Russia’s Demographic Crisis: The Threat to ‘Sovereign Democracy’

Graeme P. Herd is a resident faculty member at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP). Grace Allen is a history and international studies major at the University of Miami in Oxford, Ohio, and was an intern at the GCSP from January to May 2009.

 

 

Russia faces a dramatic population crisis, whose severity and potential political consequences have been starkly characterised by the demographers Neil Howe and Richard Jackson:

 

Russia … is likely to experience the fastest extended population decline since the plague-ridden Middle Ages. Amid a widening health crisis, the Russian fertility rate has plunged and life expectancy has collapsed … If the problem isn’t solved, Russia will weaken progressively—raising the nightmarish specter of a failed state with nukes. Or this cornered bear may lash out in revanchist fury rather than meekly accept its demographic fate.¹

 

Russia’s political elites in the post-Soviet period have consistently recognised this demographic crisis as a key strategic threat to the very existence of the state and its guiding ideology. Under the presidency of Vladimir Putin (2000–8), and now that of his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, the Kremlin has redefined and characterised the form and content of Russian political, economic and social governance as that of a “sovereign democracy”. The adjective “sovereign” denotes a top-down, inward-looking “Russian” vision of democracy. Proponents of “sovereign democracy” insist that Russian domestic affairs are for Russians themselves to manage, not foreigners. The ideology reflects the belief that external powers seek to subvert Russia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty for their own interests and ends. A “sovereign democracy” avoids both isolation and loss of identity and upholds the Russian national interest in foreign policy.

 

Performance legitimacy within the framework of this governing “sovereign democracy” ideology has become the means by which Russia’s current political system will be judged. And the ability of the regime to manage the challenge of demographic decline, especially in the face of the deepening worldwide financial crisis, will become a fundamental indicator of its capacity to perform, legitimising or invalidating domestically and abroad the elite’s continuity in power.

 

The connection between demographic decline and state power and security has become one of the leitmotifs of contemporary Russian elite rhetoric. It is clear that political and religious elites in Russia have identified demographic decline as a security threat that is strategic in nature—that is to say, long-term and comprehensive in its geographical, functional and security-sector impact. What has not been articulated by elites in Russia, or hitherto by analysts, are the myriad of challenges demographic decline poses to the new national ideology, “sovereign democracy”. However, before exploring the causes and consequences of demographic decline, we should familiarise ourselves with the key demographic concepts that inform our understanding of the relationship between demography and security and shape scholarly and policy thinking on this topic.

The Scale of the Crisis 

In 1995–6, the average life expectancy of the Russian male fell to below fifty-eight years and the demographic issue began to receive widespread coverage in the Russian press and international academic journals, finally registering a Russian public reaction.² The Russian October 2002 census results confirmed trends already expected by many demographers. While birth rates have been consistently falling for more than two decades, a number of longer-term factors, not least poor health conditions, have caused an increase in the death rate. Between 1989 and 1994, life expectancy for Russian men fell by more than six years. The gender gap in mortality is startling: by 2006, Russian women were living to seventy-two years on average, men to only fifty-nine years. Male mortality is particularly striking: “For Russian men in every age grouping within the 20–64 spectrum, age-specific death rates in 2001 were at least 40 percent higher than they had been three decades before.”³ If these tendencies are not reversed or offset by mass immigration, by 2050 the Russian population will have fallen by 50 million, taking it below 100 million. (The CIA World Factbook puts the current population at 140 million.)

 

Migration to Russia of ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking populations from outside the Russian Federation fails to compensate for the natural decrease in the population, though experts admit that exact figures are lacking. Internal migration in Russia is commonly referred to by specialists as one of zapadnii dreif, that is, “western drift”. This metaphor of population shift and redistribution captures an important new phenomenon, namely, the reversal of the twentieth-century tendency of shift from West to East: the twenty-first-century shift is from East to West. This shift further increases those areas that are underdeveloped and underpopulated, a tendency boosted in 1992 after the break-up of the Soviet Union when Russia inherited “three-fourths of its territory and only half of its population”.⁴ The drift is reflected also in the depopulation of Russia’s “Far North”, which has aroused concern.

