Russia, which has been in awar with Ukrainefor nearly four years, is consuming antidepressants at never-seen-before levels.

At least 22.3 million packages of drugs such as Prozac, the equivalent of £200million and almost double the amount bought in 2022, were sold last year, data from Russian analytics company DSM has revealed, the Telegraph reported.

Analysts have called the trend worrisome pointing to a growing mental health burden driven by war, economic stress, and political repression.

According to market research by Russian consultancy DSM, pharmacies sold 8.4 million packages of antidepressants in 2019. That figure rose to 13 million in 2022, then climbed to 15.3 million in 2023 and 17.9 million in 2024, The Telegraph reported.

By 2025, annual sales reached 22.3 million packages, nearly three times pre-pandemic levels. DSM data also show that antidepressant sales grew by 36 percent in 2025 alone, a rate far higher than in previous years.

Another consultancy, RNC Pharma, estimated that sales may be even higher, placing the total at 23.5 million packages. Between January and October 2025, pharmacies sold 19.1 million packages. Retail turnover peaked in October at 15.7 billion rubles, the highest monthly figure ever recorded for antidepressants in Russia.

Moscow and the surrounding Moscow Oblast accounted for 31 per cent of sales by value, highlighting the pressure felt in major urban centres where political control, economic strain, and social change are most intense.

The scale of the increase stands out when compared with earlier crises. During the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, pharmacies sold 7.9 million packages of antidepressants. In 2021, sales rose modestly to 9.2 million.

Those figures now appear low compared with post-2022 levels. Analysts say the steady rise since the war began points to a deeper and more sustained psychological impact than the pandemic.

Antidepressants now rank second in Russia’s retail pharmaceutical market by value. The most commonly sold drugs include sertraline, fluoxetine, and amitriptyline. Zoloft is the highest-selling medication in the country. Many of these drugs are Western-developed SSRIs such as Zoloft, Prozac, and Cipralex, despite state rhetoric critical of the West.

Source: World News in news18.com, World Latest News, World News