Pilferage is certainly not the prerogative of Russia. We recently explained, following Business Insider, how pickpocketing was becoming a small national sport among certain categories of the American population, not always out of necessity but often out of fun and challenge.
In Russia, on the other hand, it seems that the phenomenon is more profound. Necessity is often the law when, as reported in the Financial Times, consumers commit petty thefts in local supermarkets, particularly of butter.
The cause, as was the case a few months ago during the “egg crisis”, is galloping inflation, a weak ruble, a completely overheated economy and a serious labor shortage, which could end up have profound ramifications for the popular legitimacy of a Kremlin no longer knowing how to finance its war in Ukraine.
Inflation at 8.4% in 2024
The budgetary policy of Vladimir Putin and his government is entirely focused on crazy spending on defense and the war in Ukraine: in October, Le Monde reported that the Kremlin was planning a 30% increase in military investments in 2025, with a colossal budget increased to 13.5 billion rubles, or 130 billion euros according to calculations by La Tribune.
But these expenses are overheating, for an economy whose current apparent solidity undoubtedly conceals, in the long term, a deep crisis. Inflation, which we recall partly decided the election to the American presidency of Donald Trump, is at the center of attention – and the daily difficulties of consumers.
The FT thus recalls that the Russian Central Bank forecasts that it will reach 8.5% in 2024, well above its previous forecasts. It seems impossible to curb: the key rate of the same Russian Central Bank was, in October 2024, increased to 21%, with no effect for the moment on the surge in consumer prices (La Croix).
And it is the basic necessities that are most affected. “Convenience goods are seeing their prices rise at a faster rate; butter prices have risen 26% since last year, forcing some stores to place it in anti-theft plastic boxes”write Anastasia Stognei and Max Seddon for the British business daily.
A practice which, it should be noted, is not only Russian; these anti-theft devices on basic products are also multiplying in certain French shops for example (BFMTV).
Not enough labor to produce
An example, cited by the FT: in Yekaterinburg, a surveillance camera filmed two men, one attacking the cash register of a supermarket, while the other was going to steal 20 kg of butter from the stalls. At the current price of fat, we ultimately do not know which of the two burglars carried out the most profitable theft.
In addition to the fall of the ruble, which makes products imported in other currencies more expensive, this increase in the prices of goods produced in Russia is due in particular to the national shortage of labor, massively redirected to factories linked to defense.
“Russian butter production factories would be happy to do all they can to meet demand, Alexandra Prokopenko, a researcher at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, explains to the Financial Times, but they can’t hire staff.”
You cannot both fight inflation and wage war.
Unemployment in Russia is virtually non-existent, at 2.4%. But workers, often attracted by better pay conditions, are turning to defense sector factories, which are running at full capacity to fuel the Kremlin's war machine in Ukraine.
In the rest of the economy, investments in equipment and labor are therefore impossible. Head of the Russian Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina publicly explained in October that “demand had significantly exceeded the production capacity of the Russian economy”adding that, in certain sectors, “there are no machines left available, not even old equipment”.
Butter and butter's money
The Financial Times notes that inflation does not bite all Russians in the same way: if, in sectors close to defense, salaries have increased at a good pace, making it possible to absorb a little of this delirious inflation, this This is not the case for other large sections of Russian society, with federal or territorial civil servants, for example, not having benefited from such growth in their income.
Discontent could therefore continue to rise in certain neglected sectors of Russian society. And the possible slowdown in the Russian military effort, in the event of a halt or pause in the Russian war, could further derail this monomaniacal economy, and leave many more people behind.
Related News :