After a favourable period in the mid-2010s, Russia's population is once again declining rapidly. The reduction is influenced by natural demographic trends typical of modern societies, but in Russia’s case, these trends have a pronounced wave-like pattern. By the late 2010s, Russia entered another unfavourable wave, resulting in a natural population decline of about 4.15 million people from 2017 to 2024. Over the next decade, the annual natural population decrease will range between 650,000 and 700,000 people.
Policies promoting birth rates and migration inflows are the two factors that could mitigate this scenario. According to experts, the maternity capital programme in the 2010s contributed to about 2.5 million additional births. However, since the early 2020s, its effect has been exhausted. The war and the accompanying heavy social atmosphere, as surveys show, have also had a significant negative impact on birth rates.
At the same time, the pace of migration growth has steadily declined – from 475,000 people annually in the late 1990s to 300,000 in the 2000s, 260,000 in the 2010s, and 180,000 in the last five years. The war and the unprecedented crackdown on labour migrants are leading to a further rapid decline in migration inflows.
However, the Kremlin's reliance on the ‘occupation demographic dividend’ appears entirely irrational. During the 11 years of conflict with Ukraine, Russia has ‘annexed’ some 6 million Ukrainian citizens. Meanwhile, migration and military losses have already subtracted at least one million Russian citizens from the balance. The continuing drop in birth rates and the sharp decline in migration inflows will result in a complete nullification of this demographic dividend. Had migration inflows remained at the level of the 1990s, Russia would have gained a comparable number of additional residents (around 5.5 million) without wars, annexations, and all the associated negative effects.
Political scientist Ivan Krustev has wittily suggested that the war Putin launched in Ukraine is not a war for territory, but for people. Krastev believes that the issue of Russia's shrinking population became a central focus and obsession for Putin sometime during his COVID-induced isolation. He recalls an episode from a meeting with schoolchildren in Vladivostok in 2021, where Putin described the population as ‘the aggregate power of the state, which is constantly increasing exponentially, creating a more and more powerful foundation for development’, and lamented that, if not for the revolution, the two world wars, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country's population today could have been half a billion people. Krustev's assumption about Putin's special fixation on demography is indirectly confirmed by both the Kremlin's efforts to forcibly Russify the population of the occupied territories (→ Re: Russia: Humanitarian Genocide), as well as the obscurantist struggle by Putin’s administration against abortion.
Russia's demographic prospects are indeed quite bleak. According to UN forecasts, Russia’s population will range between 74 and 112 million people by the year 2100, compared to the current 146 million. In general, the trend of declining birth rates and ageing populations is universal: the same UN scenario predicts a 20% global population decrease by 2100. However, the forecast for Russia predicts a population reduction of 25–50%, and the ageing of its population will further complicate the situation. According to the ‘low’ variant of the Rosstat forecast, the country's population will shrink by an average of 700,000 people annually over the next 20 years, reaching 142 million by 2030, 135 million by 2040, and 130 million by 2046. This projection assumes a natural population decline of 850,000 per year, which will be partially offset by a migration inflow of 150,000 annually. In a more optimistic scenario, the natural decline will be around 550,000 per year, with migration inflows at 220,000 annually.
The primary factor driving population decline is high natural loss amid low birth rates. The absolute numbers of both mortality and births in Russia are largely influenced by the wave-like distortion of the age structure, a consequence of World War II: after the war, smaller birth cohorts are followed by larger ones, and vice versa. As a result, in the 2000s, high mortality and low birth rates combined to produce a significant population decline. The natural population decrease between 2000 and 2009 was 7.1 million people. The following period, from 2010 to 2017, was characterised by low mortality and high birth rates, with a nearly zero balance of natural loss/growth (50,000 more people died than were born).
Then the number of deaths began to rise again (the mortality peaks in 2020–2021 are linked to COVID). At the same time, a rapid decline in birth rates started, which has continued for nine consecutive years. In the first half of 2024, 16,000 fewer children were born, according to official data released by uma Deputy Speaker Anna Kuznetsova. Compared to the same period last year, this is a 2.7% drop, as noted by Demoscope Weekly. In 2023, the decline compared to 2022 was 3%. Overall, while the average annual birth rate in the 2010s was 1.79 million children, in the last five years it has dropped to 1.35 million.
