Moscow - As

part of its efforts to confront the war of harsh sanctions, Russia has started the battle of economic countermeasures, in an attempt to reduce the results of Western sanctions, the like of which history has not witnessed before.

In this context, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that included a package of social and economic measures to support citizens, as well as companies subject to sanctions.

According to the document, the government will be able to conduct an additional indexing of insurance pensions for retirees, as well as the fixed payment of pensions during this year, in addition to setting the country's minimum subsistence minimum and calculating the minimum wage.

Actions included:

  • Ban on scheduled inspections of small and medium-sized businesses this year, and until the end of 2024, on organizations operating in the IT industry.

  • The new law also stipulated the abolition of the payment of value-added tax to citizens when buying bullion of precious metals in banks.

Moreover, separate legal provisions have been made in terms of expanding the powers of the Russian government, including the right to give different companies permission to carry out their activities without the need to extend licenses.

The Cabinet has also been given the power to independently streamline public procurement and urgently increase pension benefits.


historical inflation

This comes at a time when inflation in Russia accelerated year-on-year as of March 4, reaching 10.42% from 9.05% in the previous week, according to the Ministry of Economic Development's report on the current price situation.

For its part, the Federal Agency issued a special report this month, in which it stated that from February 19 to 25, the consumer price index reached 100.45%, the highest since the 1994 crisis, which was described as Black August.

Focus on the poor

Alexei Zubets, director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the Financial University of the Russian government, explained that the measures announced by President Putin focused on the poor segments of society, in particular supporting pensions for poor retirees and ensuring a decent life for them in conditions of sanctions.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera Net, he pointed out that the State Duma (Parliament) is currently working on stabilizing the prices of basic foodstuffs for the population, which is the most important thing in the current situation.

On the scope of the new measures, Alexei Zubets indicated that they do not include all sectors, because it is difficult to include them directly in one package, calling to take into account that the measures announced by the president did not include everything that should be taken.

In his opinion, it is necessary to continue work and prepare for any sudden developments on the level of sanctions, and the problems that may result from them, by providing the necessary means to confront the sanctions, including preventing the export of strategic materials to the countries that participated in the sanctions.


Zubitz stressed that what is important now is not only the law to help the poor, as much as the real sums and money that must be allocated for it, given the possibility of the emergence of technical or bureaucratic obstacles that disrupt the process of helping the poor included in presidential procedures.

Crisis or disaster?

In response to a question by Al Jazeera Net, Zobits denied that there is currently an opposition mood in the country, because the economic crisis has not reached the limits of the disaster, in addition to the fact that the standard of living of citizens is still coherent, but this does not mean the accumulation of the crisis caused by the sanctions, which needs to be resolved for many months According to the expectations of the most optimists.

He called for the government to present a monthly "exam" with the substance of subsidizing the poor, as he put it, through which it proves its ability to fortify the immunity of the social and economic system.