Things are not looking good for Russia in Eastern Ukraine, nor does it look good on the Russian mainland, specifically in their military-industrial complex. A letter uncovered by The Jerusalem Post reveals that the Russian Military Industry is in massive shambles, with their employees having low wages and losing civilian contractors as they have no money to pay them.

The Post uncovered a letter sent from the Trade Union of the Civilian Personnel of the Armed Forces of Russia Siberian region to the Russian Prime Minister, Mikhail Mishustin. According to their report, employees had been complaining about their low wages and the massive layoffs the industry had been experiencing. While they did not explicitly name the invasion of Ukraine and sanctions as the culprit of these problems, we can hypothesize that it was indeed due to the economic impacts of the various fiscal and economic sanctions that led to these problems.

This is the second time a Russian trade union has sent a letter to the Russian government regarding low wages and rising living standards, with the first one being the Arkhangelsk trade union. Russian trade unions are a very important block of political support for President Putin.

This is not the first that the Russians have experienced a massive layoff in their arms manufacturing sector. SOFREP reported earlier in April that Russian shipbuilder Vostochnaya Verf in Vladivostok had stopped building ships or repairing vessels as they did not have the necessary funds and parts to keep up production and repair services. The lack of foreign components due to the economic sanctions has severely impacted their operations, which has led them to stop production altogether. Some of these foreign components allegedly were navigation systems, naval warfare systems, communication systems, and steering columns, to name a few.