As a result, while Russia experienced minimal, but natural population growth from 2012 to 2016 (around 30,000 people per year), over the past seven years (2017–2023), the natural population decline averaged 500,000 people per year.
According to recent data from Demoscope, in the first half of 2024, the number of deaths increased by 3.7% compared to the same period in 2023, exceeding 921,000 people. Since the beginning of the year, the natural population decline amounted to 312,500 people, which is 49,000 more than in 2023. Thus, over the period from 2020 to 2023, which included the COVID pandemic and the early stages of the full-scale war against Ukraine, the population loss totaled 1.8 million people, according to Demoscope data. In the first half of 2024, Russia’s population further decreased by 257,000, dropping to 145.9 million. Compared to the same period the previous year, the population decline accelerated 1.8 times. Altogether, since 2017, and considering the negative trends of 2024, the natural population decline by the end of this year will amount to approximately 4.15 million people.
However, the rise in birth rates in the 2010s was not only due to a demographic wave. For many years, the Russian government tried to encourage childbirth through material incentives – primarily via the Maternity Capital programme. In 2024, the amount of maternity capital is 630,380.78 rubles for a first child (born from 2020 onwards) and 202,643.96 rubles for subsequent children. Until 2020, maternity capital was only paid for second and subsequent children, and thanks to this, according to demographer Alexei Raksha, the total fertility rate increased from 1.3 children per woman in 2006 (the programme was launched in 2007) to 1.5 in 2019, largely due to second and subsequent children. As a result of the programme, 2-2.5 million more children were born than expected. In 2020, maternity capital was extended to firstborns, but this measure did not work: the birth rate of second children, which had previously been stimulated by maternity capital, significantly decreased. At the same time, the likelihood of having both firstborns (from 80.3% in 2019 to 74.7% in 2023) and second children (from 60.1% in 2020 to 57.8% in 2023) also declined.
By the early 2020s, the political culture of Russian statehood underwent significant changes. In the fight against declining birth rates, the authorities shifted from incentives to coercion and obscurantist measures. They began to impose greater barriers to abortion, banned sex education, promoted 'traditional values' centred around the ideal of large families, and launched a crusade against the childfree movement.
At the same time, however, the Russian authorities, having launched the war, were creating conditions that further decreased birth rates. According to a study by the Higher School of Economics titled ‘Reproductive Intentions of Russians in 2022-2023: the role of subjective factors’, by mid-2023, 60% of respondents had not changed their pre-war plans regarding childbirth. Nine percent decided to have a child earlier than planned, while 10% gave up on having children altogether, and 21% chose to postpone having a child. Thus, one-third of those who initially planned to have children this year or soon after decided to cancel or delay. Among those who changed their plans, the most frequently cited factor was the 'external environment' – the challenging economic and political situation in the country and the world (mentioned by 45%, nearly half of the respondents). Financial reasons were cited by about 30%, and another 30% specifically noted the ongoing war as a negative factor discouraging childbirth. 'Those who are refusing or postponing childbirth are people who have recently experienced more negative emotions – anxiety and fear – who disagree with the country’s direction and view maternity capital as an insignificant form of support' (i.e., more affluent individuals), the HSE experts note.
The study demonstrates a high degree of political awareness among the population and its sensitivity to external circumstances. The war not only led to the emigration of over half a million people, most of whom are of reproductive age, but also created a sense of uncertainty and a negative emotional atmosphere for those who had planned to have children within the country. Birth rates fell from 1.44 million per year in 2019-2021 to an average of 1.26 million in 2022-2024. Over the past three years (including 2024), 530,000 fewer children will have been born. It is impossible to definitively separate the impact of demographic factors from social ones, but the HSE study shows that social factors play a significant role.
Natural population decline is a result of demographic transition, a process typical of societies at a certain stage of modernisation and prosperity. Measures to increase birth rates can only have a limited effect. The main mechanism to compensate for natural population decline is through immigration. For example, the population of the United States grew from 248 million people in 1990 to 340 million in 2024 (a 40% increase). In the 1990s, it increased annually by 3.4 million people (+1.2% of the total population), in the 2000s by 3 million (+0.9%), in the 2010s by 2.5 million, and in recent years by 1.4 million. Germany, during the same period, managed to offset its natural population decline through migrant inflows: since 1990, its population has grown by 4 million people.
