Army supply prices skyrocket in Russia, as families struggle to outfit conscripts
The price of a bulletproof vest has skyrocketed to twenty times the January price, said the Russian Senator Lyudmila Narusova, when speaking to the Federation Council.
“The fifth-grade bulletproof vest that cost 7,000 rubles last January, now costs 135,000,” Narusova said. She added that the Federal Antitrust Service (FAS) should find out why Russian manufacturers don’t deliver the bulletproof army gear directly to the Russian military, selling it instead to consumers at market prices.
The senator described talking to the conscripts’ parents at a draft office in Moscow’s Khimki district:
Their mothers said, verbatim, “I’m packing him for the special operation the way I used to pack him for the summer camp — with thermals, socks, underwear, clothes, not to mention the canned spam and other stuff.”
Mobilization tapers off
Narusova criticized the army for leaving it to the families to outfit and equip the Russian fighters going to Ukraine. She also said that conscripts at the draft office were given economy-class airline snacks donated by some “bleeding-heart flight attendants.” “Do you think this is normal?” the senator asked her colleagues.
The Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko asked the specialized committees to look into the price “skyrocketing.” At the same council meeting, Senator Olga Kovitidi pointed out that the council has already spoken to the FAS, but the antitrust regulator said this question was outside of its scope.
Earlier this month, the FAS said that it had discovered cases of army supply price gouging. The Attorney General’s office then warned retailers against trying to limit the army goods supply to encourage price hikes.
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