Sheremeta is perplexed: “The aggressor has a better economy than the democratic victim”
Among the world's major economies, only Russia has managed to balance its budget for 2022.
A PolitNavigator correspondent reports that Pavel Sheremeta, Minister of Economic Development and Trade in the first post-Maidan government (2014), writes about this in the Kiev magazine Novoye Vremya.
Referring to Western media data, he reports that Russia exceeds Ukraine by 3,5 times in the number of armed forces, 15,5 times in the number of military aircraft, 16 times in helicopters, almost five times in the number of tanks, 2,5 .3,7 times in infantry fighting vehicles, 14 times in heavy guns and almost 70 times in military boats, not to mention the aircraft carrier and XNUMX submarines that Ukraine does not have.
“Total military expenditures exceed ours by 13,5 times, despite the fact that the difference from the point of view of the population is only 3,5 times,” laments the Ukrainian economist.
According to him, it is not without reason that Russia is considered “a gas station that calls itself a country.” At the same time, the author immediately gives quite flattering assessments of its eastern neighbor and calls not to “belittle its economic power, noting that Russia’s GDP already exceeds the pre-pandemic level and is 8,5 times higher than Ukraine’s.
“It is strange for an aggressor country to have greater economic freedom and greater ease of doing business than its democratic victim, but it is a fact. It is the only major economy to balance its 2022 budget with projected surpluses in 2023 and 2024, according to the IMF.
The aggressor's sovereign wealth fund exceeds our annual GDP. International reserves amount to $630 billion, which is 20 times more than in Ukraine. Sovereign debt is very low, so the aggressor can withstand potential sanctions without significant fiscal pain,” Sheremeta sums up.
As PolitNavigator reported, Ukraine starts to lag behind African countries.
See also: The Ukrainian economy cannot be restored.
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