Rosstat Cuts Back on Release of Statistics to Hide Rising Mortality Rates and Inflation and Falling Incomes in Advance of Duma Vote

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 21 – Vladimir Putin’s promises to hand out money to the population may get more attention, but the Kremlin has adopted another and possibly more effective way to prevent its ratings from continuing to fall. It has cut back in the frequency and detail of Rosstat publications about rising mortality rates and inflation and falling incomes.

            Up until now, the State Statistics Agency had been releasing data as they came in and were processed, sometimes every day of the week. That often meant data the powers that be did not want to reach the people did so. Now Rosstat will release data only in weekly glops, allowing the authorities more time to vet it (sovross.ru/articles/2161/53273).

            This is the second broad cutback in Rosstat’s release of statistical data in the last 18 months. In April 2020, the agency tried another tack to keep people from paying attention to the worsening picture of their country it was provided. Instead of releasing data at 4:00 pm, they held it to 7:00 pm or even 11:00 pm so that it would miss the evening news.

            Also, over this same period, Sovetskaya Rossiya reports, Rosstat twice withheld publication of inconvenient data in advance of Putin speeches. Clearly, the newspaper says, the Kremlin has decided that the Russian people must not be informed of just how disastrously the powers that be have handled the situation.