Kremlin Unable to Face Up to or Think Seriously about Russia's ‘Catastrophic Demographic Situation,’ Chernyshov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 26 – The Kremlin and its allies are showing themselves incapable of facing up to “the catastrophic demographic situation” in the Russian Federation and then taking real steps to do anything about it, according to Yevgeny Chernyshov, who covers population questions for Yekaterinburg’s Nakanune news agency.

            Three days ago, the Kremlin convened the first session of its Council for the Realization of the Government’s Demographic and Family Policy; but speaker after speaker showed in his or her remarks that Moscow doesn’t have a demographic policy or even recognize what the basic demographic problems are (nakanune.ru/articles/124055/).

            Instead of focusing on the lack of access to apartments that could accommodate children, the financial problems Russian families now must deal with, or the commitment of an increasing number of Russian couples to be childless or have only one child, Chernyshov says, the meeting talked about secondary questions like paying teenagers who become pregnant.

            And even those who touched upon the need to reverse course and not as now pay families ever less for each additional child, they vitiated that positive notion by talking how to promote three or more children without focusing on how to get Russian families to have even one or two, the Nakanune commentator says.

            Unless families have at least two, they can’t have three – and so talking about three or more as Putin and others do is meaningless because Russian families today don’t want to have more than one and so no one can get them to have a third when they aren’t willing to have at least two.