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    "original_url": "https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2026\/09\/23\/world\/europe\/russia-supermarket-prices-ukraine-war.html?emc=edit_nn_20260924&nl=the-morning&segment_id=226986",
    "parsed_content": "Onions +102% Price change since January 2022Apples +77% Mushrooms +49% Potatoes +32% Salmon +59% Chicken drumsticks +45% Margarine +60% Prices Have Skyrocketed in Russian Supermarkets. We Have the Receipts. By Valerie Hopkins, Josh Holder and Pablo RoblesPhotographs and video by Nanna Heitmann Sept. 23, 2026 Russian citizens have become accustomed to glossing over the hardships of the war with Ukraine and its impact on their daily lives. To outsiders, they contend that everything is normal, even as smoke from drone strikes rises over the Moscow region and the cost of basic goods soars because of inflation, tax increases and Western sanctions that clog supply chains.This is in keeping with the Kremlin\u2019s party line in a country where criticism of the war can bring fines or detention.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. \u201cEverything is fine with our prices!\u201d she declared. Many other shoppers \u2014 retirees, parents of young children and other customers \u2014 provided similar responses that night.But I have been working in Russia since 2021, and I\u2019ve been keeping receipts. \nBetween 2022 and 2026, banana prices nearly doubled.\nAugust 2022\n79.90 rubles\nper kilo of\nbananas\nSeptember 2026\n149.99 rubles\nper kilo\nBetween 2022 and 2026,\nbanana prices nearly doubled.\nAugust 2022\n79.90 rubles\nper kilo of\nbananas\nSeptember 2026\n149.99 rubles\nper kilo\nBetween 2022 and 2026,\nbanana prices nearly doubled.\nAugust 2022\n79.90 rubles\nper kilo of\nbananas\nSeptember 2026\n149.99 rubles\nper kilo\n They show that 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\u2019s 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.Most stores are well stocked, a relief to shoppers who remember the bare shelves of several decades ago. Still, many Russians have been experiencing sticker shock.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\u2019s expenses. She has cut out expensive products like salmon and berries from her menu while looking for cheaper equivalents in other stores.\u201cI used to have spare money left I would save for vacation or other things,\u201d she said. \u201cBut this January and February, this money was gone.\u201dWage rises haven\u2019t kept pace with inflation, so rising prices have a particularly crushing effect. Moscow Avg. daily teacher salary\u00a0$82 Basket of goods $53 65%of daily pay New York Avg. daily teacher salary\u00a0$312 Basket of goods $95 30%of daily pay I bought this basket of groceries in Moscow earlier this year for the equivalent of $53.That\u2019s about two-thirds of a school teacher\u2019s average daily salary.My colleague then bought the same goods in New York City, where they cost $95.That\u2019s less than a third of the average daily pay for teachers there, where salaries are much higher. Note: Daily pay reflects annual, pre-tax salaries spread over 365 days. Sources: Mosstat and announced city and federal pay increases (Moscow teacher pay); NYC Open Data and the United Federation of Teachers (New York teacher pay); grocery prices collected by The New York Times at Auchan in Moscow and Key Food in Brooklyn in April 2026. 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.\u201cThere, we had to pay rent and lived off of one salary,\u201d she said. \u201cHere, we own our apartment and we are both working. But what\u2019s left at the end of the month is the same.\u201dShe said she had also noticed \u201cshrinkflation,\u201d the practice of reducing product sizes while keeping prices the same or similar. Now, instead of selling a liter of milk, stores sell 900 milliliters, or 100 milliliters less.But she said she understood that consumers were coping with inflation in most parts of the world, not just in Russia.\u201cI think everywhere there is a global trend of price growth, it\u2019s just that here it is felt, perhaps, a little more acutely.\u201dA comparison of prices in December 2021, two months before the war started, with those in July 2026 reveals that the cost of many everyday staples has risen much faster in Russia than in the United States. Percent change in consumer price indexes from Dec. 2021 to July 2026 United States Russia Cumulative change in food consumer price indexes, December 2021 to July 2026Food categoryUnited StatesRussiaApples17%77%Beef33%76%Fresh fish12%69%Bread25%61%Carbonated drinks25%61%Margarine41%60%Ice cream14%57%Processed fish15%52%Canned vegetables32%48%Milk19%47%Butter21%46%Frozen vegetables25%46%Sugar31%46%Fruit juice22%44%Poultry17%42%Rice17%32%Pork6%30% Note: Categories pair the closest available U.S. and Russian price indexes, though definitions do not always align exactly. Because this comparison relies on averages from national data, some of the biggest price shocks for shoppers appear smoothed out. Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. consumer price indexes); Rosstat (Russian consumer price indexes). 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\u2019s 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\u2019t afford electricity \u2014 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.Inflation soared in Russia after February 2022 as the country grappled with the fallout from sanctions, the flight of skilled workers and the transition to a wartime economy. Companies drove wages up to try and retain workers when millions of Russians went to fight or work for the military-industrial complex. After overheating in 2024, the economy started to stabilize in 2025. But this year, tax hikes, an increase in utility costs and building maintenance fees, and ongoing fuel shortages have given some Russians additional sticker shock.Officially, the Consumer Price Index (C.P.I.), which measures the average change in the cost of an average basket of goods and services, for January to May of 2026 is 6 percent. But the official data does not reflect the real growth of consumer prices, according to Andrei Barkhota, a Moscow-based independent economist.