Inflation continued to slow in April in Russia, despite the barrage of international economic sanctions against Moscow, according to figures published on Friday by the national statistics agency Rosstat. In April, the price rise reached 2.31% per year, compared to 3.51% per year in March, according to Rosstat, far from the peaks reached after the launch of the military offensive against Ukraine in February 2022.
However, this decrease is not the result of a real slowdown in inflation in Russia, but above all of the evolution of the calculation base taken into account to compare prices. Specifically, the prices of April 2023 were compared with those of April 2022, when the effects of the barrage of international sanctions that caused the price explosion and the weakening of the ruble were beginning to be felt.
In April 2022, inflation had even broken a record dating back to 2002, rising to 17.8% in one year. According to the forecasts communicated in mid-February by the head of the Central Bank of Russia (BCR), Elvira Nabiullina, inflation in Russia should be “between 5 and 7%” by the end of the year.
Source: BFM TV
