Paul Goble
Staunton, July 30 – Moscow has stopped releasing statistical data on a broad range of metrics especially since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine; and those cutbacks are now snowballing as the authorities end publication of more and more data sets and those they do release, which depend on suppressed data, are ever less accurate.
During the first six months of 2026, the To Be Precise portal says, the Russian government stopped releasing data on the work of the courts and did not issue the bulletin on social supports (tochno.st/materials/suddep-perestal-obnovliat-dannye-o-rabote-sudov-a-na-emiss-aktualizirovali-vsego-54-pokazatelei).
The loss of access to such data is serious, the portal says; but it points to another development which may prove even more consequential. Much new data on a wide variety of issues depends for its accuracy on comparisons with earlier data on the same subject. If the earlier data isn’t available, then soon such data sets can’t be released and now aren’t.
That has enormous consequences for those seeking to analyze what is happening in Russian society, but another consequence that may prove to be even more serious happens when statistical organs release inaccurate data because they have to make estimates when the release of accurate date is stopped.
That creates a situation where the difference between what the Russian government says and Russian officials and businessmen rely on and the real situation continues to grow, something that introduces distortions in policies of all kinds as those involved assume that there are far more or far less of something than is in fact the case.
That outcome will affect elections, draft quotas, production figures, and almost all issues where what the government or businesses do relies on data the government chooses to release, including data that by nature are inaccurate and becoming ever more so.
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