\u201cFor poor citizens whose revenue is lower than average in the rural regions, the real C.P.I. may be evaluated at about 25 to 45 percent for the past 12 months,\u201d he said in an interview.The Russian Federal State Statistics Service reported this month that the cost of basic staples for borscht, the classic winter soup, including cabbage, beets, carrots and potatoes, had gone up in the past year by 20 to 30 percent, despite the fact that they are usually less expensive during the summer. Mr. Barkhota estimated price growth at between 9 and 18 percent for higher-earning Russians, because they purchase different kinds of goods than low-wage earners do.It\u2019s not just rising prices that have changed the experience of shopping for groceries in Russia. While people with means can buy most any consumer good available globally \u2014 the new iPhone 18 was available in Moscow one day after it was launched in the United States \u2014 for the average customer, sanctions and supply chain adjustments have changed the products available. \nHorta (formerly Khortytsia)\nRussia seized and rebranded\nthis Ukrainian vodka.\nProstokvashino\nyogurt\nMilk bottles\nSold in containers\nunder 1 liter\nAlpen\nGold\nThese are the aisles of a supermarket\nin Moscow.\nChinese\nCoca-Cola,\nFanta, Pepsi\nand Sprite\nDerevenka\nDanissimo yogurt\nBoth produced\nlocally after Danone\nleft Russia\nFive\nLakes\nTalka\nDobry Cola\nMilka\nchocolate\nAzerbaijani \nCoca-Cola\nDouble the price\nof CoolCola\nCoolCola\n Soft drinks Coca-Cola was replaced by local clones like Dobry Cola, but pricier imported cans from Asia and the Middle East are still sold.Alcohol European alcohol imports plummeted because of sanctions and high tariffs on whiskey, gin and wine, so many Russian shoppers switched back to domestic vodka.Dairy After the French dairy giant Danone\u2019s exit, the Kremlin seized its assets before selling them to a loyal businessman. Favorites like Activia and Actimel were rebranded into localized versions.Chocolate Many Western brands like Lindt and KitKat left, but Milka and Alpen Gold are still made in Russian factories.Milk Production costs rose, and the government imposed price caps on key items in the hopes of making price rises more gradual. Some manufacturers shrunk the typical one-liter containers to 900 milliliters. For people with lower-paying jobs, such as teachers, the price hikes have made getting by even more difficult.Andrey, 30, teaches history and social studies in the Nizhny Novgorod region, about 250 miles from Moscow.\u201cInflation is felt very acutely, especially by educators and public sector workers in general,\u201d he said in a phone interview. \u201cWe have stable incomes \u2014 fixed by the state \u2014 that simply don\u2019t keep pace with rising prices.\u201dHe estimated his take-home pay at between 42,000 and 45,000 rubles, or about $498 to $534, a month.\u201cAs you can imagine, given today\u2019s prices \u2014 for groceries, clothing, electronics \u2014 that is, to put it mildly, not enough,\u201d he said in a phone interview.He said that when teachers gather for seminars or events, they are forbidden by the school administration from raising the issue of salaries.\u201cYou can discuss things like developmental psychology or methodological issues \u2014 problems related to teaching a specific subject \u2014 but there\u2019s a taboo against discussing salaries.\u201dHe said that one of his colleagues had needed to take out a personal loan to buy a laptop to make presentations, worksheets and exams for work.Ukraine has intensified attacks on Russian oil refineries in recent months, including an attack in June on the facility that supplies 40 percent of Moscow\u2019s gasoline. At least 64 of Russia\u2019s 85 regions, including in Russian-annexed Ukraine, currently report fuel shortages.Despite an increase in global fuel prices caused by the war in Iran, which has been a boon for the Russian economy, the country\u2019s budget deficit is growing. That will likely result in a further increase for consumer prices, said Mr. Barkhota, the economist. A rough estimate, he said, is that if fuel prices go up by 10 percent, prices of consumer goods will go up by 5 percent.There are also unpredictable shocks that come from the Kremlin itself. Last week, President Vladimir V. Putin issued a decree placing the European companies Nestl\u00e9 and Auchan under temporary external administration.Outside of the Moscow Pyaterochka supermarket, Denis, a 53-year-old security guard, was one of the only people who agreed to speak to me. He said he had bought his usual assortment of goods: some buckwheat, yogurt, milk, bread and hot dogs, for about 1,000 rubles, or $12.He shrugged when I asked him how he felt about the prices.\u201cThere\u2019s a war going on,\u201d he said as he walked off with his small shopping bag. Methodology Price changes shown in the opening video are based on Rosstat\u2019s national average consumer prices. We compared prices from January 2022, the month before Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with those from July 2026.For the comparison between Moscow and New York City, we purchased groceries at Auchan in Moscow in late March and Key Food in Brooklyn, New York City, in early April 2026. The baskets contained 25 broadly comparable products, although the brands and quantities varied based on local availability. Moscow prices were converted at an exchange rate of 76.9 rubles per dollar, the average rate in April 2026.Teacher pay was estimated according to data from April 2026. The average teacher salary in Moscow was based on the 2024 average reported by Mosstat, the city\u2019s statistics office, adjusted to reflect the 24 percent city raise and 7.6 percent federal raise enacted since 2024. The New York City teacher salary was based on the average salary reported by NYC Open Data for fiscal year 2025, adjusted for the 3.25 percent raise enacted under the most recent contractual negotiation. Both are pre-tax annual salaries spread across 365 days. \nOleg Matsnev, Alina Lobzina and Charlie Smart contributed reporting.",
    "published_at": "2026-09-23T08:55:01+00:00",
    "author_name": "Valerie Hopkins, Josh Holder, Pablo Robles",
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    "ai_headline": "Prices Have Skyrocketed in Russian Supermarkets. We Have the Receipts.",
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    "ai_excerpt": "Prices for basic goods in Russian supermarkets have dramatically increased since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, driven by inflation, sanctions, and tax hikes. Many citizens, however, publicly downplay the impact, aligning with the Kremlin's narrative.",
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