Russia is sinking ever deeper into a demographic crisis that the authorities are trying to present as a natural consequence of the 1990s. That explanation is convenient for the Kremlin because it shifts responsibility into the past. Today’s fall in the birth rate, however, has a clear political background: the war against Ukraine, mobilisation, mass emigration, economic insecurity and the loss of faith in the future.
For years, Vladimir Putin presented demography as one of the state’s main priorities. The state poured vast sums into the maternity capital programme, the authorities constantly spoke about family, children and “traditional values”, and the birth rate was supposed to prove Russia’s revival. The result is devastating. Growth in the birth rate stopped around 2015, and after 2022 the decline accelerated sharply. Russia has returned to the level of the early 2000s, a period that the authorities themselves previously described as a historic low.
Money is not enough when people do not see a normal life ahead of them. Families do not decide whether to have children only on the basis of a state payment. They look at whether a child will grow up in a country with peace, security, jobs, open borders and a predictable life. In today’s Russia, they increasingly see war, repression, mobilisation, isolation and a state that demands obedience, silence and readiness for sacrifice from its citizens.
That is why the departure of young people has become one of the heaviest demographic blows. A slower wave of emigration began in 2014, and after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 the process accelerated sharply. Those leaving were precisely people of the age at which they most often start families: young professionals, students, IT workers, entrepreneurs and the educated urban class. Among them were many men who left because they feared mobilisation.
At the same time, the war is directly emptying the most important age group: men between 20 and 40. Some die at the front, others return wounded, others flee the country, and others remain in constant fear of being called up. These are people who were supposed to work, start families, pay taxes, raise children and support the economy. Instead, the state is using them up as a military resource.
The fact that the Russian authorities have stopped publicly releasing key demographic data is especially revealing. When a state hides statistics on births and deaths, it means it is afraid of its own figures. Demography is one of the most honest mirrors of society. In Russia today, that mirror shows fear, exhaustion and flight.
Putin’s war will not leave its consequences only in Ukraine. It is also destroying Russia itself: its families, its labour market, its regions and its future. Empty maternity wards, lost young men and the departure of whole generations will become one of the deepest costs of this policy.
