Vegetables are still expensive: should Ukrainians expect cheap offers

Atypically high prices for vegetables in Ukraine persist because the south of our country is under Russian occupation. The Russian army does not produce Ukrainian products from there.

But, as Svetlana Litvin, an analyst at the Ukrainian Agrarian Business Club (UCAB), told RBC-Ukraine, in about a month Ukrainians will be buying cheaper vegetables.

According to her, from October to May, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and other vegetables are sold on the Ukrainian market, mainly from Turkey or from Ukrainian greenhouse farms.

In June, they begin to import open-ground vegetables from the southern regions of Ukraine, and only then does the crop ripen throughout the country.

But the Russian troops, having occupied the Kherson and part of the Zaporozhye regions, blocked the export of early vegetables from these territories for sale on the Ukrainian market, which raised the price of vegetables.

She notes that prices will be high until about mid-July: then the harvest will ripen in the central, western and northern regions of Ukraine.

“Prices will start to come down and become more comfortable for consumers”– said Svetlana Litvin.

Occupants take out Ukrainian vegetables

Russian invaders continue to engage in theft in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. They export grain and vegetables to the Russian Federation and the occupied Crimea.

Ukrainian intelligence reports that large volumes of vegetables are exported to the peninsula, in particular beets, potatoes and cabbage.

Previously, we talked about why Ukrainians will have to tighten their belts, and wrote about whether inflation has accelerated in Ukraine.