Kremlin Rating of Heads of Federal Subjects on Demographic Behavior of Their Populations Deeply Flawed, ‘To Be Exact’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 20 – Among the key performance indicators (KPI) that the Kremlin has used to evaluate the performance of governors are three demographic indicators; but these are deeply flaws because most of these don’t depend on the governors, change more slowly than each year, and are extremely problematic, according to the To Be Precise portal.

            Since 2007, the Kremlin has evaluated governors on a statistical basis, the so-called KPI; and since 2024, it has included three demographic measures in its list, including life expectancy, birthrate, and size of the population. But none of these depend as much on the regions as Moscow suggests.

            That is the conclusion that the To Be Precise portal offers on the basis of a careful analysis of these measures, none of which is as dependent on the regions as Moscow suggests by insisting on such reporting (tochno.st/materials/v-rossii-est-demograficeskie-kpi-dlia-gubernatorov-my-sostavili-reiting-regionov-na-ix-osnove-no-on-pocti-ne-zavisit-ot-raboty-regionalnyx-vlastei).

            Among the most obvious shortcomings of this data are the following, the portal says. The data on which such figures are compiled all comes from Moscow, is often incomplete and increasingly late in coming out, reducing the accuracy of any such measurement of the performance of governors.

            Moreover, governors have little control over any of these measures in the short-term despite Moscow’s suggestion that they do. People move from region to region for abortion tourism or to take new jobs, changing the demographics of the regions involved independently of what the governors do.

            And third – and this is the most serious problem with these KPI numbers – it is Moscow policies and underlying social trends that are driving demographic changes rather than any actions of the governors, something that anyone analyzing demographic behavior in the Russian Federation should keep in mind.

            Those who don’t and accept these measures are accurate and useful will otherwise be participating in yet another effort by Moscow to shift attention and responsibility away from itself onto those who do not control the situation, an outcome that is likely the most important reason the Kremlin introduced these measures and continues to use them.