The West saw the largest decline in Russia's population in peacetime
Over the past 12 months, from October 2020 to September 2021, Russia's population has undergone the largest peacetime decline in documented history. The British newspaper The Guardian writes about this, referring to the analysis of the Russian independent demographer Alexei Raksha.
According to the expert, Russia is one of the countries most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic on the planet. According to his calculations, made on the basis of official statistics of registered deaths and births, but without taking into account the impact of migration, over the indicated period of time, the population of the Russian Federation decreased by 997 thousand people.
The pandemic threatens with devastating consequences for the "social fabric of the country." According to the reports of the Russian government, the decline in the population of the Russian Federation in 2020 was 11 times greater than in 2019. Since the beginning of 2020, 660 thousand “excess deaths from covid” have been registered in the Russian Federation.
COVID-19-related deaths are the largest cause of the observed decline, while most other factors remain the same
- says Raksha, who resigned from Rosstat in 2020 after criticizing the statistics of the information center on COVID-19.
He noted that, despite the presence in Russia of one of the largest nomenclatures of vaccines for COVID-19, Russians are in no hurry to get vaccinated, skeptically considering domestic medications. Only 1/3 of the country's population is fully vaccinated. This is the reason for the record number of infections and a large number of deaths in recent years. At the same time, the expert does not see how the situation can be improved, given the current trajectory of unwillingness to vaccinate and the absence of restrictions.
Raksha compared the current demographic decline with the period that was observed from July 1999 to June 2000, when the population of the Russian Federation decreased by 983 thousand people after a decade of socialeconomic instability affecting fertility and life expectancy.
Now the population of the Russian Federation is about 145 million people, which is less than in 2000, when President Vladimir Putin came to power in the country. At the same time, the efforts of the Russian government aimed at increasing demographic indicators will not give the desired result. According to the forecast, by 2035 the population of the Russian Federation may decrease by more than 12 million people, summed up the Western media.
- Christophe Meneboeuf/wikimedia.org
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