Vladimir Putin’s re-election campaign has prompted a fresh drive by Russian officials to curb inflation as disquiet grows over soaring prices for consumer goods and as technocrats move to rein in a weakening rouble.

The Kremlin is increasingly resorting to ad hoc measures aimed at lessening the burden on ordinary Russians, with Putin trumpeting a return to growth nearly two years after his full-scale invasion of Ukraine prompted Russia’s biggest economic crisis in decades.

Ahead of the president’s expected landslide victory in March, Russia’s inflation-fighting toolkit has included everything from hawkish central bank policy and a pause on exits from the country by western companies to what the Kremlin called “energetic measures” to lower the cost of eggs.