Some pro-Kremlin Russian outlets published reports on the sharp rise in wage arrears — then deleted them.
Some pro-Kremlin Russian outlets did publish reports on the sharp rise in wage arrears, the independent Russian business outlet The Bell said.
Meduza previously reported that state Russian media had been advised to “maximally ignore” the Rosstat data. TASS, RIA Novosti, and Interfax complied with those instructions.
The pro-Kremlin tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, the business daily Kommersant, and the news outlet Ura.ru all ran briefs on the wage arrears spike — then quietly pulled them. The links now either return a page-not-found error or redirect to the outlets’ homepages.
According to Russia’s statistics agency, the total wage arrears in Russia at the end of April amounted to 2.9 billion rubles, up 750 million rubles (+35.2%) from March. Year-on-year, wage debt grew by nearly 1.4 billion rubles (+94.3%). The statistics covered enterprises not classified as small businesses.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].
To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.