Russian President Vladimir Putin. Figure: Retrieved from Twitter (file photo)
Russia has invaded Ukraine with its superior military power, but it has not progressed smoothly. U.S. think tank experts said on the 26th that the Russian military performed poorly, the economy was facing difficulties before being sanctioned by the West, there were several bad demographic trends, young people were not valued and increasingly inclined to move to other countries, government resources were dragged down by vassal states, etc. 5 The tragedy shows that Russia has already begun to decline; and the order to invade Ukraine may be the “death struggle” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which may mean that his era is coming to an end.
According to a report by Forbes, Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a US security think tank, pointed out that from the five negative phenomena, Russia is not only not revived, but may still be in serious condition. state of decline. The Ukrainian-Russian war reflects the very poor performance of the Russian military in Ukraine, revealing that it has long been faced with problems such as insufficient training, weak equipment, poor maintenance, low morale, and the lack of commanders’ ability to respond to emergencies.
Thompson mentioned that Russia has been “faltering” in recent years, and its economic growth rate has been low. Although it earns a lot of foreign exchange by exporting fossil fuels, the world is turning to renewable energy. Except for the aerospace industry, Russia lacks competition in various advanced technology fields. force. In terms of population trends, Russia ranks only 55th in the world in terms of purchasing power per capita GDP, and ranks 156th in terms of life expectancy at 72.4 years. It is facing a crisis of population decline, and it is more difficult to obtain overseas immigrants due to the deterioration of the economy.
Thompson continued that the Russian government is also out of touch with a new generation of young people, such as on the issue of the Ukraine-Russian war, the disproportionately high number of young people participating in protests, and has greatly accelerated the exodus from Russia, which is said to have been several since the outbreak of the war. One hundred thousand people emigrated to other countries at a rate second only to the October Revolution in 1917, and many of them were young people from academia, technology and other fields.
Thompson concluded by stressing that Russia in recent years has spent a lot of resources on dependent states in hopes of gaining security benefits, but that such relationships have contributed “little or no” to the country’s economy. When the country is facing a severe recession, it may lead to a “dying struggle” for leaders, exhausting their last strength to fight for a glimmer of hope; therefore, the invasion of Ukraine may be Putin’s last counterattack, which may represent the dictator’s era is about to draw next period.