Putin’s War, Disease, Poverty and Poor Healthcare Keep Life Expectancy and Economy in Russia from Growing, Moscow Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 25 – The pandemic increased recognition among officials and in the population that disease, poverty, poor lifestyle choices, and an under investment in healthcare are having a negative impact of prospects for improving the health and life expectancies of Russia and the growth of the economy.

            All those factors remain very much at play, according to statistics offered by Russian experts that Anastasiya Bashkatova of Nezavisimaya gazeta cites; and they have been exacerbated by the impact of population losses and human dislocations caused by Putin’s war in Ukraine and his mobilization order (ng.ru/economics/2022-10-25/1_8574_infections.html).

            As a result, she sums up, there is little chance that Russia will see the increase in life expectancy by 2030 that Vladimir Putin has called for, escape from near the bottom of European countries in terms of the number of healthy years of life Russians have, or enjoy the economic progress the country would if its population were healthier.

            And while she and the experts do not address this issue in her article, the impact of Putin’s war in Ukraine is likely to be far more serious than just the immediate losses from that campaign. His “special military operation” there almost certainly means that there won’t be money available to improve health care and that war stress will push up alcohol and tobacco use.