Decline in Number and Share of Ethnic Russians Accelerating

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 28 – Despite Vladimir Putin’s upbeat talk about the Russian world and suggestions that his latest pro-natalist policies will change the situation fundamentally, the number of ethnic Russians in the world and in the Russian Federation itself is declining at an ever-accelerating rate, according to official government statistics.

            That means that the size of the ethnic Russian nation on the former Soviet space is falling, down from 147.2 million in 1990 to 130.1 million in 2017 and both the size and share of the ethnic Russian nation is falling within the Russian Federation, down 200,000 excess deaths over births in the last year alone (burckina-new.livejournal.com/1027624.html).

            As a result, Putin’s Russia will become ever more non-Russian even if there is no immigration, and if there isn’t, as some Russian nationalists would like, then the Russian Federation’s total population will continue to decline. Only if there is large-scale immigration will its total population rise (nazaccent.ru/content/26281-eksperty-naselenie-rossii-mozhet-vyrasti-do.html).

            But if there is large-scale immigration, that will tilt the balance against the ethnic Russians relative to Muslim nationalities both indigenous and from Central Asia and the Caucasus still further, something Russian nationalists will be anything but happy about (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/12/immigrant-workers-now-form-10-percent.html).