 

In addition, the internal migration flow from rural to urban settings, differential birth and death rates between distinct religious and ethnic communities (not least between Slavic regions and “ethnic homelands”), the aging nature of the population, its changing sex balance, and the devastation caused by HIV/AIDS, are all well understood by demographers and political geographers. As Russia is an extremely large and diverse country, we can expect that there will be a regional aspect to almost every socio-economic, political and military issue. As Putin noted in 2006, such trends suggest that a “further reduction in the size of the population in Siberia and the Far East may lead in the first stage to a narrowing of the national economic space, in the second phase to an intensification of creeping ethnic expansion [by non-Russians], and in the third [phase] to a serious potential threat to the integrity of the state”.⁵

 

Mortality and fertility rates in Russia can also vary according to ethnicity and religion. This ethno-religious dimension is most striking in the differing fertility rates between ethnic Slav Orthodox and Islamic (ethnic Slav or otherwise) populations on Russian territory. It is notable that those areas “with the highest concentrations of Islamic religious communities have crude birth rates (rates of birth per 1,000 population) about a fourth higher than those for other areas of Russia”.⁶ Moreover, the mortality rates in the areas of highest Islamic community concentrations in Russia are lower than elsewhere in the federation. The religious composition of Russia’s population was studied in 1937, but since then no census has covered this question. As a result, one of the few sources of information on the country’s religious make-up remains sociological surveys, and here, for example, the researcher Larisa Andreeva notes that the estimated number of Orthodox Christians in Russia varies from 63 per cent to 76 per cent of the population (in 2004–5). The particularity of the phenomenon in Russia is that the notion of being Orthodox does not necessarily entail being a believer (only 59 per cent out of 76 per cent professed belief in God); it is rather a form of ethnic identification.⁷

 

It is certain that by 2015 demographic decline will take the Russian population into the mid-130 millions, based on the known current population size of child-bearing age and the fertility rate calculated against the current death rate. However, as shall be argued below, the longer-term forecasts are too distant in time to make an accurate prediction. These forecasts are based on a number of factors, not least the assumption that the current dynamics of decline will be sustained. This is certainly open to question. The long-range forecasts fail to take into account the possibility of contingency or the impact of any future state policy or initiative that encourages a stabilisation or even growth of the population.

 

Such governmental initiatives and remedies as there have been have had a limited impact on the implosion of the Russian population. Short of an economic catastrophe in Belarus or civil wars in Ukraine or Kazakhstan and consequent mass immigration to Russia, the demographic decline is likely to worsen, by some estimates, through to 2050 and 2075—especially if the current financial crisis continues to deepen. Should the decline continue unabated, it would raise a raft of serious security issues. For instance, will there be enough young men to fill the ranks of the Russian military?

 

Demographic decline and the security challenges it poses have prompted responses from the centre in terms of policy initiatives designed to manage the current decline and control the redistribution of the population within the Russian Federation. These initiatives include the elaboration of a migration policy, of a demographic concept and policy, and a reformulation of citizenship policy. The threats to Russia’s security posed by the demographic crisis are so extensive and profound that a more vigorous governmental intervention to combat population decline is already in evidence. Measures have been taken to promote natural population growth (by increasing fertility and curtailing mortality) and to stimulate immigration to Russia. Financial incentives and subsidies to encourage women to have children, as well as measures to cut the death rate, were addressed in legislation passed in 2005–6. The same legislation evinced the development of a more coherent “managed migration” strategy intended to boost migration to Russia by increasing the country’s attractiveness as a destination and identifying clear and easy-to-follow procedures of entry, registration, and employment.

 

However, Russia’s negative demographic trend continues. A switch away from the promotion of immigration to the promotion of fertility in order to improve the labour supply is judged to have been ineffective.⁸ The programme to pay women who give birth to two children 250,000 roubles (approximately $7,500) may increase the birth-rate in the short term, but is likely to lose its appeal. The recent birth-rate increase can be attributed to the demographic structure of the generation of women born in the early 1980s and is unsustainable. As the demographer Victor Medkov argues, “despite the increase in absolute numbers that one can observe during the last two years [since 2006], the general tendency of the decrease in birth-rates shows no sign of radical change. On the contrary, we have every reason to think that very soon the increase in birth-rates will stop and be replaced by a decrease.”⁹ According to Medkov, birth-rates will begin to decrease again not later than 2012–13.

