Spoiler: Even though Russia has not been exposed to any external threat since the collapse of the Soviet Union, its military expenditures have increased massively since 1999. The media often present confusing and incorrect pictures of the size and developments of Russian military expenditures.  This is often due to incorrect conversion of roubles to dollars without taking the lower Russian prices in to account. It is, however, not necessary to convert military expenditures to dollars to compare Russia’s military expenditures to other countries’. Relating countries’ expenditures to other government expenditures in current prices and local currencies give a correct picture of governments’ priorities. Applying that method shows that the Russian government prioritises its military before its people.

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Spoiler: When Putin became president, he had a golden opportunity to make Russia a prosperous country. But instead of introducing reforms that would benefit ordinary Russians, he turned Russia into an autocracy and enriched himself and his cronies. Russia’s institutions are designed to make Putin and his oligarchs wealthy and prevent any real opposition to his power.

He’s taken control of the media, abolished the judiciary’s independence, manipulated elections, clamped down on the civil society, journalists, opposition leaders and parties. Furthermore, he has grossly violated his population’s civil rights and even used murder as one of his means.

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