Russia’s Dire Demographics: Is Putin’s Ambition Destroying Russia’s Future?
Falling birth rates, enforced conscription, a pointless, illegal war & a distinct lack of hope are literally stealing Russia’s future away…
“Indeed, once the Kremlin finally confronts the true depths of the country’s ugly demographic truths, Russia’s political leaders could very well become more alarmist, mercurial, and confrontational in their international posture. And in the process, Moscow might become more prone to miscalculation when it comes to relations with both allies and rivals.”
Back in the early 2010’s fears similar to those being expressed by the political right in the U.S. with respect to the ‘replacement theory,’ were galvanising white, ethnic Russians to action. But that fear manifested itself in a slightly different way. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union low birth and fertility rates among Russians stoked a strong anti-abortion movement that had taken its lead from similar movements that had existed previously in the West and particularly in the U.S.
The problem this was seeking to rectify was that of negative demographic change in Russia. It had first been been recognised as an area of concern during the years of the Soviet Union, but it was Putin who first addressed the problem publicly back in 2006 during his ‘State of the Federation’ speech.
He said he was going to talk about “love, women and children,” and about “family,” and what he called, “Russia’s most acute problem;” that of “demographics.”
“You know our country’s population shrinks, on average, by seven hundred thousand people a year. We have talked about the issue many times, but have yet to do anything of substance about it (1).”
But the remedies Putin applied haven’t worked. In 2021 Putin’s regime oversaw an unprecedented decline in the population with the number of deaths exceeding 2.4 million people in a single year.
This is the highest figure since 1945.
The reasons for this decline are complex and multi-factorial, and include economic and social regression and degradation. Men aged between 35–40 have twice the mortality of women of the same age according to the Russian Health Ministry, and no single reason jumps out except that of suicide, where Russia has suicide rates that rank among the worst 10 nations in the world. Economic misery, brought on by consistently low wages, high stress, levels of alcoholism and the ingestion of cheap foods laced with chemicals and preservatives all lead to early death.
But there was more than that…
In a ground breaking study of Russian demographics Nicholas Eberstadt suggested that the only factor that fully explained, what he called, ‘Russia’s ominous patterns of mortality and morbidity,’ was poor mental health resulting from a distinct ‘lack of hope (2).’
Indeed, patterns of general health are so poor that Eberstadt wrote, “…in its raw dimensions, Russia’s public health losses today are of a scale akin to what might be expected from a devastating and unending general war,” then exclaimed, “as hard as it to believe…” life expectancy had actually declined so severely that in 2010 it was lower than it had been 50 years earlier, shortly after the death of Stalin (2).
In the ‘noughties’ per capita income had actually doubled in Russia but death rates hadn’t budged. Non-plused, Eberstadt wrote wryly, “…something terrible and new is underway in contemporary Russia. The country is pioneering eerie new modern pathways to poor health.” Then almost in comic disbelief he adds, “(Russia) is generating overall levels of premature mortality much like those in third world societies but through specific cause-of-death patterns that any truly impoverished society could never afford to replicate (2).”
Eberstadt went on to show how there were only two periods over the last hundred years when birth rates had actually risen. The first had been during the brief era of Khrushchev’s ‘thaw’ — between the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, when Nikita Khrushchev had denounced the cult of Stalin which led to a brief thaw when Russia opened up slightly, — and the second, during Gorbachev’s perestroika, when Russian’s saw a very ephemeral glimmer of hope that a better future may actually be around the corner (2).
For the rest of the time Russians were, apparently, not of a mind to procreate freely, and were literally dying for lack of hope, which, no matter what you think of Putin or of Russia, is just a horribly sad state for any nation to be mired in.
The gay pride parade and Russian innocence…
But of course owning the truth and telling how it is, is not the Russian way. It’s certainly not Putin’s way. Russia is the perennial victim. The age old stooge of Western imperialism, jealousy and desire. Under such circumstances how could Russia ever be at fault? So, who then. or what, does Putin blame for Russia’s dire demographics?
Simple really; the demise of the traditional family is to blame. And this is being brought about through nefarious Western influences emanating from Jewish lobbying of governments and institutions, and the global Jewish conspiracy that is infecting Russia with the disease of liberalism, decadence, homosexuality, lesbianism, AIDS and more, so the narrative goes, and are ultimately contributing to Russia’s demographic decline and the loss of the traditional family.
As far back as the late 1990’s support was found for this theory before it even became mainstream in Russia, when Allan Carlson, an American author and one time professor, first suggested that birth rates were dropping due to the decline in the natural family as the basis of society.
To gain further recognition and backing for his theories, Carlson set up the First World Congress of Families. Support was widespread, especially among ex-Soviet states, all worried by their declining demographic statistics (1).
