Current Economic Model is a Dead End for Russia: Expert

President Vladimir Putin’s current economic model is a dead end for Russia, and it will take years for Russians to realize that, political expert Dmitriy Oreshkin said in an extensive interview with Realnoe Vremya.

“It will take some five-six years for the Russians in both Moscow and the regions to understand the current political and economic model is a dead end. Pay attention to Vladimir Putin’s rating – it is rapidly falling; people don’t understand why power decided to change the future of their pension affairs when taxes, prices, benzene started to grow, while the quality of products doesn’t improve,” said Oreshkin, who is also a former politician and long-time critic of Putin’s policies.

The expert says the basically failing Russian economy is getting hard to hide behind numbers and pro-Kremlin propaganda as people are experiencing economic hardship themselves.

“They tell each other what has become expensive, how much it’s risen, they tell someone has been dismissed, and the person is 63 years, they say an average wage in Latvia has already reached €900, while oil-rich Russia has €500, and not everywhere. Previously, in the USSR, it was kept in secret, these topics weren’t discussed in public, while now they are discussed. And this is why the falling efficiency of the economy will come to the surface anyway – same needs of people are inclined to grow. Yes, TV is winning over the fridge now, but only in the short distance, it’s losing in the long one. What’s the length? Several years, I think,” the expert said.

According to him, the lack of transport infrastructure has always led to centralization of the Russian economy, and the current government isn’t doing much to change things.

“The worst thing is that we don’t have alternative economic growth centers. Resources are too centralized in Russia. And these resources aren’t used for the citizens’ well-being but for solving the problems of the vertical. In the USSR, these tasks were military (they are gradually becoming military too now), money was spent on rockets, submarines, and, for instance, regions were on the second, fifth, sixth place. And now we are making the same mistake that the USSR did. If we want centralization like in Soviet times, regions will be underfed,” Oreshkin concluded.