missing for payments to doctors.
And we have certainly buried more money in Syria than the 55 billion rubles that it was decided not to pay to rural pensioners — the poorest segment of Russia’s elderly population.
And we already know in advance that this money is being thrown to the wind. Just as it was with “international aid to the Afghan people,” “aid to brotherly Cuba,” Egypt, Angola, and so on — there are dozens of examples. All the debts had to be written off. All the “geopolitical gains” remained on the pages of Pravda (the Soviet Communist Party newspaper). The same will happen with Syria — we’ll blow a trillion rubles on it, and the president after Assad will still say, just as Vietnam said yesterday in response to the Russian leadership’s fantasies: We will not allow any countries to build military bases in Vietnam.
Thank you, goodbye.
It would be one thing if we ourselves had money to burn, like the United States — then maybe we could afford to share it and rush off to help someone. But instead we are taking the last pennies from our own people in order to pour them into somewhere a thousand kilometers away.
Some will say: this is for the fight against terrorism, otherwise ISIS will come into our homes. But if we do not want ISIS coming into our homes, then we should be strengthening the border with Central Asia, introducing a visa regime, and so on. Islamist extremists can enter Russia completely unhindered, taking advantage of the porous borders between Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics, which in turn have porous borders with us.
But that would not be shown on CNN, and Angela Merkel would not call about it. So in essence, what we are financing is international attention to Russia — so that columnists can write columns in *The New York Times* about Putin and Russia’s unpredictability.
We are paying for a place on the world stage while there is nothing to eat at home.
Russia needs to start living for itself, for its own people — that is the first step toward success.
Before doing anything, the president and the government should ask themselves not, “What will Obama say about this?” or “Will this make things worse for the ukropy (a derogatory Russian slang term for Ukrainians)?” or “Will this be shown on Euronews?”, but one simple question: will this make our people richer?