In addition to financial and material reserves, the war in Ukraine claims countless lives. Now the Kremlin has suspended the Russian census. Apparently to cover up personnel losses.
Kiev/Moscow – In the ongoing war in Ukraine, both Russia and Ukraine continue to record high losses of personnel and material. While Volodymyr Zelenskyj recently acknowledged the particularly difficult military situation in the embattled Donetsk, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized that he was still not ready for talks with international politicians. As has now become known, Putin recently signed a law that suspends part of the all-Russian population census for a total of five years.
Putin intervenes in Russian law and suspends the census until 2029
The federal law, in effect until January 1, 2029, repeals Article 3(4) of Russia’s Census Law, the reported Newsweek so. That article regulates the regularity of the federal government’s selective statistical surveys. Traditionally, the Russian census includes a sample of at least 5 percent of the total population.
According to consistent media reports, this measure is intended to protect Russian society from the demographic impact of the losses in Ukraine. The suspension was decided by the Federation Council on September 25th. It is currently unclear how Moscow plans to compensate for the lack of current population data over the next five years.
The suspended paragraph had mandated regular surveys as part of Russia’s ongoing efforts to track population trends. Now that the article in question has been refuted by Putin, the question also arises as to how the Russian population will react to Putin’s alleged disinformation strategy.
Is Putin suspending the census to cover up significant personnel losses in the Ukraine war?
It is reasonable to assume that with this intervention in Russian legislation, Putin wants to prevent his significant personnel losses in the Ukraine war from becoming transparent. According to a statement published on September 27 by independent Russian media Mediazona and BBC News Russia, about them now too Newsweek have now been reported 71,057 Russian soldiers confirmed killed. That would represent an increase of 1,998 since the last update in mid-September.
According to official information from the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Russian combat losses as of October 1, 2024 amount to 654,430 soldiers. Already at a press conference at the end of February (February 25, 2024), President Zelensky stated that a total of 180,000 Russian forces had been killed in Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine. The Ukrainian president already announced at the time that the number of injured and missing soldiers was up to 500,000. Since the beginning of the war, Ukraine has been reticent to provide information about its own losses. The information provided by both countries regarding their personnel losses cannot be independently verified.
Demographic problems in Russia – large gender gap in life expectancy
Even before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia was faced with significant demographic differences. Like the Latvian intelligence service Meduza pointed out, the 2020 Russian census already showed that at 46 percent to 54 percent there are significantly fewer men than women in the country. After hundreds of thousands of Russians were sent by the Kremlin to the fronts in Ukraine, this discrepancy may have increased accordingly.
Finally, in 2022, Russia became loud Meduza the country with the largest difference in life expectancy between men and women in the world: on average, men in Russia live almost 11 years shorter than women. In addition, as a result, there is a population gap of around 10 million people in Russia: 68.4 million male citizens compared to 78.8 million female citizens. And the ongoing war in Ukraine, with its numerous fronts, threatens to exacerbate the demographic divide in Russia.
Ukraine is struggling with a slump in the birth rate and a refugee movement here
However, Russia is not alone in facing huge demographic problems due to the war. The effects of the war on population development have also been clearly noticeable in Ukraine for months. This is what the French reported Le Monde already on the second anniversary of the start of the war (February 26, 2024) of a collapse in the Ukrainian birth rate.
In addition, millions have left Ukraine to seek protection from the war in their own country, primarily women and children. Like the Austrian newspaper The standard reported in July (July 10, 2024) based on data from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 5.9 million people had fled Ukraine to other countries by mid-2023 alone. Another 5.1 million had been displaced within the country by then.
And the further course of the war is unlikely to bode well: in the context of the current one European Demographic Datasheets Experts have derived population trends for various scenarios of the course of the war in Ukraine. According to the most pessimistic scenario, which assumes a war lasting more than five years, a return rate of only 50 percent and a sluggish economic recovery, Ukraine is even predicted to experience a population decline of up to 31 percent by 2052. Extrapolated, this could mean a population decline from 43.3 million inhabitants in 2022 to 29.9 million in 2052. (fh)
#losses #Ukraine #war #Russia #census #law