In early February, the aggressor’s Federal State Statistics Service published its annual report on the “socioeconomic situation in Russia.”
The report, as usual, did not include an overview of the situation in the occupied territories of mainland Ukraine, however, guided not by international law, but by a desire to conceal the “special situation” of the economy there. However, Moscow statisticians did cite some figures for occupied Crimea.
These figures, although clearly strained, nevertheless, to put it mildly, contradict the bravura statements made in recent months by Crimean “ministries” about some kind of “stable growth.” For example, the industrial production index in the occupied AR of Crimea is currently reported at 99.1% of 2024 levels, with the manufacturing industry at 96.6% of 2024 levels.
Agricultural production is reported at 85.7% of the previous year’s level, including 79.7% in crop production and 95.6% in livestock.
The grain harvest in 2025 is projected at 1,108,000 tons (77.6% of 2024, which itself was not a bumper harvest), and sunflower harvest at 16,400 tons (45.4% of the lean 2024 and three times less than in normal years).
Meanwhile, the potato harvest of 55,000 tons, that is, 90% of the year before last, seems quite an achievement against this backdrop.
In livestock production, the key indicators, compared to 2024, were 97% (134,000 tons) for meat and poultry, approximately 95% (178,000 tons) for milk, and approximately 98% for eggs (282 million).
Against this backdrop, trade turnover and catering indicators appear somewhat more optimistic at first glance, but their annual growth does not exceed the rate of inflation and price increases.
The most characteristic indicator of real economic activity in the occupied AR of Crimea for 2025 was the “balance of financial activity of organizations,” which, according to the report, showed an excess of losses over profits for all types of “organizations” by 44.9 billion rubles.
In Russia itself, a comparable collapse in commercial activity was observed only in the Kemerovo Region. It can be assumed that such a critical situation in “Crimean business” has arisen not only due to the “negative growth” in production described above.
It was further exacerbated by the “tax skimming” we described earlier, when last year the Crimean “authorities” sought “at any cost” to milk the remnants of “Crimean business” for twice the usual amount to meet the Kremlin’s rather hysterical demands for a “reduction in subsidies.”
