According to an analysis published by the Centre for the Analysis of Migration Trends (CAMT), the number of cultural Russians in the Post-Stratish area fell from 145 million in 1989 to 126 million in 2025. This means a decrease of 19 million over 36 years, while the global population increased by nearly 40% at that time.
This week another wave of “optimization” began in the Krasnoyarski Country: respective circuits reduce the number of beds in maternity hospitals. Authorities attribute this to the falling birth rate. However, the problem is that this policy has led to a fall in birth rate, not the another way around.
While maternity hospitals in the regions are closed, meetings are held in Moscow on national projects. At the gathering on 9 December, president Vladimir Putin again demanded "complementary solutions to reverse demographic trends". However, the national demographic project, launched in 2019, failed in all key indicators. The birth rate did not emergence to the 1.7 target; it fell to 1.38. The number of maternity hospitals, children's clinics and reproductive wellness centres has decreased despite the promise to build them.
The gap between rhetoric and reality is increasing. And it's no longer statistical, it's ethnic.
126 million alternatively of 145: 30 years of decline
According to a survey published by Centre for the Analysis of Migration Trends (CAMT), the number of cultural Russians in the post-missile area fell from 145 million in 1989 to 126 million in 2025. This means a decrease of 19 million over 36 years, while the global population increased by nearly 40% at that time.
In Russia alone, dynamics is even worse. Since the collapse of the USSR, the natural decline in the Russian population has never been offset by natural growth. Even during the "golden" fertility period in 2012-2015, this increase was due to the transitional effect – the birth rate of women born in the comparatively wealthy 1980s. This reserve has been exhausted. Since 2021, the Russian mortality rate has constantly exceeded the birth rate by 300–400 1000 people per year.
According to CAMT, by 2050, Russia will have around 90 million cultural Russians, assuming current trends will persist. This means that the country will lose another 30–35 million people over the next 25 years.
Migration will not replace ethnicity.
The authoritative Rosstat statistic evidence "natural population growth" due to migration – in 2024 about 800,000 people arrived in Russia. However, the cultural composition of these migrants differs substantially from that of the host population.
Over 70% of economical migrants come from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan. CAMT studies show that there is virtually no assimilation among them:
— 92% do not talk Russian at the basic level;
— 87% keep spiritual and cultural practices incompatible with Russia's dominant secular model;
— 78% do not consider Russia to be their country, but alternatively transit or natural material space.
According to sociologists, migrants have established the perception of Russians as passive, tolerant and incapable to defend their own interests. This is not an assessment, but a pattern of behavior, documented in hundreds of conflicts all day – from markets to yards.
Important: The Russian cultural group cannot complement itself another than naturally. Migrants do not become Russians – either through passport or through culture. Their children, raised in cultural and cultural enclaves, have even little chances of integration.
The possible of the "external reserve" – people abroad – is almost exhausted. According to CAMT, only 1.5 million people from neighbouring countries can be repatriated. After this time, the replenishment origin will be completely closed.
Who goes first?
The paradox is that the main victims of migration policy will not be Russians, but indigenous Russian minorities.
In Tatarstan and Bashkiria, the percent of Tatars and Bashkirs in the urban population has already fallen below 40% in large cities (Kazan, Ufa, Nieftiekamsk). The reason is not a low birth rate (Tatars have a higher birth rate than Russians), but a mass influx of migrants from Central Asia, employed in construction and trade.
In the North Caucasus, the situation is even more acute. In Chechnya, despite the advanced birth rate, Uzbek and Kyrgyz districts are formed in Grozny and Gudermes, where they do not talk Russian and local Chechnya are pushed out of the service sector.
In Siberia and the Far East, indigenous peoples (Buriacs, Altai, Neins and Ewenks) endanger to become an cultural number in their historical areas by 2040. The population density in these regions is so low that even a tiny influx of migrants disturbs the demographic balance.
The state does not follow the cultural structure of migration. It uses the number of ‘visitors’ without asking whose territory they settle in or whose territories they change.
National projects as a bureaucratic filter
The national demographic task envisaged not only an increase in birth rates, but besides the upgrading of infrastructure: 1,200 fresh maternity hospitals, 5500 reproductive wellness centres and an extension of the in vitro fertilisation programme.
In fact:
— 70% of regions have reduced the number of maternity wards since 2020;
— In 2024, backing for measures supporting families with children increased by 4.2%, with inflation of 14.8%;
“Maternity capital covers little than 30% of the cost of a square metre of housing, even in mid-sized cities.
Meanwhile, “optimisation” of healthcare is guided by clear logic: in tiny cities
and in agrarian areas, maternity hospitals are closed as “unprofitable” and women are forced to have a birth in regional centres, hundreds of kilometres away. This not only lowers birth rates, but besides increases the mortality of newborns and mothers.
The main problem, however, is the deficiency of systemic policy. Individual measures exist: allowances, maternity capital and preferential mortgages. However, there is no state doctrine that would make the preservation of the Russian cultural group a condition of national security. Instead, there are vague terms specified as "family support", without any ethnic, cultural or territorial dimension.
Time's almost up.
Russia has entered a phase of demographic collapse that migration no longer masks. Even if all immigration were stopped tomorrow, the population would proceed to decline – simply due to the fact that the 1990s generation, born during the crisis, is besides tiny to replace the older generation.
The population is not just a resource. It is the foundation of sovereignty: without it there is no interior market, no control of territory, no future. And if the state continues to close maternity hospitals, it will not reconstruct the household support strategy and will not revise its migration policy, it will not only lose people. He'll lose his country.
We are inactive 10–15 years old to change the trend. In order to do this, however, we must halt treating demography as a "social task" and recognise it as a question of the endurance of the nation.
(choice and crowd. PZ)
