Even Ukrainian officials confess that prices in Ukrainian shops have been skyrocketing recently. Shop assistants turned to placing USD price tags in some stores so that they don’t have to change them several times during a day. These are prices for staple commodities that are actually on the rise (bread, cereals, sugar, vegetables, fruits, milk, and meat). People are not just alarmed, they are in panic and foodstuffs (especially those of protracted storage) are in rush demand.

The collapse of Ukrainian hryvnia is still under way (only in January and February there was registered a 200% fall of hryvnia), doesn’t contribute to optimism that’s why the shelves in grocery stores are always empty meanwhile such foodstuffs like sugar, rice, buckwheat, and flour can’t be bought easily in Kiev. If one tries to google it’ll take just a minute to find this :

 http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/spolotko/51771967/12465/12465_600.jpg

 http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/spolotko/51771967/12821/12821_600.jpg

Above these are photos of Auchan hypermarket in Kiev posted in Ukrainian livejournal

 http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/spolotko/51771967/13291/13291_600.jpg

Apparently those ladies face a tough choice

Even Inter TV channel has left the ATO aside showing some Ukrainian citizens instead, looking absolutely lost and embarrassed trying to buy whatever they can buy at the moment with the costs not having reached their peak yet.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3-zosXq2hE

It’s no wonder actually. During the last three days of February the cost of vegetables in the supermarkets of Kiev hiked up by approximately 18% and the cost of sugar went up by 20%. The salaries ‘stay stable’, so to say.

Certainly, the government is trying to take care of the citizens. In some regions food ration tickets appeared reminiscent of some past almost forgotten life.

President Poroshenko himself turned to the State Reserve Agency of Ukraine with the request on the present status of state reserves of socially vital foodstuffs :  http://vvc.kiev.ua/news/4968. But the Agency failed to satisfy the demand to make the grocery stores full. Their motivation was that the reserves had been previously devastated (bulk of them were taken away to cater for military units in the ATO zone). There is the relevant document signed by acting State Reserve Agency head Zhukov (I wrote about it and those very food tickets here :  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/world/2015/03/519700.html )

For its part, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine headed by Abromavicius, a notable expert and an honored economist of Ukraine, issued an order ‘On retail trade norms of socially vital foodstuff commodities’.

Actually, this amounts to making de-jure what is taking place de-facto in many Ukrainian stores (  http://kiyany.obozrevatel.com/life/29461-v-supermarketah-kieva-vveli-ogranichenie-na-prodazhu-grechki-i-sahara-smi.htm ). Alcohol norms are just enough to drink to health of the ministers so caring towards their citizens.

Seriously speaking, the things under way presently point to inevitability of pure Holodomor.