Helsinki: The Secretary of State of the United States, Antony J Blinken, today claimed that Russia suffered more than 100,000 casualties in the last six months alone in the war in Ukraine, and its global defence partners and customers can no longer count on promised orders, “let alone spare parts”. He claimed that as they witness Russia’s “poor performance” on the battlefield, they are increasingly taking their business elsewhere.
“Sanctions and export controls imposed by the United States, the European Union, and other partners around the world have severely degraded Russia’s war machine and defence exports, setting them back for years to come,” he said here while speaking at a function organised jointly by the Mayor of Helsinki and the Finnish Institute of International Affairs at the Helsinki City Hall.
He claimed that today, Russia’s economy is a shadow of what it was and a fraction of what it could have become had Russian President Vladimir Putin invested in technology and innovation rather than weapons and war.
“Russia’s foreign reserves are down by more than half, as are profits from its state-owned enterprises. More than 1,700 foreign companies have reduced, suspended, or ended operations in Russia since the onset of the invasion. That’s tens of thousands of jobs gone, a massive flight of foreign expertise, and billions of dollars in lost revenue for the Kremlin,” he claimed.
He further said a million people have fled Russia, including many of the country’s top IT specialists, entrepreneurs, engineers, doctors, professors, journalists, and scientists. “Countless artists, writers, filmmakers, musicians have also left, seeing no future for themselves in a country where they can’t express themselves freely,” he added.
On China’s growing proximity with Russia, Blinken said President Putin invested considerable effort to show that Russia could be a valued partner to China. He pointed out that on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine, Beijing and Moscow declared a “no limits” partnership. “Eighteen months into the invasion, that two-way partnership looks more and more one-sided. Putin’s aggression and weaponization of strategic dependencies on Russia have served as a wake-up call to governments around the world to make efforts at de-risking. And together, the United States and our partners are taking steps to reduce those vulnerabilities, from building more resilient critical supply chains to strengthening our shared tools to counter economic coercion,” he said.
Blinken said Russia’s aggression hasn’t distracted the US from meeting the challenges in the Indo-Pacific. “It’s actually sharpened our focus on them. And our support for Ukraine hasn’t weakened our capabilities to meet potential threats from China or anywhere else – it’s strengthened them. And we believe that Beijing is taking notice that, far from being intimidated by a forceful violation of the UN Charter, the world has rallied to defend it,” he said.
– global bihari bureau
