The Bank of Russia has raised its inflation forecast for the current year to 4.5-5.5%. This is stated in the press release of the Central Bank following the meeting of the board of directors, which lowered the key rate to 15.5%.
At the end of 2025, there was a very low rate of price growth for a number of goods, primarily for fruit and vegetable products. Taking this into account and the absence of a significant transfer of the VAT increase to prices in December, inflation by the end of 2025 was lower than the October forecast of the Central Bank, amounting to 5.6%.
At the same time, at the beginning of 2026, the influence of these factors on price dynamics became the opposite. The increase in VAT, excise taxes, indexation of regulated prices and tariffs, and price adjustments for fruit and vegetable products led to a temporary but significant acceleration of the current price increase in January, the regulator said.