 

The mortality rate is increasing, too. As the political scientist Emil Pain has noted, Russia’s mortality rate “is the highest in Europe and [its] life expectancy is the lowest. The mortality rate has grown even in comparison with ‘the horrific 1990s’ ”.¹⁰ Another expert argues that

 

Currently, the reserve of demographic endurance is about to be exhausted: its influence will not continue further than until 2009–12, after which, and if there is a lack of effective demographic policy, it will decrease … Starting in 2010, the annual size of natural decrease may exceed one million people, and around 2025 this figure has every chance of doubling.¹¹

 

Given that Russia’s demographic crisis has multiple interrelated causes, it is hardly surprising that no single silver bullet or policy panacea exists for it: “All of the problems are multifaceted; all of the potential solutions involve tradeoffs and difficult choices.”¹² 

War with Georgia 

Recent events add new dynamics to the demographic crisis. On the night of 7–8 August 2008, Georgia attacked Tskhinvali, the capital city of South Ossetia, with heavy artillery, rocket launchers, and ground troops in an attempt to take control of the breakaway republic, which contained bases of peacekeepers both from Russia and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Russia, claiming to be acting under the mandate of peace enforcement, drove Georgia from South Ossetia and from another breakaway Georgian republic, Abkhazia. Russian forces pushed deep into Georgian territory, creating the potential for regime change, as they appeared to be moving on Tbilisi with the aim of overthrowing Georgia’s democratically elected government.

 

Russia said ten of its peacekeepers had died in the initial Georgian assault, and it accused Tbilisi of perpetrating “genocide”, claiming that over two thousand South Ossetians had been killed by Georgian troops, necessitating what Moscow called a humanitarian and peace-enforcement operation. The Russian advance included ground troops, tanks and armoured personnel carriers, and air and sea operations. Russian forces also crossed into Abkhazia in defence of their compatriots—70 per cent of the Abkhaz population of 220,000 are Russian passport holders, and 90 per cent of the South Ossetian population of 70,000 are also Russian citizens.

 

Russia viewed its intervention as a military, political, and strategic victory. President Medvedev referred to 8 August 2008 as “Russia’s 9/11”: “The United States and the whole of humanity drew many lessons from September 11, 2001. I would like to see August 8, 2008 result in many useful lessons as well.”¹³

 

However, the Georgia crisis created additional points of tension between Russia and the West rather than resulting in a shared perspective. These tensions centred on whether Russia’s use of force had been proportional, Russia’s compliance (or lack thereof) with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1808 (which recognises Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty), and Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. In addition, after President Medvedev and President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia signed a ceasefire (brokered by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France), growing differences in its interpretation arose between Moscow, the European Union, and Tbilisi, adding to friction between Russia and the West. This external display of power and influence may have been a way for the Russian regime to redirect public attention away from internal problems such as demographic decline—an attempt to solidify performance legitimacy based on success in the international sphere as opposed to the domestic sphere. However, while Russia may have succeeded in demonstrating its revived strength and ability to have a significant impact on foreign affairs, the net effect of the Georgian invasion was increased alienation from the West and increased international scrutiny and criticism of both external and internal Russian affairs. 

The Global Financial Crisis 

Barely a month after the Georgia war, Russia began to feel the effects of the financial crisis that hit the world. After the 1998 financial crisis, Russia’s natural-resources-based economy rose in parallel with an unprecedented rise in the price of Russia’s main export commodities—oil, gas and minerals. As of March 2008, Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) had grown by about 70 per cent compared to the year 2000. Industrial growth was around 75 per cent and investments increased by 125 per cent. In spring 2008, the Russian state news agency reported that

 

In the last eight years, real incomes in Russia more than doubled while poverty halved. The proportion of population living below the poverty line decreased from 30% in 2000 to 14% now. The average wage increased from 2,200 rubles ($90) to 12,500 rubles ($500) over the past eight years, and the average pension from 823 rubles ($33) to 3,500 rubles ($140). Most importantly, wages and benefits have been growing faster than inflation (by 20%–25% in 2007).¹⁴

