Russians massively switched to austerity mode on food products - Russian media
Kyiv • UNN
X5 Group President Ekaterina Lobacheva reported that Russian citizens are saving on food and switching to hard discounters. Consumption growth in Russia has slowed to 2%, and food production is declining.
Russian citizens are increasingly saving on food and switching to shopping at hard discounters due to the "economic context." This was stated in an interview with Russian media by Ekaterina Lobacheva, president of the X5 Group, the country's largest retailer, UNN reports.
Details
According to her, consumption growth in Russia slowed down in 2025.
Previously, it grew by an average of 6-8%, now the pace has slowed down to 2%. Plus, there is a set of factors that have strengthened the trend. First of all, it is the reduction of the population itself, a thrifty consumption model, and a high key rate of the Central Bank.
According to her, a significant part of Russians are now forced to pay off loans and because of this "restrain consumption," which, in turn, "increasingly affects" food producers.
"What is an economic slowdown? If yesterday you invested in modernizing and expanding your production, today you will approach this with more caution. We see that a decline in production is already happening," Lobacheva explained.
For reference
According to Rosstat, this year, for the first time in 15 years, food production in Russia is declining - by 0.6% year-on-year in January-September. The volume of investments in the industry has almost halved - 104.7 billion rubles in January-November against 194.6 billion rubles in the same period a year earlier.
According to Russia's Sberbank, the growth of food expenditures by mid-December slowed to 1.5% year-on-year, almost 10 times less than in January. In real terms, taking into account inflation, which Rosstat estimates at 5.8% year-on-year, consumer spending began to decline by more than 5%.
Recall
According to the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, Russia's military spending for 9 months of 2025 reached 11.8 trillion rubles, which is four times more than in 2021. The war costs 43.4 billion rubles per day, absorbing 44% of federal taxes.
Russia's economy exhausted by war, 2026 will be critical - WP23.12.25, 01:00 • 3324 views