Drug addiction, poverty and depression

 

24.02.2025

 

Article published on the takiedela.ru website

 

Exactly three years ago, Vladimir Putin announced the start of a “special military operation” in Ukraine. During that time, Russian society has undergone significant changes as a consequence of the armed conflict which Takie Dela have been investigating.

 

Those who have become poor

 

According to Putin, Russia’s official inflation rate at the end of last year was 9.5%. This is higher than in 2023 but still less than it was in 2021, say data from the Central Bank.

 

Figures from Rosstat show that at the start of the year, the items that have risen most in price since 2022 are lamb (+53%), butter (+50%), eggs (+48%), smartphones (+45%) and matches (+44%). Takie Dela have been looking at the reasons for the increase in the price of food, medicines and religious memorabilia in Russia.

 

Prices have risen along with higher wages and record low employment. According to Rosstat, the average salary went up by 49% during 2021-2024: from 56,500 to 84,000 roubles. However, wage growth has been uneven, e.g. salaries in Kurgan oblast went up by 70% during this period, compared to only 25% in Ingushetia.

 

The industries that saw the most significant increase in salaries were in manufacturing (workers received more than 63% from 2021-2024) and agriculture (61%). In science, healthcare and education, wages during these years did not exceed 40%.

 

According to the Central Bank, debt on loans reached its peak after the start of the military conflict in September 2024, which, at the time, amounted to 36.5 trillion roubles. The figure began to decline from that point, as did the volume of loans issued.

 

The number of agreed mortgages reached its limit in June 2024 prior to the abolition of a broad programme of preferential deals. In one month, banks approved more than 202,000 such loans. In late 2024 and early this year, banks were issuing around 72,000 each month. A sharp increase in mortgage rates due to the withdrawal of these concessionary offers led to a rise in the cost of buying or renting property, wrote Takie Dela.

 

Last year, more than 198,000 loan holidays were offered to those who have taken part in the war in Ukraine, according to the Central Bank. This is twice as many as in 2023 and 18% higher than in 2022 when Putin announced his partial military mobilisation.

 

Vedomosti wrote that payments by the authorities to those participating in combat operations have continued to grow, with volunteers in Samara oblast receiving the most: 3.6 million roubles.

Those who have provided help

 

Results from a Pulse of CSOs survey showed that there was a fall in the number of charities whose funds were in decline in 2024. Forty per cent of the CSOs that took part in the study said their financial situation had improved (in 2022 the figure was only 31%). The survey also revealed that 64% of Russians volunteered with CSOs at least once last year, while only 12% did so on a monthly basis.

 

The most popular form of participation in charity work was almsgiving, with donations most often made to foundations to enable sick children to receive necessary medical treatment. Seventeen per cent of respondents helped the military and volunteers who have participated in the war in Ukraine.

 

According to Takie Dela, the Presidential Grants Fund, the Russian CSOs’ main source of funds, changed the way it distributes its support funding during 2022-2024. It approved 2.73% of its allocation to projects that strengthened inter-ethnic harmony in 2024, compared to 1.25% in 2022, while support for programmes to protect human rights and freedoms fell from 2.44 to 1.75%.

 

In addition, funding for healthcare and support for families, motherhood and childhood has increased in recent years, while help for social public services projects has fallen.

 

Since the end of February 2022, more than 1,100 SONGOs have been dissolved in Russia, wrote Takie Dela, including 47 CSO foreign agents and 40 representative offices of foreign organisations. At the same time, the number of people and bodies on the Ministry of Justice’s list of foreign agents went down last year when 164 new entries appeared on the register, compared to 227 in 2023 and 188 in 2022.

 

Increasing levels of drinking and murder rates

 

There were 7,628 recorded murders in Russia in 2022, according to data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. For the first time in 20 years, these crimes were on the rise. Researchers attributed this to the start of the “special military operation” and an increase in society’s tolerance of violence.