 

The price for Russia’s most popular oil brand, Urals, went from US$8.75 per barrel in June 1998 to $137.61 per barrel in July 2008. According to World Bank estimates, by 2007–8 “the share of oil revenue in total fiscal revenue increased [since 2000] substantially—from 10 percent of GDP to about 30 percent”.¹⁵ By March 2008, RIA Novosti reported that “payments from the fuel and energy sector in the form of customs duties and taxes reached 3.1 trillion rubles ($128 billion) last year, or nearly half of the federal budget’s revenues”.¹⁶ On 31 October 2008, the Kommersant newspaper projected that almost half the revenues for the coming federal budget for the period 2009–11 would flow from the oil and gas sector.

 

High commodity prices were crucial in allowing Russia to rebuild its economy and launch large-scale strategic programmes, not least social and economic modernisation, army reform, and measures to halt and reverse the demographic decline. More importantly, they served as the economic underpinnings for the elaboration of a “sovereign democracy” ideology.

 

Despite the worsening global and domestic economic environment, on 31 October 2008 the State Duma adopted a new three-year (2009–11) budget for Russia. GDP growth for the years in question is projected to be 7.5 per cent, 8 per cent and 8 per cent respectively. Notwithstanding volatile oil prices and the ongoing financial crisis, the state budget is projected to be in surplus thanks to energy-sector exports based on an expectation of Urals oil at around $95 per barrel in 2009, and around $90 and $88 per barrel for 2010 and 2011. Thus, the budget still provides for extending the funding of most of Russia’s vital national projects, including demographic policy.

 

On 5 November 2008, despite the spectacular fall of the Russian stock market (the worst among developed economies), President Medvedev delivered an upbeat progress report in his annual address to the Federal Assembly:

 

Implementation has begun of new plans for long-term economic and social development. Work is under way on factories and roads. The armed forces are being modernised and rearmed. We are spreading and developing new technology. We are establishing educational, scientific and medical centres. Our country’s sportspeople have achieved some memorable victories.

 

However, at a time of volatile energy markets and global financial crisis, the assumptions underlying the expectations embedded in the budget projections may be questioned, as may the sustainability of Russia’s ambitious “sovereign budget”. Even as the budget was being approved at the end of October 2008, the price for Urals oil had already fallen below the projected $90 per barrel (in early November the price went as low as $57 per barrel and by January 2009 it was $33 per barrel), raising serious concern among Russian political and economic elites. During parliamentary debates in October 2008, Russia’s finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, attempted to calm fears by arguing that with the oil price at $70 per barrel the federal budget would not suffer a deficit. At the same time, Kudrin recognised that “we are at the outer limits of parameters on which the budget was built”.¹⁷ As of March 2009, prices had fallen to $42 per barrel, far below the “outer limits”. 

Demographic Impact 

What are the consequences of potential budgetary shortfalls for demographic policy in Russia? Hitherto, Russia has managed to direct “cash” responses to the challenges that the demographic crisis poses. On 10 May 2006, in his annual state of the nation address, Putin himself acknowledged that tackling the demographic crisis would require “an immense amount of money”. The real question is how long Russia can continue this policy and at the expense of what other priority areas?

 

Finance Minister Kudrin has expressed the fear that the state will be unable to meet its pension obligations towards its citizens, even though from 2010 all the revenues from Russia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund will be directed towards supporting the pension system.¹⁸ In its 2008 report on the Russian economy, the World Bank warns that

 

Russia faces major long-term fiscal risks: uncertain, volatile oil and gas revenues and rising spending on pensions, health, and education. Unless solutions are put in place in the short to medium term, Russia’s strong fiscal position will unwind. That would imperil its ongoing economic expansion.¹⁹

 

Nevertheless, in February 2009, Putin insisted that “despite a significant reduction in budget revenues, social protection of [the] population in Russia will be preserved at an adequate level”.²⁰ Whether or not the Russian prime minister’s words are merely empty rhetoric remains to be seen.

