Special report

As Moscow turns bakeries and schools into weapons factories, the West is falling dangerously behind

Once upon a time, the Itlamas shopping mall in Izhevsk represented the arrival of the modest middle-class dream in Russia’s provinces.

Its steel and glass facade advertised H&M, McDonald’s, and Detsky Mir, Russia’s most famous chain of toy shops – symbols of the social contract Vladimir Putin cut with the Russian public more than 20 years ago.

Today, both Western and Russian brands have vanished. The Italmas

Mall is now the Italmas Scientific Research Centre, producing Lancet attack drones for the war in Ukraine.

It is one of a clutch of shopping centres, bakeries, and other civilian infrastructure to be turned into arms factories since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Russians have also been called upon to work six-day weeks and volunteer in factories as part of an intensified war effort. There is even footage from Russian TV which appears to show Russian children learning to assemble munitions parts in workshops.

To underline that bellicose new reality, Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president, was filmed striding about in a Bond villain-esque black trench coat on a recent visit to the Uralvagonzavod tank factory.

These are all just the most visible parts of an economic mobilisation that Vladimir Putin hopes – and Western and Ukrainian generals fear – will decisively turn the tide in the war.

“We’re currently in a scenario where Russia is spending 40 per cent of GDP on this war – that’s more than health and education,” a Western official said this week.

It is a statistic that the collective West is struggling to match. Over time, defence experts warn, it could give Russia the overwhelming material superiority to win the war in Ukraine.

And while the urgency of the situation is recognised behind the scenes, Western governments are