Putin says the war isn’t driving Russia’s falling birth rate

Filed 20h ago · Via Meduza · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Merry Go Slower - Distressed

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: European Parliament · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum, Vladimir Putin said the war in Ukraine affects Russia's birth rate but isn't the main cause, comparing Russia to Japan and South Korea, which have lower birth rates without wars of their own. He called the decline a matter of national security and said reversing it will require new incentives and a shift in ‘public consciousness,’ pointing to a rebound Russia achieved in the mid-2000s as proof it can be done again.

The comments come as Russia's statistics agency, Rosstat, stopped publishing monthly regional birth and death data in 2025 and removed the demographic section from its regular economic reports entirely. That coincided with the birth rate hitting its lowest point in nearly 200 years of record-keeping, an average of 3,012 births per day in March 2025.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A leader who calls falling births a matter of national security just watched his own statistics agency quietly stop publishing the numbers that prove it. That's a strange way to fight a crisis you claim to take seriously, unless the real goal is just to stop people from checking the scoreboard. Comparing yourself favorably to Japan doesn't fix a birth rate, it just gives you something to say at a forum.

Source: Read the original at Meduza → Scored: Merry Go Slower - Distressed · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

Read it scored.

Every story, every clown, every kazoo — in your pocket. Music plays automatically. Regret is optional.

GET IT ON iOS GET IT ON ANDROID