It was a success and has gone on to become an annual event. Based in Illinois, but with its’ spiritual centre fixed firmly in the sociology department of Moscow State University. With the backing of the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church, the organisation grew.
By the early 2000’s they were established well enough to fund lobbyists, or ambassadors as they called them, at most of the big international institutions including the UN. Their lobbyists were Russians and they threw their weight, money and influence behind any measure or initiative that was anti-gay, anti-LGBTQ.
In fact they became so aggressive in their insistence that in the U.S. The Southern Poverty Law Center designated them a hate group (1).
By 2007 the reputation of the once respected sociology department at Moscow State Uni was in decline. Students were protesting that ‘education at this department is a lie,’ that the faculty were forbidden from doing original research, that classes in ‘religious upbringing’ were mandatory for all students, and that all foreign speakers and exchange students had been banned.
They issued a flyer that listed some of their recent grievances:
“All students were required to read a brochure distributed by the Dean’s office. Titled ‘Why Russian lands are being cleansed?’ It accused the Freemasons of ‘starting world wars and initiating the creation of the atomic bomb,’ and claimed that the ‘Zionist lobby…determined the foreign policies of the United States and Great Britain, holds in its’ hands the world financial system, including the printing of dollars, practically controls all the leading mass media and means of communication. Russia is called a ‘righteous nation’ and America a ‘beastly nation’ and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is quoted earnestly, as a reliable source (1).”
A group called the Union of Orthodox Citizens, which included several well known politicians among its number, issued a manifesto in support of the university department. They blamed the students for fomenting an ‘orange revolution’ at the university, where they recruited radical students to provide a training ground for a youth ‘maidan’ — the Ukrainian word for Square, thereby drawing a direct link between the students and the 2004 Orange revolution in Kyiv’s Independence Square — with the aim of infecting universities across Russia and turning Red Square into an all-Russian rainbow ‘maidan (1).’
What a lovely thought!
Alas, the university cracked down, expelled the radical students and arranged an international conference entitled ‘Societal norms and the possiblities of societal development.’
The dean opened the conference with the following warning:
“Issues of virtue and morality have to be at the forefront today. Without that Russia has no future…how can we talk about the rights of homosexuals and lesbians in the light of this? All these attempts to organise gay parades, the introduction of sexual education in schools — all of this aims to defile our young people, and we must say a clear and definitive ‘no’ to that! Otherwise, we will lose Russia (1).”
Just for clarity, it should be said that ‘all these attempts’ relates to a single occurrence to organise a pride parade, when the few who were brave enough to turn up were beaten and the arrested by the police.
But the star of the conference was an American; one Paul Cameron, who insisted that Russia needed to learn from the mistakes made in America where “the homosexuals are bringing about a demographic catastrophe (1).”
Russian innocence was once again being exploited by the West. Russia was once again being made the victim of a sexually corrupt and dissolute West. The demographic crisis was yet another illustration of the West’s burning desire to destroy Russia! Putin’s policies were always doomed to fail under the overwhelming interference of the West whose sole reason for existing is the destruction of Russia.
And so it continues…
In the early days of the war, patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, gave further voice to these fears and theories, framing them as an existential struggle against Western tyranny, as manifest by the puppet Nazi regime installed in Kyiv.
“We have entered into a struggle that has not a physical, but a metaphysical significance,” the patriarch said in a sermon on March 6 this year. But that the Russian people should not fear because God was on their side. “Today there is a test for the loyalty to this new world order, a kind of pass to that ‘happy’ world, the world of excess consumption, the world of false ‘freedom,’ ” he said. “Do you know what this test is? The test is very simple and at the same time terrible — it is the gay pride parade,” which has, rather absurdly, also been blamed for the rise of ISIS.
The same Christian nationalist rhetoric has been used by both Putin and Kirill to justify the war in Ukraine in language that is about as far from the Christian ethic as one might get. In the days after the invasion began Kirill released a statement in which he praised Putin for his “high and responsible service to the people of Russia,” and declared that the Russian Orthodox Church has “always striven to make a significant contribution to the patriotic education of compatriots.”
Patriotic education that takes the form of bombs dropped on schools, theatres, civic centres, powers stations and sleeping civilians in their beds.
That must be what they call being a neighbourly Christian in Russia? Not so much ‘love thy neighbour’ as fuck them up and send them to hell.
Such high-minded Christian values just make me want to drop my knees, weep, and shriek ‘hallelujah!’
What about you?
Likening same sex marriage to Nazism, a warning of the coming apocalypse, patriarch Kirill is just crammed full of Christian warmth and brotherhood.
Of course, much like Trump’s embrace of Christian nationalism in the U.S., Putin’s religiosity has very little, if anything at all to do with God and Christian worship, and absolutely everything to do with the attainment of absolute power.
