"Russians Are In For A Serious Blow, Millions Will Be Affected"

An economist has revealed the Kremlin's plan.

Russia is gradually refusing to fund even basic social programs, directing all resources to war. Reduced support for families and rising utility rates have already hit millions of citizens - and this is just the beginning of social degradation. Russian economist, Doctor of Economic Sciences Igor Lipsits told about it in an interview with "Glavred".

According to him, the reduction of state programs for the population in Russia is already taking place and is quite serious.

"Let's take a simple story. Putin spoke a few months ago and said that 'we continue to support programs to stimulate the birth rate,' and announced that the program of preferential family mortgages would be expanded: it would be available to families with children up to 14 years old, whereas before the threshold was up to 8 years old. All this was beautifully announced in December. Then they came to the Ministry of Finance with these ideas. He said: "There is no money, everything goes to war." And Putin completely disavowed all these words. The Ministry of Finance officially refused to expand the program, and Deputy Prime Minister Khusnullin, who supervised it, regretfully said: there will be no expansion," the economist noted.

In the opinion of economist Lipsitz, the Russian construction industry has actually been hit and is facing a large-scale crisis, despite significant investments from people close to Putin.

Another striking example of problems in the Russian economy is the increase in tariffs for housing and communal services from July 1. This is a painful issue for citizens, because in the past the government tried to mitigate such increases by adhering to the principle that tariffs would rise slower than the inflation rate. But this year there was no money for this - and tariffs rose faster than inflation.

"To make you understand: in some regions of Russia housing and utilities tariffs in July rose to 40 (!) percent at once. This is a huge blow to the budget of Russian families. How they will cope with it is unclear. The rich, of course, will not blink an eye. But for the poor, it is a serious blow. It is unclear how they will pay for it. And this is not a joke: in Russia the accumulated volume of non-payments for housing and utilities exceeds a trillion rubles," he adds.

Lipsits notes that even before the current increase, many people could not pay for utilities in full, and now they are waiting for power and gas cuts. This will lead to a gradual deterioration of living conditions in apartment buildings.

But, the economist concludes, Putin no longer has the resources to compensate for these expenses from the budget - and he is deliberately sacrificing the welfare of the population for the sake of continuing the war.

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