When the last leader of the Soviet Union visited Chequers for lunch with prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984, one topic of discussion was potatoes.

Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of Soviet leader Mikhail, claimed Russia had 300 ways of cooking the humble spud, prompting Michael Jopling, Britain’s agriculture minister, to express disbelief.

She later posted a Russian cookbook to Jopling with the clarification: “In fact, there are 500, rather than 300, recipes to cook potatoes.”

For Vladimir Putin, Russians’ appetite for the vegetable has become problematic, however. Shortages have pushed up prices by 167pc over the past year, the biggest rise of any food.

“It turns out that we don’t have enough potatoes,” Putin admitted during a televised meeting in May, adding: “I spoke with [Belarusian leader] Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko. He said, ‘We’ve already sold everything to Russia.’”

Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made Russia the world’s most sanctioned country, eagle-eyed economists have watched closely for signs of economic damage which have proved remarkably elusive.

But now surging food prices and labour shortages are keeping inflation high, driving big cracks in the economy.