Sergei Pugachev, who was a central figure in Putin’s rise to the Presidency after the Yeltsin years, acknowledged years later the mistake he’d made when he introduced Putin to the Orthodox Church and its’ teachings, lamenting the decision and how things turned out.
Pugachev, a lifelong Christian and devout follower of Orthodoxy, recalled one episode when he attended church on Forgiveness Sunday with Putin. Pugachev informed Putin that he needed to prostrate himself in front of the priest to ask forgiveness for his sins. Putin refused saying, “Why should I? I am the President of the Russian Federation. Why should I ask for forgiveness? (3)”
But then honesty and integrity have always been strangers to Trump and Putin; why should their hypocritical embrace of God and the Bible be any different?
The perfect storm…
Just like most other nations the Covid pandemic had a pretty bad effect on Russia’s demographics. But even though Covid is in retreat across Russia there appears to have been no rebound in population numbers as there has been elsewhere. In fact at the start of this year there were 700,000 fewer Russians than there were at the start of 2021. Russia’s population is declining by just under 0.5% each year and has seen a negative drop (i.e. more deaths than births) every year since 1994.
Whilst official numbers of the dead are a closely guarded statistic to stem the chance of any public panic, “…the ineffectiveness of Russian vaccines against the background of the ban on the importation of foreign vaccines led to the fact that Russia may have been world leader in mortality as a result of the pandemic.”
But it doesn’t stop there. In the first 4 months of this year alone (when statistics were still collected and published) there were 311,200 more deaths than births. This alone is a very worrying statistic. No wonder Putin said in early June this year, “Demography is the first task. We should have more people and they should be healthy.”
The EU political report says that in “…trying to build a ‘Great Russia,’ Putin has created a demographic catastrophe, as a result of which a huge
country is dying out and entire regions are in decline and desolation.”
And of course, in late February Putin invaded Ukraine.
And since that day the Russian loss of life has been staggering. Whilst Russia keeps the actual number very close to their chest, having admitted that by late September there had been 6,000 losses, this is thought to be just a fraction of the true number.
In late Summer the Pentagon estimated that between 70–80,000 had been killed with many more than that missing. In fact, as of 4th November, the Ukrainians estimate that some 75,000 Russian soldiers have lost their lives to Putin’s ambition. And this from a nation that Putin has said if the demographic decline is not turned round by 2030 will have no one left to work. Anywhere.
What’s more those losses have reportedly seen a sharp increase in the last week as the newly conscripted troops have arrived at the frontline. Rather than using these raw recruits wisely, it seems the Russian commanders are intent on sending them straight into the fray as they arrive, drip feeding them to the Ukrainians who are just grinding them up and sending them back in pieces.
Even worse, as the Ukrainian troops continue their relentless march towards Kherson, Russian military commanders are fleeing to save their own skin, leaving behind newly conscripted troops often without any weapons, to face the oncoming battle hardened Ukrainians, Putin’s shame and embarrassment must be reaching fever pitch.
This callous, cold-hearted treatment of their own human resources is little more than a continuation of that employed by Stalin in the Great Patriotic War.
From the first Russian commanders have used their men poorly, without consideration and without strategy, often sending them into battle without the right equipment, weapons, food, medical care or training.
And when the inevitable happens they don’t acknowledge the losses, even to the soldiers families, leaving relatives, mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, without any answers as to where or how or even if, their loved ones are dead, wounded or have been taken prisoner.
When Putin set out his plan to restore the decline starting in 2022, this was not how it was supposed to go. Despite having offered mortgage subsidies and cash payments as incentives to women who have children, the situation didn’t improve, and that was before the war began.
Covid, falling fertility, now a war that is going badly, causing massive loss of life, forced conscription with recruits lives being wasted in fruitless displays of wasted aggression, and thousands more fleeing the prospect, and finally the sanctions driven economic strife. No wonder independent demographer Alexei Raksha calls it ‘a perfect storm.’
Phrases on Euromaidan protest posters from people who understand the horrors of authoritarianism and know the value of democracy, and are willing to fight for it:
The Nation is Invincible
I am Ukrainian and I can’t Keep Calm
Putin if You Love Us — Let us Go
Stop Putin Stop War
Ukraine is Europe
No Putin No Killing
We Do Not Want War
From: I Will Die in a Foreign Land, A novel based on fact about the Euromaidan protests in 2014, by Kalani Pickhart.
Vladimir Putin: The Great Destroyer of Russia’s Future
Indeed, still so worrying is the issue of demographic decline (in Russia) that Jennifer Sciubba, the author of a forthcoming book, “8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death and Migration Shape Our World,” wrote prior to the invasion of Ukraine that, “…perhaps, we should recalibrate our expectation of the relationship between aging and national security. One relevant theory does come to mind: Power transition theory, which argues that a state with declining power will act aggressively while it still can, (and that) would explain Russia’s actions as a last gasp and shed light on why rapidly aging China is doubling down on its military.”
