Russia doesn't have the demographics for war (2023)

As Russia spent much of 2021 massing troops on its border with Ukraine, one key headline almost went unnoticed. When Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened Ukraine, Russia suffered its largest natural population decline since World War II, losing997,000 personasin the one-year period from October 2020 to September 2021.coronavirus victimsin Russia they were serious, and probably underreported, it was not a single anomaly. Rather, it was the opening shot of a long-term trend that will play out in earnest over the next decade. Russia is about to enter a prolonged and painful period of internal demographic decline, complicating its expansionist ambitions abroad.

The roots of this demographic decline lie in the 1990s and the chaos created by Russia's post-Soviet transition from a centrally planned economy to a market-based capitalist economy. The transition was characterized by economic turmoil, mass unemployment andalcoholism, all combined to briefly give Russia one of the biggestlower male life expectancy.. The most lasting impact, however, was the simultaneous collapse in birth rates. From 1993 to 2007, the fertility rate (defined as the number of children a woman can expect to have in her lifetime)fell below 1.5, well below the 2.1 replacement rate needed to keep the population stable.

The effects of this dramatic and prolonged collapse on birth rates are now becoming apparent. A brief look at Russia's population pyramid illustrates this domino effect. there are around12.5 million Russiansbetween the ages of 30 and 34 who were born around or shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union. But there are an estimated 6.5 million people between the ages of 20 and 24 who were born during the chaos of the late 1990s. This smaller base of people who can have children means that the birth rate is about to decline. . And that is exactly what happened; After a brief period of natural population growth in the mid-2010s, Russia's population has started to grow againcontract in 2019🇧🇷 Will continue to do so well for the foreseeable future.

As Russia spent much of 2021 massing troops on its border with Ukraine, one key headline almost went unnoticed. When Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened Ukraine, Russia suffered its largest natural population decline since World War II, losing997,000 personasin the one-year period from October 2020 to September 2021.coronavirus victimsin Russia they were serious, and probably underreported, it was not a single anomaly. Rather, it was the opening shot of a long-term trend that will play out in earnest over the next decade. Russia is about to enter a prolonged and painful period of internal demographic decline, complicating its expansionist ambitions abroad.

The roots of this demographic decline lie in the 1990s and the chaos created by Russia's post-Soviet transition from a centrally planned economy to a market-based capitalist economy. The transition was characterized by economic turmoil, mass unemployment andalcoholism, all combined to briefly give Russia one of the biggestlower male life expectancy.. The most lasting impact, however, was the simultaneous collapse in birth rates. From 1993 to 2007, the fertility rate (defined as the number of children a woman can expect to have in her lifetime)fell below 1.5, well below the 2.1 replacement rate needed to keep the population stable.

The effects of this dramatic and prolonged collapse on birth rates are now becoming apparent. A brief look at Russia's population pyramid illustrates this domino effect. there are around12.5 million Russiansbetween the ages of 30 and 34 who were born around or shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union. But there are an estimated 6.5 million people between the ages of 20 and 24 who were born during the chaos of the late 1990s. This smaller base of people who can have children means that the birth rate is about to decline. . And that is exactly what happened; After a brief period of natural population growth in the mid-2010s, Russia's population has started to grow againcontract in 2019🇧🇷 Will continue to do so well for the foreseeable future.

This bleak demographic forecast has become even more dire with the advent of COVID-19. The Kremlin's initial rejection of COVID-19 and efforts to spread vaccine misinformation in the Westseems to have failedin its own population, resulting in a vaccination rate that ranks asone of the lowestin the developed world. Low uptake of vaccination coupled with a laissez faire approach to COVID-19 andweak health system, have contributed to one of the highest COVID-19 death rates in the world. The Russian government has300,000 deaths, but a more reliable estimate of theEconomistput the figure in1 million, giving Russia the dubious distinction of having more COVID-10 deaths per capita than any other country except Bulgaria. Russia's recent population decline predates COVID-19, but the pandemic has done much to exacerbate it.

Immigration may make this demographic picture less bleak. Russia haslong time trustimmigration from former Soviet republics to compensate for the natural loss of population in the country, and in recent years hasintensified its effortsrooting for ethnic Russians everywhere from Ukraine toUruguay-immigrate. But even here, there is limited future potential. COVID-19 has kept many would-be migrantsgrounded at home🇧🇷 Russia's stagnant economy has caused others to look elsewhere for economic opportunities. And quite simply, many of the people most likely to migrate have already done so. Increased immigration (in itself unlikely) could mitigate Russia's demographic decline, but it cannot stop it.

This demographic reality is perhaps the biggest limiting factor on Putin's expansionist ambitions in Ukraine for two reasons. Any invasion of Ukraine would exact a heavy price in Russian lives, with Ukrainiansprepared and motivatedto resist the Russian occupation in a way that they did not when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Defense Minister of UkraineOleksii Reznikovhe made it explicit, saying that while Ukraine would certainly suffer in the event of war, it would not "cry alone" either. And most of the Russian casualties would besoldiers in their 20s- members of the same small generation born during the 1990s, which Russia can hardly sacrifice.

The second limiting factor relates to the West's response to any Russian moves in the Ukraine. Academics debate the usefulness of sanctions in changing behavior, but their economic impact is clear. Russia's economy iseven smallerthan in 2014, when Western sanctions in response to the occupation of Crimea helped reduce GDP bymore than a quarter🇧🇷 And the West still has a lot more economic pain to inflict, asFreezing Russia from SWIFT(the system through which international banks make transfers) tocanceling Nord Stream 2(the pipeline that transports natural gas from Russia to Germany). These sanctions would trigger capital outflows and economic turmoil to a degree not seen since the 1990s, depressing Russia's birthrate at a time when it needs it most.

Rather than simply being a limiting factor, it could be argued that Russia's demographic weak hand made it even more dangerous. After all, Russia's need for more people is certainly a motivating consideration for his current aggressive stance toward Ukraine, and Putin has said that the idea of ​​a depopulated RussiaIt follows youmost, even if the idea that Ukrainians enlisted to be good Russians is largely illusory. But Russia's demographics and the long shadow of the 1990s severely inhibit what the Kremlin can do now. Russia's future ambitions are still weighed down by its recent past.