ABSTRACT
Russia is undergoing a demographic crisis that is unprecedented in peacetime: the population of Russia declined at comparable rates only when experiencing world wars, repression or the famine of the 1930s. 1 The dynamics of Russian demography, their causes and the consequences of changing settlement and migration patterns will have both domestic policy-making and international security implications for the Federation well into the future. Indeed, in the Russian State Duma elections of December 1999 the newly created Unity Party, which supported the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, stated: ‘Unity’s main goal is to extricate Russia “from the fatal logic of the development of events” ’. The Unity Party elaborated a proposed blueprint for resolving the ‘problem of the year 2003’, when a peak in foreign debt payments will be accompanied by the ‘obsolescence of fixed productive capital and demographic decline’. 2 Once elected president in 2000, Putin again raised this issue in his first address to Federal Assembly:
Before talking about priorities and setting tasks, let me list for you the most acute problems facing our country. Population decline threatens the survival of the nation. We have come to regard Russia as a system of bodies of authority or as an economic mechanism. But Russia is first and foremost people. People who look on it as their home. Their welfare and a worthy life for them are the main tasks facing the powers that be – whoever these may be. But the fact is that our home today is far from being a comfortable one. For very many people it is still difficult to bring up children, to ensure a fitting old age for their parents – life is difficult. As each year goes by there are fewer and fewer of us citizens of Russia. For several years past the population of the country has been diminishing on average by 750,000 a year. And if we are to believe the forecasts – which are based on realistic work by people who are experts in such matters, who have devoted their entire lives to this – then in fifteen years from now there may be 22 million fewer Russians. I ask you to ponder this figure – one seventh of the country’s population. If the present tendency continues there will be a threat to the survival of the nation. We are under a real threat of becoming a drifting nation. Our demographic situation today is an alarming one. 3
