Amidst Russia’s Apocalyptic Demographic Implosion, Putin’s Government Classifies the Data
As Russia’s population crisis deepens, the Kremlin’s new solution is simple: hide the numbers. This week, Rosstat—the official Russian statistical agency—released its latest demographic bulletin. Or rather, what used to be a demographic bulletin. In place of detailed data on births, deaths, marriages, and divorces by region, the March report offers only a single, vague summary table. The rest has been scrubbed.
For years, independent demographers, researchers, and journalists have relied on Rosstat’s regional breakdowns to track Russia’s accelerating demographic decline. But in March 2025, a new line was crossed. The state has not only failed to reverse the collapse—it is now actively concealing it.
The motive is obvious. According to demographic expert Alexey Raksha, the March figures—when reconstructed manually from the remaining aggregate totals—reveal a historic plunge. Births fell 5.6% year-on-year to just 3,012 per day, marking the lowest daily birth rate in modern Russian history. Meanwhile, deaths jumped 5.8% to 5,078 per day, even before accounting for the April spike. The resulting natural population loss hit 2,066 people per day, a 28.4% increase from last year.
By April, the picture grew darker still. Based on regional civil registry (ZAGS) data, Raksha reports that mortality surged by 15–40% in many oblasts, with a total of 168,000 deaths in just one month. But how this catastrophe plays out across regions—where the crisis is sharpest, which areas are losing the most—is now impossible to track. Rosstat has simply removed the map.
This is not the first time the Kremlin has chosen suppression over accountability. But the scale of the demographic collapse makes it harder to hide. Russia is losing more than 2,000 people a day—not to war, not to famine, but to a lethal combination of hopelessness, poverty, and state neglect. Young people are leaving or refusing to have children. Health care is crumbling. Alcohol and suicide rates remain among the highest in the developed world. And all the while, the government pours resources into a genocidal war in Ukraine.
For Moscow, the numbers are a threat. They expose the lie that Russia is strong, healthy, or prepared for the future. They reveal a country aging into irrelevance—dying, not slowly, but in real time.
By deleting the data, Rosstat confirms what many already knew: the state is more afraid of graphs than of death. Truth, after all, can’t be spun forever. But for now, the message is clear. Russia isn’t reversing its demographic collapse, merely hiding it—and hoping no one notices as the nation crumbles.
The Russian economy has already entered a full collapse mode, while Gazprom CEO warned of the looming energy crisis.