Butter prices have risen more than 25% since the beginning of the year, even as Russian stores try to combat a wave of butter theft, according to the independent Russian-language website Moscow Times.
Some sellers remove the cubes from the shelf and store them in the cash register along with caviar and alcohol, others put the butter in special plastic containers. For this reason, it is already being said that butter may share the same fate as eggs, whose prices soared last year and President Vladimir Putin himself apologized in a televised address.
Russia. Butter is becoming more expensive and stolen each day.
While Russian authorities try to blame rising demand for ice cream and milk shortages for the rise in butter prices, the truth is a little different.
Former Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Herashchenko recalled that before the war, Russia imported butter from all over the world, but now its main supplier is Belarus, and it cannot meet its demand.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Patrushev, who oversees agriculture, said last week that the government would closely monitor butter prices. He also met with milk producers and retailers and committed to increasing imports.
Russia and butter. A new symbol of inflation in this country
The soaring price of butter could prompt Russia to introduce duty-free imports for several months from countries not closed to its own market, such as Uruguay and Argentina.
And while butter has become the latest symbol of Russia's inflation problems, it is not the fastest growing food. Potato prices have increased by 56.4% since the beginning of the year, Rosstat reported.
Meanwhile, Reuters points out that in May, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with military commanders that “Russia's war economy is in balance, supplying both guns and butter.'' .
Source: Moscow Times, Reuters
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