Two years ago, Russia's central bank set interest rates to 21 percent, the highest rate seen in Russia since the system was introduced in 2013. The point of the higher rate was to fight off the high rate of inflation that was being generated by a combination of military spending and labor shortages.
Recently, that interest rate has been coming down a bit and is currently at 14 percent. However, it may be stuck there for a while because there are signs that even at that high rate, inflation is starting to bite into the economy. Officially the inflation rate is around 6 percent but there have been reports from various intelligence agencies that Russia may be fudging those numbers a bit. Swedish intelligence in particular has suggested the actual inflation rate is closer to 15 percent.
Today the NY Times has a story in which a correspondent there simply goes to the grocery store and compares prices to what they were earlier. It seems clear that inflation is really eating into many families' budgets.
...prices of some grocery items have risen dramatically since February 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For instance, the price of bananas at my neighborhood shop almost doubled between August 2022 and September 2026.
The increases extend beyond just one store: according to Rosstat, Russia’s state statistics agency, between January 2022 and July 2026, the average price of beef rose by 76 percent, fresh coffee by 81 percent, and butter and milk both by almost 50 percent.
Talking to regular Russians about this is tricky because they all know that criticism of prices could be seen as criticism of the government in general and the war in particular. In Russia you can get arrested for doing that, so many people reject questions that might lead to difficult answers.
The insistence that all is well was especially evident one evening at a Pyaterochka supermarket in northeast Moscow when a middle-aged woman brushed off my question about the rising cost of living. “Everything is fine with our prices!” she declared. Many other shoppers — retirees, parents of young children and other customers — provided similar responses that night.
But occasionally even reporters come across someone a bit braver who is willing to risk speaking up so long as her full name isn't used.
Ekaterina, a 37-year-old marketing director, agreed to speak freely on condition that her last name be withheld to avoid retribution. She said the higher prices had forced her to change her shopping patterns to keep tighter control of her family’s expenses. She has cut out expensive products like salmon and berries from her menu while looking for cheaper equivalents in other stores.
“I used to have spare money left I would save for vacation or other things,” she said. “But this January and February, this money was gone.”...
Yulia, an administrative assistant for a big company in her early 30s, said she had returned to Moscow with her husband and son after a few years in Western Europe. They spent less money on groceries when they lived abroad, she said.
“There, we had to pay rent and lived off of one salary,” she said. “Here, we own our apartment and we are both working. But what’s left at the end of the month is the same.”
There's a chart included with the story which lists a bunch of basic food items and how much the price has gone up since December 2021. The average looks to be about 50 percent and the lowest increase on the list (pork) went up 30 percent.
There are other indications that prices on certain items are up sharply this year.
Authorities call the sharp rise in chicken prices a "correction."
— Beefeater (@Beefeater_Fella) September 22, 2026
Chicken prices in Russia are being adjusted after a prolonged period of being at relatively low levels, according to the Russian Ministry of Agriculture.
According to Rosstat data, in August, the price of chicken… pic.twitter.com/vLTyUe5lGK
According to Rosstat data, in August, the price of chicken increased by 15.8% year-on-year, reaching 263.6 rubles per kilogram, outpacing other types of meat in terms of price growth. Turkey also increased in price by 15.1%, to 645 rubles per kilogram.
The price of bread is also up sharply:
С апреля, всего за пять месяцев цена на хлеб выросла с 52 до 86 рублей. Это рост более 65%, а с прлого лета цена сменилась почти на 140%. ЦБ продолжает расказывать про инфляцию в 6%.🤦♂️ https://t.co/KVALZMx6GY pic.twitter.com/lNro8HsWMA
— Yury Pulvas (@YuryPulvas) September 23, 2026
Since April, in just five months, the price of bread has risen from 52 to 86 rubles. That's an increase of more than 65%, and since last summer, the price has changed by almost 140%. The Central Bank keeps talking about 6% inflation.
There's even some evidence that stores were holding out on price raises prior to last weekend's elections. Now that Putin's party has won, prices are jumping up overnight.
1/ Now that the Russian elections are out of the way, the government and oligarchs don't have to pretend to need public favour any more. In the first of what's expected to be a deluge of bad news, food prices have gone up immediately. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/eI5nVbN5L0
— ChrisO_wiki (@ChrisO_wiki) September 22, 2026
Propaganda definitely plays a role in perceptions of what Russia is experiencing. They are used to hearing that whatever they are experiencing at home things are much worse abroad.
Russian propaganda regularly promotes narratives that Western countries are suffering without Russian oil and gas. I remember visiting the site of a drone strike in central Moscow in the summer of 2023. The resident of one damaged building insisted to me that in Berlin’s central Tiergarten park, there were no trees left because they had all been chopped down for firewood, and that Germans were taking cold showers because they couldn’t afford electricity — both completely false assertions. But the impression, encouraged by state media, that other countries are struggling more with inflation than Russia is helps explain the relative lack of anger at the government over price hikes.
But at this point the economic news is clearly so bad that it's impossible to hide it. Today's review of Russian newspapers notes that several are revealing bad news about the direction the economy is headed.
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