- Vladimir Putin is battling red-hot inflation, with the price of eggs and other basic foods soaring.
- Soviet-style queues have formed with Russians trying to build up large stockpiles.
As the war in Ukraine rages on, Vladimir Putin has another battle on his hands: the one to rein in soaring egg prices.
Moscow is scrambling to contain a flare-up in basic food costs that's driven up inflation and caused long queues outside supermarkets that hearken back to when the country was a part of the Soviet Union.
Eggs have come to symbolize the economic disruption that Russia is facing, with prices jumping 42% in the 12 months prior to November 2023, per data from the country's statistics agency Rosstat.
They've become so expensive that shops in some regions are now selling them individually, for up to 20 Russian rubles (23 cents) an egg, according to the Telegraph. Other basic foods, including bananas, oranges, and tomatoes, have also soared in price over the past year due to massive labor-market shortages, soaring energy costs, and the plunging ruble.
By some metrics, Russia's economy has remained resilient since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022, despite foreign companies leaving the country and western countries sanctioning the Kremlin. Gross Domestic Product grew 5.5% over the third quarter of last year, reversing declines from 2022, while unemployment has dropped to record lows.
But rising food costs have created an economic headache for Putin as he gears up for the presidential election that's set to take place in March 2024.
Soviet-style queues
One symptom of the chaos has been massive lines for supermarkets, with people attempting to stockpile eggs and other foodstuffs.
A video published on Telegram in December shows hundreds of Russians queueing up in the snow for a supermarket in Belgorod, a city roughly 25 miles north of the Ukrainian border where a pack of 10 eggs sells for around 70 cents, according to the Kyiv Post.
Another video posted on X by Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs, shows hundreds of shoppers trying to hoard eggs in Saratov, a different city that's located about 500 miles south-east of Moscow:
—Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) December 2, 2023
For Russians born before 1991, the long lines at supermarkets might bring back memories of the Soviet Union, when massive queues and hoarding were common due to the communist country suffering frequent bouts of crippling food shortages.
Moscow's response
Last month, Russia's central bank raised interest rates to an eye-popping 16% to clamp down on inflation, which cooled in November but is still running way clear of policymakers' 4% target.
But Moscow has also rolled out specific policies designed to tame egg prices.
In December, the Kremlin temporarily scrapped import duties on eggs so that it could start importing them from its neighbors Azerbaijan and Turkey – although authorities warned last week that over 20% of the eggs they'd bought from the latter country were likely to be riddled with bird flu.
Meanwhile, Putin issued a rare apology to the Russian public at an end-of-2023 town hall, in response to a pensioner's complaint about soaring egg and chicken prices.
"I apologise for this, but this is a failure of the government's work... I promise that the situation will be corrected in the near future," Putin said, per Reuters.
The Russian leader's surprising contrition came with a March presidential election looming – and is a sign of just how seriously he's taking the egg-price crisis.