 

Besides limiting the funds that Russia can put towards encouraging population growth, the financial crisis has several other negative implications for Russian demography. The first is increased opposition within the Russian populace to immigration. Xenophobia has been on the rise in Russia for the past decade. According to the Levada Center, a public-opinion institute based in Moscow, in 1995, 38 per cent of Russians supported the idea of a Russia for ethnic Russians only. By 2007, the percentage had grown to 55 per cent. Another report, issued by the Russian Federal State Statistics Service, said that in the first ten months of 2008 the number of migrants inside Russia had dropped by twenty-eight thousand people (or 1.7 per cent) as compared to the same period in 2007.²¹ Since the financial crisis, Russian resentment of immigrants has become even more extreme. The murders of Russian human-rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova in January 2009, almost undoubtedly related to their anti-xenophobic stances, highlight this growing xenophobic trend.

 

With unemployment rising because of the crisis, ethnic Russians see immigrants as unwanted competition. Sarah Schafer, Washington Post staff writer, argues that “as the downturn deepens and companies cut costs, these [migrant] workers have been among the first to be refused their wages and lose their jobs”.²² This xenophobic backlash has the potential to deter migrants from coming to Russia, thus keeping its population low. Though he has expressed concern over growing extremism, President Medvedev has thus far failed to take any definitive action to address the problem. A quota system that limits the number of migrants entering Russia remains in place. Appeasing the ethnic Russian population may increase the government’s popularity for a while, but ultimately migrants are necessary to make up the country’s declining workforce. As the financial crisis deepens and rising xenophobia threatens immigration—exacerbating the demographic decline—the economic and security consequences will be far-reaching, and could damage the legitimacy of the government.

 

The financial crisis threatens Russian demography in other ways as well. Couples are far less likely to raise large families in times of economic stress. Although the Russian government does not release figures on abortion, evidence from clinics since the onset of the crisis indicates that the number of Russian women having abortions has increased significantly. Depending on the length and depth of the global economic downturn, birth-rates could drop yet further and the government’s ability to respond monetarily to the issue will be reduced. Russia expert Paul Goble reports that

 

the crisis may last so long that many women will be beyond normal child-bearing age when it ends. As a result, they will never give birth, and the already low fertility rate for Russians, now only about half of the replacement number, will stay low or possibly fall even further.²³

 

Despite the optimistic official rhetoric and assessments, Russia’s economic and demographic trends remain hazardous. The last eight years’ unprecedented economic growth has allowed Russia’s policymaking elite to indulge its great-power rhetoric, but the global financial crisis is putting this rhetoric increasingly at odds with the reality of the country’s situation. And as Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute notes, Russia’s strategic pretensions and economic prospects alike are undermined by the country’s population woes:

 

Russia is in the midst of a genuine demographic disaster from which its rulers have no obvious exit strategy. Although Russia’s fortunes (and the Kremlin’s ambitions) have waxed on a decade of windfall profits from oil and gas, the human foundations of the Russian nation—the ultimate sources of the country’s wealth and power—are in increasingly parlous straits.²⁴

 

Thus, although significant progress was made during Putin’s two administrations (thanks to rising commodity prices), the real question is what the impact will be of the financial crisis on Russia’s large-scale, pan-national project—demographic stability—and its associated public-policy arenas. Russia needs more and better spending if the enormous challenge of health reform, for example, is to be met. How will failure to accomplish such reform reflect on the performance legitimacy of the elite, and what will be the consequences of increased discrepancies between the rhetoric and reality of Russia’s “sovereign democracy”? 

A Precarious System 

The debate over the nature of Russian governance under Putin and over the extent to which his presidential successor Dmitry Medvedev offers change or continuity has yet to be settled. Supporters of the regime claim that “sovereign democracy” offers stability, a sustainable future and independence in foreign policy. They say this ideology promotes Russia’s national interest and upholds Russia’s identity, as it represents continuity in values and in political and strategic culture. Critics argue that an enclosed elite instrumentalises the “sovereign democracy” concept in order to further its interests and to prolong its grip on political power.

