In the Russian Federation, key economic data has been removed from public access, indicating that the real state of the economy is being concealed.
Points of attention
- Russia has removed key economic data from public access, indicating a deliberate attempt to conceal the real state of its economy.
- Restricting access to statistics on household income, expenses, salaries, and other key indicators limits the ability to analyze the actual state of society and manage power effectively.
- The concealment of vital economic data comes amid a full-scale war against Ukraine, pointing towards an intentional effort to mask economic problems and stagnation.
Russia is hiding data on the state of the economy
Russia is systematically restricting access to official statistics, which indicates a deliberate concealment of the real state of the economy against the backdrop of a full-scale war against Ukraine.
At the end of 2025, 168 tables were removed or reduced from statistical collections, and 115 indicators were no longer updated in the Unified Interdepartmental Information and Statistical System (EMISS). These are key data — household income and expenses, salaries of doctors and teachers, the number of civil servants, social payments, and demographic indicators.
Particularly revealing, the intelligence agency emphasized, is the actual cessation of publication of the results of the "sample survey of household budgets." It was these data that made it possible to assess how much Russians actually spend on food, utilities, medicines, and basic needs.
Statistics on the number and salaries of state and municipal employees were completely closed.
Data on the salaries of doctors, nurses, teachers, lecturers, scientists, and cultural workers are not being updated. Instead of new data, there are labels marked "temporary closure" — a wording that is increasingly used to mask inconvenient information.
Against the backdrop of growing military spending, this looks like an attempt to hide stagnation and falling income in the civilian sector, the SZRU emphasized.
Data on the number of combatants, burial payments, juvenile crime rates, and the number of convicts also disappeared from open access.
A significant part of non-updated indicators also concerns foreign trade — exports and imports.
As the SZRU emphasized, for a country under unprecedented sanctions and dependent on a war economy, this is critically important information. Its concealment demonstrates an unwillingness to demonstrate the depth of structural problems, falling investments, and limited sales markets.
The combination of these steps forms a clear trend: Russia is deliberately curtailing transparency in order to control the information space and minimize public reaction to the economic deterioration.
