Videos of Russian shoppers fighting over sugar in supermarkets have gone viral, showing just how scarce the staple food has become in the economic fallout from the war in Ukraine
In videos coming out of towns and cities across Russia, crowds of people are shouting, jostling and climbing over each other to grab the last bags of sugar in barren shops.
Some stores have imposed 10kg rations per customer, and there have been reports of people attacking anyone they think is panic-buying. In one scuffle in the northern city of Severodvinsk, a man with five packets of sugar in his shopping basket was punched five times in the face during a confrontation with an angry shopper.
Some stores have imposed 10kg rations per customer, and there have been reports of people attacking anyone they think is panic-buying. In one scuffle in the northern city of Severodvinsk, a man with five packets of sugar in his shopping basket was punched five times in the face during a confrontation with an angry shopper.
Russians who remember the turmoil of the last few years of the Soviet Union know only too well the importance of grabbing rare goods when you see them, particularly in a crisis. Sugar is usually bought in bulk by Russians who are going to preserve large amounts of fruit, or make samogon, high-proof moonshine popular in the countryside.
“It’s a madhouse,” one shopper in the southern Russian city of Volgograd told a local media outlet last week. “The shop assistants say sugar is re-stocked every now and again, but it’s immediately snapped up — people are deliberately standing watch in order to buy it all.”
Sugar shortages have bee n the first major material consequences of the Kremlin’s decision to invade Ukraine felt by many ordinary Russians. It’s been caused by a cocktail of factors that include government attempts to regulate prices, skyrocketing demand and a crash in the value of the Russian currency. Although Russia imports a relatively small amount of sugar, the gyrations in the value of the ruble mean foreign companies are suddenly unwilling to sign contracts with their Russian counterparts.
Similar shortages are almost inevitable as Western sanctions and the continuing fighting in Ukraine isolate Russia from the global economy. Inflation in Russia is rising rapidly and a cost-of-living crisis is looming.
Sugar shortages are not confined to one particular region or Russia’s major cities — there have been reports of empty shelves as far away as the island of Sakhalin, a Russian territory in the Pacific Ocean. Some neighbouring countries that import Russian sugar, such as Kazakhstan, also have a sugar deficit, and rising prices and supermarket scuffles to go with it.
The shortage of sugar is already being felt by sweet manufacturers and confectionery outlets, with brands such as Ferrero Rocher set to ramp up prices by 20 percent. “Our suppliers don’t have any sugar,” Arthur Borodin, the administrator at a vegan cake shop in St. Petersburg, told VICE World News. Even though the shop only needs 40kg of sugar a week, they haven’t been able to find a supplier.
Russian officials insist there’s no sugar deficit and that the crisis is an artificial one, caused by consumer panic-buying and unscrupulous manufacturing and distribution companies hoarding sugar in an attempt to push prices higher. Even so, the government last week imposed a temporary ban on sugar exports.
Similar shortages are almost inevitable as Western sanctions and the continuing fighting in Ukraine isolate Russia from the global economy. Inflation in Russia is rising rapidly and a cost-of-living crisis is looming.
Sugar shortages are not confined to one particular region or Russia’s major cities — there have been reports of empty shelves as far away as the island of Sakhalin, a Russian territory in the Pacific Ocean. Some neighbouring countries that import Russian sugar, such as Kazakhstan, also have a sugar deficit, and rising prices and supermarket scuffles to go with it.
The shortage of sugar is already being felt by sweet manufacturers and confectionery outlets, with brands such as Ferrero Rocher set to ramp up prices by 20 percent. “Our suppliers don’t have any sugar,” Arthur Borodin, the administrator at a vegan cake shop in St. Petersburg, told VICE World News. Even though the shop only needs 40kg of sugar a week, they haven’t been able to find a supplier.
Russian officials insist there’s no sugar deficit and that the crisis is an artificial one, caused by consumer panic-buying and unscrupulous manufacturing and distribution companies hoarding sugar in an attempt to push prices higher. Even so, the government last week imposed a temporary ban on sugar exports.