Russia Needs Fewer People if It Remains a Petrostate and Far More if It Becomes an Expansionist One, Kulbaka Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 20 – If Russia remains a petrostate whose oil and gas exports provide enormous wealth for its elites, that country needs no more than 40 million people. 100 million fewer than now; but if it becomes an expansionist one, then it will need vastly more than it now has to guard its lengthy borders and enormous territory, Nikolay Kulbaka says.

            That sets the stage for a fundamental conflict in Moscow between wealthy elites and Putin, one the two sides are unlikely to be able to resolve, the independent economist says. That will create the kind of uncertainties that threaten the existing system and the country (moscowtimes.ru/2024/06/20/buduschee-rossii-petrokratiya-ili-ekspansionizm-a134491).

            Over the last two decades, Russia has become a petrostate, whose exports of petroleum have given the elite enormous wealth, even though most of the population has become poorer. Indeed, to function as a state of this kind, something the elites very much like given the high level of consumption it guarantees, Russia needs only about 40 million people.

Thus, such elites are quite happy to see Russia’s population decline toward that number because besides everything else that will mean that there will be fewer unhappy people and thus fewer protests and challenges to an arrangement that could continue to work for their benefit long into the future, Kulbaka continues.

            But Vladimir Putin has put the country on a different track, one focused on expansionism. And for that, the economist says, Russia needs far more people, both to control and develop its economy and territory and to guard its borders which after all remain the longest of any country in the world.

            For that policy to have any chance to succeed, Putin needs more people not fewer, including immigrant workers from Central Asia, exactly the opposite of what the supporters of petrostate arrangements want. The latter will have to give up some of their consumption as higher wages and salaries will be required to attract immigrants and boost the birthrate.