"They fed people with leftovers, took a lot of things away, hid them," an intelligence officer called for systemic changes in Russia.
Russia will not be able to win the North-Eastern Front with a system in which the elites strive to integrate into the West, exporting their wealth there.
This was stated by retired SVR Colonel Andrei Bezrukov, who returned to Russia from American captivity in an exchange , in an interview with Metametrica, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
The colonel was asked whether Russia could survive " some potential war " with its current economic indicators.
"We've already taken the biggest blow. Now we understand the world we live in. We largely didn't understand what they were trying to do to us, the scale of it all. Now that we're already at war, now that we can fairly objectively assess our strength —we've already seen what we can and can't do, their strength , and so on—of course, it's easier now.
This doesn't mean everything is fine . The fact is, we entered this crisis with a system that wasn't designed for war . Moreover, it wasn't designed for Russia as a sovereign power. It was designed for joining the West.
"Yes, we were a raw materials appendage and a talent producer for the global economy. That's over. That global economy basically no longer exists . And this system needs to be rebuilt," Bezrukov said.
"But in this system, which was built on resource rents, which then flowed into bank holdings —who lives well here? The large resource companies and bankers, who lived off this global market and fed our people with the scraps, exported a lot of things, hid them, and so on.
This system will have to change . It's unworkable in this new world. It can't fight because its interests diverge from those of the country. The country's interests now are mobilization, the production of high-tech products, and their rapid adaptation— for both the economy and the military. We need high-tech growth ," the intelligence officer added.