Between a vaccination that peaks at 40% of the population and practically absent health measures, Russia has decided without admitting it to let the Coronavirus circulate freely. The result is a demographic catastrophe: the country lost more than a million inhabitants in 2021.
With our correspondent in Moscow, John Cassey
1.4 million: this is the exact figure of demographic decline recorded in 2021 in Russia according to figures from the official Rosstat agency. This is the highest figure in all of contemporary Russian history.
Why this collapse? First of all, it’s obviously the fault at Covid-19. It is difficult to know exactly how many victims are linked to the pandemic in Russia, the Rosstat agency counts 517,800. Other specialists speak of more than a million. In any case, it is a real slaughter, while vaccination is slipping and attempts to set up health passes have remained in their infancy.
The consequences of a previous demographic crisis
But this drop in population also has another cause: the repercussion of a previous demographic crisis, that of the years 1990-2000. Thirty years later, the children of those who were not born in the 1990s are missing. The result is this impressive figure which reminds Russians of old traumas.
Indeed, demography is a sensitive subject. Since the 2000s, the country had obtained positive results, with in particular a very strong pronatalist policy. But the pandemic and its mismanagement have negated all these efforts in just two years.