Russians becoming more alcoholic due to Putin’s war in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin wants to control Ukraine and this is causing more Russians to become addicted to drugs.

More and more people in Russia are becoming addicted to alcohol and experiencing alcohol-related mental health problems. This is happening for the first time in 10 years, and it’s happening as the war enters its third year.

Russian men abroad are often seen with a scruffy face, red cheeks, holding a bottle of alcohol, and saying ‘Na Zdorovie’. This has been a common image of them for a long time.

People in Russia used to drink more alcohol than people in most other countries, but they started drinking less since the early 2000s, but now they are drinking more again.

During Dmitry Medvedev’s time as president, the government tried many times to solve the country’s problems with alcohol.

Several rules about alcohol were made. They included not being able to drink alcohol on the street and not being able to advertise it. These rules worked well until the war started.

A problem that is getting bigger.

In 2022, Rosstat found that over 54,000 people were newly diagnosed with alcohol addiction, which is more than the 53,000 diagnosed the year before.

Experts say that the decrease is because of the Covid pandemic, changes in the economy, and increasing tensions between countries.

Svetlana Gordeeva, a professor at Perm University, said there’s nothing surprising here.

People tend to drink more alcohol during tough times like a pandemic or economic crisis, and this can lead to more cases of alcohol-related mental health problems.

The effects of war

A doctor who studies addiction said that Putin’s war has also caused more people to drink alcohol.

“When people were told to get ready for war, the number of people with alcohol-related mental health problems went up the most in places where they had to wait three to six months before going to the battle. ”

Family members of the people who were called to work told me that lots of vodka was delivered there and no one was checking how much was being sold. As a result, people drank so much that they became mentally ill.

I don’t think these cases were included in the official numbers, but it’s possible that they were discovered.

If that’s true, then we likely got around a thousand new cases from these camps that were moved.