Chronic. How many middle and upper class Russians have fled their country since the invasion of Ukraine? Because they are revolted by the war started by Vladimir Putin, fear for their safety or want to ensure a better future for their children, at least 200,000 have already packed up since the end of February, according to economist Konstantin Sonin, of the University of Chicago. In April, 70,000 to 100,000 people in the new technology sector are still expected to leave Russia, according to the sector’s trade association.
Many left for Israel, which makes it easier for Ukrainians and Russians to settle on its soil – especially when they are specialists in high-tech. Others went to Armenia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and, to a lesser extent, Finland and Estonia.
This brain drain, preceded by a resurgence in deaths linked to the pandemic – more than 700,000 people have died of Covid-19 since the beginning of 2020, according to Reuters –, has further accentuated the demographic anxiety of the regime. Because population decline has been one of Vladimir Putin’s obsessions since he came to power. He sees it as an economic problem as much as a geopolitical one. During his speeches, he regularly calls on the Russians to have more children. The government has introduced a series of incentives to boost the birth rate, such as bonuses for couples with more than one baby.
But these measures never really worked. While the standard of living has stagnated, even fallen, since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the first salvo of Western sanctions against Moscow, the Russians are struggling to project themselves into the future. The number of children per woman, 1.5 on average, is below the threshold of 2.1 essential to renew the population, excluding immigration. It fell sharply in the early 1990s, when a severe economic crisis ruined the meager savings accumulated by households during the Soviet era.
A bullet in the foot?
In 1989, the USSR had a population of 286.7 million, more than the United States (246.8 million). After the explosion of the communist bloc, without the former Soviet republics, the population of the Russian Federation fell to 148.5 million. In 2020, it was 144.1 million, compared to 329.4 million in the United States. And, according to the latest United Nations projections, made before the pandemic and the war, it could fall to 139 million inhabitants in 2040.
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