 

Yet, the reaction to the perceived failures of the Russian government in responding to the financial crisis shows the destabilising nature of the top-down approach inherent in sovereign democracy. Unemployment, food prices and household costs have all risen, while popular consent and support for the government have fallen. The unspoken social contract forged between presidents Putin and Medvedev, on the one hand, and the Russian people, on the other—we deliver a better quality of life, you vote for elite continuity and remain politically passive—has been broken. Under Russia’s sovereign democracy, there are almost no legitimate outlets through which the public can voice its concern. According to Masha Lipman, editor of the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Pro et Contra journal, “The logic of Putin’s governance pushes for tighter controls while the logic of the crisis demands flexibility, effective feedback with business and others in the elite, and broad dialogue with the nation.”²⁵ The push and pull between these two forces—the tight control inherent in sovereign democracy and the demand within the nation for some kind of vocal outlet because of the financial crisis—could create a build-up of pressure that has the potential to explode, destabilising Russia. The public’s only option may be to take to the streets. Such a response is already evident; strikes, protests and unrest are on the increase, albeit scattered, localised, spontaneous and driven not by ideology but the sudden fall in social and economic standards.

 

More worryingly for Moscow, once-obedient local authorities have refused orders to disperse protesters. In the Russian far east regional capital of Vladivostok, local interior ministry commanders stood aside, forcing OMON riot-control police to be flown in from Moscow to break up a peaceful protest over increased tariffs on the import of second-hand cars from Japan, a trade that is a huge employer in the region. Putin’s carefully constructed vertical hierarchy of power is fraying at the edges as cash dispensations from the centre run dry. “Putin plus Medvedev equals crisis,” read banners held by protesters during a demonstration in Moscow in February this year. They paraded orange signs reminiscent of the revolution in Ukraine. The protesters demanded early presidential elections.²⁶

 

The Moscow protest was small, with only some 350 participants, so it is questionable whether it and similar recent events herald the possibility of a popularly induced regime change or a true challenge to sovereign democracy. Nikolay Petrov, a scholar in residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center, argues that “the recent wave of rallies—both pro- and anti-government—are more likely just a test run rather than an indication of people reaching their breaking point. If they do snap, it will probably not take place in the largest cities but in smaller one-company towns where if the local industry fails, the entire economy collapses”.²⁷ Test run or not, tension is rising and the government’s legitimacy is being questioned as a result of the financial crisis. If the government also fails to deal with the demographic crisis, its legitimacy will be challenged even further. Medvedev’s government is going to need to find a resolution or suffer potentially disastrous consequences that threaten the growth and sustainability of the top-down system.

 

The latent, potential and actual tensions that sovereign democracy generates, and the extent to which it exacerbates or manages them, will determine the coherence of contemporary Russian strategy. Over the course of Medvedev’s presidency, these tensions are set to grow and the ability of sovereign democracy to square these various circles will diminish—as the public’s reaction to the government’s failure to ameliorate the effects of the financial crisis has shown.

 

The key to the utility of the concept of “sovereign democracy”, and thus to its sustainability, will be the extent to which the Medvedev presidency can adapt and evolve its meaning, reducing the gap between strategic rhetoric and reality. The greatest strategic challenge is posed by the visible decline of Russia’s population. The Russian government’s ability to manage and ameliorate the worst consequences and security implications of this decline will determine how its performance capacity is judged. Thanks to plummeting commodity prices, the government will find this task increasingly difficult to achieve. The fact that demographic decline crosses security sectors—affecting military, political, societal and economic affairs—makes effective policy responses doubly difficult but necessary. The nature of Russia’s ruling ideology—how “sovereign democracy” is understood and practised—will be shaped by demographic decline. But it could also be undermined and delegitimised by a failure to respond effectively to this challenge as well as that of the financial crisis. If this is so, the ideology of “sovereign democracy” could be replaced, or else evolve and mutate to take on different and more concrete meanings.

 

 

Endnotes

 

 

1. Neil Howe and Richard Jackson, “The World Won’t Be Aging Gracefully. Just the Opposite”, Washington Post, 4 January 2009.

 

2. See Sergei V. Zakharov and Elena I. Ivanova, “Fertility Decline and Recent Changes in Russia: On the Threshold of the Second Demographic Transition”, in Russia’s Demographic “Crisis”, ed. Julie DaVanzo and Gwen Farnsworth (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1996).

