Putin's war escalation in Ukraine is hastening demographic crash for Russia

Plans by Putin's government had set the goal of starting to reverse the decline in the population in 2022 before growth should resume in 2030

President Vladimir Putin spent years racing against Russia’s demographic clock, only to order an invasion of Ukraine that’s consigning his country’s population to a historic decline. 
 

Besides casualties in the thousands on the battlefield, the enlistment of 300,000 reservists to join the fight -- and an even bigger flight of men abroad -- is derailing Putin’s goals of starting to stabilize the population already this year.

Crippling disruptions from the war are converging with a population crisis rooted in the 1990s, a period of economic hardship after the Soviet breakup that sent fertility rates plunging. Independent demographer Alexei Raksha is