Russia faces alcohol shortage as system outage persists
In Russia, there was a significant failure in the alcohol production and turnover control system (EGAIS). For several days now, vendors have been unable to accept deliveries. As a result, alcohol is beginning to run low in many regions of the country, including Moscow.
On Wednesday, March 25, the Federal Alcohol and Tobacco Market Regulation Service (RATK) issued a statement informing that "due to a power outage, there may be delays in registering documents in the EGAIS system within the next 5 hours."
However, the technical issues remain unresolved to this day. An employee of one of the companies involved in alcohol distribution explained to "The Moscow Times" that most of the documents sent to the system have not been processed due to the failure. In Krasnoyarsk, he witnessed how his partner's bar could not sell alcohol because of the outage. The problems are nationwide in Russia.
- On Thursday, there was information suggesting that everything had been fixed, but this was not true. The situation is worst in the Moscow region and Siberia. The system has not been operational for three days, and production and sales have come to a halt - the employee told the portal.
On Thursday, the website and email service stopped working. The Association of Alcohol Producers believes that the failure was caused by a hacker attack. However, this information has not been made public. It is still unknown when the failure will be resolved.
The price of vodka in Russia is rising
According to a decree by the Ministry of Finance, the minimum retail price of a half-liter bottle of vodka in Russia increased to 349 rubles as of January 1, 2025. This represents an increase of 50 rubles compared to the previous rate of 299 rubles.
The increase applies not only to retail prices but also to costs at earlier stages of distribution. The minimum sale price by producers has been raised from 246 rubles to 287 rubles, and the wholesale price rose from 256 rubles to 299 rubles for 0.5 liters.
The minimum prices for vodka in Russia have been regulated since 2009 as part of a strategy to combat illegal alcohol production. Raising prices aims to limit the competitiveness of cheap, illegal alcoholic products. The last change in the minimum price occurred in July 2024, when the price was raised from 281 rubles to 299 rubles.