 

3. Nicholas Eberstadt, “Power and Population in Asia: Demographics and the Strategic Balance”, Policy Review, no. 123 (February and March 2004) (italics in original) [http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3439671.html].

 

4. Anatoly Vishnevsky, “The Depopulated Superpower”, Russia in Global Affairs, no. 3 (July‑September 2003) [http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/numbers/4/488.html].

 

5. Vladimir Putin, speaking on Channel One TV, Moscow, 26 April 2006. (All translations from the Russian are by Graeme P. Herd.)

 

6. Julie DaVanzo and Clifford A. Grammich, Dire Demographics: Population Trends in the Russian Federation (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2001), p. 24.

 

7. Larisa Andreeva, “Proces rekhristianizatsiaa v sekuliazirovannom rossiskom obshestve” (The process of rechristianization in the secularized Russian society), Sociologicheskie Isledovania, no. 8 (2008), pp. 67–73.

 

8. Vladimir Portyakov, “New Aspects of the Immigration Policy of Russia”, Far Eastern Affairs 36, no. 2 (April–June 2008), p. 113.

 

9. Victor Medkov, “Rozhdaemost: est’ li povod dlia eiforii?” (Birth rates: Do we have any reasons for euphoria?), Demograficheskie Isledovaniya, no. 7 (25 March 2008).

 

10. Emil Pain, “Russia—A Society without Traditions Facing Modern Challenges”, Russia in Global Affairs, no. 2 (April–June 2008) [http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/numbers/23/1201.html].

 

11. Igor Beloborodov, “Depopulatsia v Rossii: 15 let demograficheskoi tragedii” (Depopulation in Russia: 15 years of demographic tragedy), Demograficheskie Isledovaniya, no. 6 (2007).

 

12. Harley Balzer, “Demography and Democracy in Russia: Human Capital Challenges to Democratic Consolidation”, Demokratizatsiya 11, no. 1 (winter 2003), p. 107.

 

13. Janet McBride, “Medvedev Condemns Georgia NATO Membership Promise”, Reuters, 12 September 2008.

 

14. “Russia’s Economy under Vladimir Putin: Achievements and Failures”, RIA Novosti, 1 March 2008.

 

15. World Bank, “Russian Economic Report No. 16”, Moscow, June 2008, p. 17.

 

16. “Russia’s Economy under Vladimir Putin”, RIA Novosti.

 

17. “Gosduma prinela segodnia v tretiem chtenii budget na 2009–2011 gody” (Today the State Duma adopted in its third reading the 2009–2011 budget), Kommersant (Moscow), 31 October 2008.

 

18. The Sovereign Wealth Fund was established by the Russian government to support the budget expenses directed to cover the pension system deficit, especially in times when energy prices fall. The fund’s main resources come from oil revenues.

 

19. World Bank, “Russian Economic Report No. 16”, p. 17.

 

20. “Russian PM Pledges More Social Aid for Citizens”, People’s Daily Online (Beijing), 27 February 2009 [http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90853/6602306.html].

 

21. “Russia’s Population Reduces 141 Mln in January–October 2008—Statistics”, Itar-Tass, 19 December 2008.

 

22. Sarah Schafer, “Russia’s Recession Squeezes Migrants; Millions of Foreigners, Lured by Oil Boom, Now Face Bias in Ethnic Backlash”, Washington Post, 29 January 2009.

 

23. Paul Goble, “Economic Crisis Causing More Russian Women to Have Abortions”, Georgian Daily (New York), 30 January 2009 [http://georgiandaily.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9676&Itemid=72].

 

24. Nicholas Eberstadt, “Rising Ambitions, Sinking Population”, New York Times, 25 October 2008.

 

25. Masha Lipman, “For Russia, a Dark Horizon”, Washington Post, 3 January 2009.

 

26. For an account of the Moscow protest, see Valery Stepchenkov, “Russian Protestors Demand Elections as Crisis Bites”, Reuters, 21 February 2009.

 

27. Nikolay Petrov, “Testing the Public’s Appetite for Protests”, Moscow Times, 3 February 2009 [http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1111/42/374172.htm].