 

This was followed by a fall of 2% in the number of murders in 2023 and by nearly 10% more in 2024. However, in analysing these figures, it should be borne in mind that the war in Ukraine has meant that there have been fewer young and middle-aged men in Russian society who are most often responsible for such crimes.

 

Murders committed in a war zone are dealt with by military investigators but these crimes do not appear in official statistics, said a sociologist Iskander Yasaveev. The number of murder sentences handed down to military personnel in 2023 was nine times higher than in 2022, based on data from the Judicial Department of the Russian Supreme Court. The courts imposed 68% more guilty verdicts on the military in the first half of last year than in the same period in 2023.

In his analysis of the crime figures, Iskander Yasaveev said it was important to be aware that alcohol consumption per capita in Russia is increasing nearly every year. In 2022, the volume of strong drinks consumed by Russians rose by 3.2% and by a further 4.5% in 2023. The figure fell by 2% last year but was still higher than before the start of the Ukraine conflict.

 

Alcohol and crime are closely linked

 

According to the Judicial Department of the Russian Supreme Court, 68% of murders are committed by people while under the influence of alcohol.

 

“The 20-year decline in the number of murders in Russia up until 2022 occurred against the backdrop of a steady decrease in the sale and consumption of strong alcohol. Contrasting trends in such sales and recorded murders in the country in 2023-2024 are yet another reason to doubt the reliability of official crime statistics”, said the sociologist.

 

In response to an enquiry from Takie Dela, Rosstat stated that the incidence of alcoholism in 2023 was 1.3% higher than the year before. Just over 42,000 people died from drink-related causes in 2023, which is 11% less than in 2021.

 

Who became ill

 

The mental health of Russians has deteriorated over the past three years. In 2023, 43% of respondents to a survey conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation (POF) noted a decline in their psychological state. According to Ministry of Health figures, cases of mental health illnesses increased by 7% between 2021 and 2023.

 

The research also revealed that stress experienced by Russians, which surged after the start of the Ukraine conflict, has since returned to its previous level. However, Russian pharmacies sold 19.2 million packs of antidepressants in 2024, which is 21% higher than in the previous year, said Nikolai Bespalov, CEO of the analytical company RNC Pharma to Takie Dela. Alcohol and drug consumption figures also tend to contradict the POF data.

 

Rosstat figures show that drug dependency decreased by 9.1% in 2022-2023. At the same time, the total number of registered drug users rose by 0.8%, said a report of the State’s Anti-Drugs Committee. Its authors also stated that 22,000 people had a drug addiction in 2023, which is 3.6% higher than a year earlier. More than 10,000 people died, 9.4% more than the year before.

 

“We are seeing a lot of overdose cases at present. Users are not getting the drugs they want. This is due, among other things, to the fact that law enforcers have been focusing their efforts on combating narcotic precursors as it has become difficult to produce drugs in Russia”, a narcologist Nikolai Unguryan told Takie Dela.

 

In response to an enquiry from Takie Dela, Rosstat reported a sharp fall in the number of drug-related deaths. According to the agency, in 2022 the figure had been at record levels for at least ten years but went down by 22% in 2023 after the first year of the military conflict.

Diabetes, hypertension and cancer

 

There has been a history of record rates of diabetes, hypertension and cancer in Russia over the last few years. The number of cases per 100,000 people in 2023 since 2021 has increased by 24%, 35% and 16% respectively.

 

Russian life expectancy in 2024 fell from a record 73.4 to 73 years. “While we don’t currently have the data to explain last year’s decrease, it is probably due to a high mortality rate among young men with no directly attributable cause of death”, said analysts from the Let’s be precise CSO.

 

In 2023, 726,000 people were officially recognised has having disabled status, which is 28% higher than the previous year, according to Ministry of Labour data. The most significant rise (53%) in the causes of disability are “injuries, addiction and other impacts of external causes”. Up until 2023, the number of Russians who were disabled as a result of these factors had been steadily decreasing.

 

Source: https://takiedela.ru/notes/narkomaniya-bednost-i-depressiya/