In Russia, during the 2000s, the net migration increase amounted to about 300,000 people per year. Starting in 2007, as the demographic wave began to decline, migration inflows nearly compensated for the natural population decrease. From 2011 to 2017, when the natural population decline was nearly zero, migration contributed to population growth. However, during this period, the migration inflow decreased to 260,000 people per year. As a result, between 2009 and 2017, the net population growth was 1.84 million people. In the next seven years, amid a rapid deterioration in the natural mortality-birth balance, migration inflows continued to decline (averaging 190,000 people per year). This means that as the scale of natural population decline increased by about 1.4 times, the rate of migration growth also decreased by 1.4 times. Overall, in the last ten years (2015-2024), the natural population decline will amount to approximately 4.12 million people, while the migration increase will be about 2.05 million.
However, the Russian authorities found a new way to compensate for the population decline. In 2014, Crimea and Sevastopol, with a population of 2.342 million people (according to Ukrainian statistics as of 1 January 2014). In 2022–2024, parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine were also occupied. The exact population in these occupied territories is unknown. As of January 1, 2014, these Ukrainian regions had a population of 9.411 million people. In autumn 2023, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs predicted that by the end of the year 3.2 million of their residents would be issued Russian passports. And, in February 2024, the Central Election Commission reported finding 4.56 million voters in the occupied territories, although this number is likely falsified (as the CEC had an interest in inflating the number of voters). If we assume that around 3.5 million people or slightly more currently reside in these territories, then Russia’s total 'occupational gains' in population since 2014 amount to approximately 6 million people.
In reality, the nominal population growth over 11 years of conflict with Ukraine is somewhat smaller – around 5 million people, as Russia lost about 1 million through casualties and emigration in the last three years. This unnatural increase compensates for the natural population decline during 2017-2024 and 2008-2011 (4.15 million and 980,000, respectively). On the other hand, Russia's migration growth over 25 years (since 2000) amounted to 6.5 million people, slightly more than the ‘gains’ from occupation. If the migration growth rate had remained at the levels of the 2000s, Russia would have gained an additional million residents. If migration rates had stayed at the late 1990s level (475,000 people per year), migration growth over 25 years would have amounted to 11.9 million people, giving Russia an additional 5.35 million residents, overshadowing the effect of ‘occupational demography’.
The paradox is that, as a result of the war, Russia acquired territories devastated by military actions and a ‘low-quality’ population – small in number, relatively old, and lacking the most mobile segments with high human capital who had left those territories. At the same time, the policy of 'militaristic Putinism' has brought Russia both a decrease in birth rates and a sharp reduction in migration inflows. Over the past year, Russian authorities launched an unprecedented campaign of pressure on migrants (→ Re: Russia: Authoritarian Dysfunction), leading to a steep drop in migration growth. In the first half of 2024, migration growth, according to Demoscope, amounted to 64,000 people, half of what it was during the same period the previous year, and three times lower than the average numbers in the 2000s. As a result, the net losses caused by 'militaristic Putinism' will nearly neutralise the demographic effect of occupation over the next 10 years.
In this context, the idea of 'returning historical territories' and the concept of an 'occupational demographic dividend' appear entirely irrational. One of Russia's main problems is an excess of land with a shortage of population. Russia is a country with one of the lowest population densities in the world (8.5 people per square kilometre), ranking 183rd out of 194. This excess of land is a natural economic advantage that could be turned into economic capital through the organisation of a sophisticated and large-scale program to attract migrants. A migration inflow of 500,000 people per year (0.3% of the population) could, in the long term, balance out the demographic decline. An inflow of 750,000 people per year (0.5% of the population) would increase the population by about 2.5 million over 10 years. An inflow of 1 million people per year (0.75% of Russia’s population) would increase the population by 5 million over 10 years.
Thus, if Krastev’s hypothesis is correct and one of the goals of the invasion was to gain an occupational demographic dividend, the essence of the strategy needs some clarification. It appears the Kremlin believed that occupation would increase the Slavic population in Russia, which, over time, under the influence of propaganda and repression, would be transformed into a ‘Russian’ population. However, by the time this russification program yields results, the quantitative effect of the dividend will have been nearly exhausted due to accompanying factors.