Hmmm…a last gasp? The mind boggles…could it be so? Eberstadt perhaps foresaw this demographically inspired aggression as seen from his quote at the top of this piece.
For most people, simple aggression in the face of perceived adversity, whether that be real or imagined, would have moral limits. But in Putin’s Russia no such moral qualms exist…thus monstrous crimes become almost commonplace…and not just on the battlefield.
The demographic crisis may help explain, but never justify, the mass abductions of children from occupied areas of Ukraine. Exact numbers are unknown, but it may run into the hundred’s of thousands, as pro-Russian authorities removed Ukrainian children for Summer Camp, only for them never to come home again. Shockingly, many have now been found to be put up for adoption in Russia.
But even amid Russian military collapse the body grab continues apace as tens of thousands of Kherson residents are forced to ‘evacuate’ for the grim ‘safety’ of the Russian Siberian steppe. Hundreds of children have reportedly already been abducted from the city as the amoral, heartless mass kidnappings of ethnically ‘Russian’ people from Ukraine goes on unabated.
No one knows for sure where they are being taken, but there have been reports they are being shipped off to the more ethnically diverse regions of Siberia, to improve the ethnic demographic make up of the those impoverished regions.
Why?
Because vast numbers of current Russian recruits, and reported deaths for the Ukrainian campaign, are of men from Asian ethnic minority regions such Dagestan, Chechnya, Buryatia, Krasnodor Territory and other parts of Siberia, leaving the more populous urban areas, such as Moscow and Petersburg, with high percentages of white, ethnic Russians, almost untouched, a pattern that seems also to have similarly afflicted the so-called national partial mobilisation Putin enabled in mid-September.
This cold racial, fascist arithmetic combined with the importation of vast numbers of assimilable white, fertile Ukrainian women bolsters the white, ethnic population, while ridding itself of the ‘dirty’ Asian blood of its’ ethnic regions.
Indeed, it has been suggested by some that these forced abductions were the primary motive behind the invasion, and that every other reason espoused is just raspberry sauce…!
But once again Putin’s decision making undermines his own logic. It is likely that thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of young Russian men have already died and continue to die, to satisfy Putin’s revanchist, imperialist desires, probably destroying any possible demographic advancement for generations to come.
The decision to inflict partial mobilisation on an already demographically creaking nation is poorly considered, smacking of desperation, reeking of reckless frustration at a campaign that has gone from bad to worse to disastrous.
Reports vary about how many young men have fled conscription, but Forbes were reporting that over 700,000 had left Russia by October 4th, over a month ago (see Tweet below). Most of these will be unable to return while Putin remains in power.
It is likely many have wives, perhaps young children, who may follow on, or at best continue their lives alone in Russia without the warm embrace of a husband or a father who has had to flee home and hearth just to stay alive.
Putin’s war is literally destroying his nations demographic future.
But of course, he doesn’t care. He won’t be here; but he trusts his place in history will be secured by victory in Ukraine, by the subsequent dismantling of the EU and the placement of a right-wing, authoritarian government in the U.S.
Demographics be damned. The whole world will be Russian!
Take it from who knows…
“To justify his rule, Putin wants the great victory he promised and believes he can obtain. If he agrees to a cease-fire, it will only be to give Russian troops a rest before continuing to fight. And if he wins in Ukraine, Putin will likely move to attack another post-Soviet state, such as Moldova, where Moscow already props up a breakaway region.”
Boris Bondarev, Russian diplomat who defected at the start of the war.
To lose this war isn’t only an existential threat for Ukraine. For Europe at large, the risk may be delayed, but in the longer term it is the same.
Putin would have the European continent as his plaything, and so he must be stopped. Now.
A final thought…
In the week Americans votes in the mid-terms it is sobering to reflect what it is the Ukrainians are fighting and dying for: their freedom from tyranny and the right to become a fully fledged democracy.
The true value of the freedoms that a functioning democracy brings can only truly be judged by those whose democracy, albeit a fledgling democracy, is under existential threat. And in Ukraine, as they are in Myanmar, and they are starting to do in Iran, people living under an oppressive, violent, racist right-wing government, know this is no life at all.
And they are willing to shed their blood, and give their lives to fight for freedom from oppression; for freedom from tyranny.
In the coming elections I fervently hope America doesn’t willingly invite tyranny into their houses and into their lives. Because make no mistake, this is what Trump wants to bring to the American people.
Thanks for reading!
- The Future is History: How totalitarianism reclaimed Russia; Masha Gessen, 2017.
- Russia’s Peacetime Demographic Crisis: Dimensions, Causes, Implications, Nicholas Eberstadt, 2010, Published by the National Bureau of Asian Research (pdf format).
- Putin’s People: How the KGB took back Russia and then took on the West; Catherine Belton, 2020.
