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Last year, the Russian central bank more than doubled interest rates to tame prices. Inflation, though, kept rising, hitting over 9% this month, with a vast range of goods and services becoming costlier, from potatoes (up 91% so far this year) to economy-class flights (up 35%).

The central bank lifted its benchmark rate another 2 percentage points on Friday to 18%, making it one of the few central banks in the world to raise rates this year. 
Inflation has become a hard-to-shake feature of Russia’s war economy. Even as price rises have moderated across much of the developed world, Russia’s struggles with price stability are getting worse.
A surge in military spending by the government and a record labor shortage, as working-age men go to the front or flee, have fueled wages and pushed up prices.
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“In the inflation fight, Russian authorities have no good options—they can’t stop the war, they can’t solve the labor problem, they can’t stop raising wages for the population,” said Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian central-bank official...

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The government reverted to Soviet-style military spending—equivalent to around 7% of gross domestic product—as the main driver of economic growth. Factories that churn out tanks, drones and soldiers’ clothing work in multiple shifts, seven days a week. That, in turn, has lifted wages and boosted prices.

The central bank had held its benchmark rate at a relatively high 16% since December, but it had little effect on prices. To tamp down out-of-control housing prices, authorities this month ended a popular mortgage subsidy that offered discounted rates as low as 8%, half the central bank rate.



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Borscht Index, a website whose cost-of-living gauge tracks the prices of beets, sour cream and other ingredients of the traditional hearty soup, reports a 26% increase compared with last year
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The government reverted to Soviet-style military spending—equivalent to around 7% of gross domestic product—as the main driver of economic growth.

America Suffers Worst Food Inflation in over Four Decades under Biden-Harris

It is not just any inflation, but the kind that strikes at the heart of every family’s kitchen—grocery prices.

If we can expect a free and fair election, then the numbers should spell doom for Harris’s election bid.

Polls consistently show that inflation is the top concern for voters.