August 1, 2026
English Outsider – Procurement And Corruption
by English Outsider
lifted from a comment
We do love going on about the corruption in Russia. It’s there OK. More visible than ours because it goes down further to the lower levels. It’s also illegal, so riskier. Ours is more at the top, and legalised, but anyone who doubts we don’t suffer from corruption needs to go to Colonel Macgregor for a reality check. He’s been around in the very centre of power and has watched it working.
Or rather, not working. What was undoubtedly the best equipped army in the world by a country mile during WWII, and for a long time afterwards, has become a hollowed out shell. That’s directly attributable to the corrupted procurement system that’s done for the US armed forces. Insufficient kit, what there is technologically backward, and even the superb logistical expertise of the Americans – still best in the world – hampered by the fact they’re short of wheels and ships to cart stuff around in.
I’d send that to Scott Ritter, if I had his address. My attempt at a riposte to Scott Ritter’s throwaway remark about our British army. “The Benjamin Button of militaries” is it, Mr Ritter? Hunph. We’ve still got the best army in the world, we English. Just that it’s a little on the miniature side.
The conversation on “b’s” site has turned to procurement and the associated corruption. And we’re told the Russian army is rife with it.
There’s a puzzle there.
Russia has only twice the population of my own country, the UK. It’s economy, at least by our measure, has only just overtaken the economy of Germany. And yet it’s managed to outproduce the entire West, quality and quantity, to such an extent that if WWIII started tomorrow, and provided the nukes were kept in their silos, they could stroll over to Berlin or Paris any time they pleased and we simply don’t have enough things that go bang to stop them.
Or if they didn’t feel inclined to make the effort of going for a stroll, they could lay waste the entirety of Europe by sending their fancy missiles over to selected spots and our AD is so behind the times, and so close to non-existent, that all we in Europe could do is run for cover and all the Americans could do is watch.
That’s the reality. Military experts like Martyanov and our host have been recognising that reality for more than a decade. It’s been apparent to non-experts since mid-2022. There are signs, only here and there and few as yet, that even the Western militaries are beginning to grasp it. It’s the reality in which we can examine the extent and effect of corruption in Russian military procurement apparent particularly in the early stages of their SMO and, as “b’s” commenters note, still to a lesser extent observable as that SMO ends.
We can get a grip on the subject by relating it to our own experience in a different field. What occurred with procurement during the SMO was similar to what happened in England during the pandemic. Different scale, same problems.
In that pandemic stuff was needed fast. Normal procurement checks were loosened or often abandoned – they would have taken far too long – and contracts were awarded on the spot. Worked most of the time but there were some scams that got through. It’s what happens when an emergency comes up.
The SMO was for the Russians a procurement emergency. Maybe not at the very start but quite soon after, when it became apparent that NATO was going to push it. The Russians had the decisive advantage in that they had the industrial facilities needed and the workforce- we in the West didn’t which was one of the reasons we lost so quickly – but those facilities did need to be geared up fast.
In such circumstances, and given the still pervasive corruption in Russia, there’d have been scams, probably lots of them. Just as we know of cases in England when supplies needed for Covid didn’t materialise, or weren’t up to spec, there will have been similar cases during the SMO in Russia. Equally, just as we know of cases in England – most times I think – when supplies or installations needed for Covid were up to spec and provided with impressive speed, there’ll be similar instances in Russia during their SMO.
Must have been – otherwise the Russians wouldn’t have been able to gear up as effectively as they did.
The switch from Shoigu to Belousov was said at the time to indicate a change of pace. From going flat out for supplies and accepting the consequent slippage, to tightening up procurement procedures and focusing on value for money.
I don’t think that was just PR. It’s a logical progression given how the fighting went. The urgency of the early days of the SMO giving way quite soon to just getting the job done with as little expenditure and as little slippage as possible. I suppose the main difference between the Russians and us in the West, when it comes to corruption in military procurement, is that they’re battling theirs and we’re busy making ours worse.
Logistics, logistics, logistics, say the military experts when they’re talking of war fighting and strategy and all that stuff. But procurement, procurement, procurement comes first and there the Russians took us to the cleaners.
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