Russia is Running Out of Russians

Paul J. Warburg 38 min

Russia has essentially already ceased to be a relevant global power, because their demographic crisis has now reached the point of no return. Because they focused so much on old world imperial ideology, their empire will crumble.

  • Vladimir Putin

Chapters

  1. 0:00

    Russia's Demographic Collapse

    The video argues that Russia is facing a severe demographic crisis where both its total population and the proportion of ethnic Russians are collapsing, rendering it irrelevant as a global power. The speaker details the causes of Russia's population decline, including low birth rates, high mortality from alcohol and HIV, and mass emigration.

  2. 4:42

    The Collapse Within the Collapse

    The speaker explains that ethnic Russians are declining faster than other groups, threatening the very identity of the Russian state.

  3. 34:48

    Consequences for Russia's Future

    The video concludes that these demographic trends mean Russia will lose its imperial ambitions and become a diminished shell of its former self.

Key points

  • 10:06

    Russia's population has fallen from approximately 149 million in 1994 to around 145 million today.

  • 14:38

    The birth rate in Russia sits at somewhere around 1.3 or 1.4 births per woman.

  • 12:30

    In the first quarter of 2025, there were less than 300,000 births in all of Russia.

  • 12:30

    Last year in Russia, there were 600,000 more deaths than there were births.

  • 20:07

    About 40% of Russian men are known to binge drink on a weekly basis.

  • 22:19

    Around 10 million Russians, or one in 15 people, were actually addicted to drugs.

  • 24:09

    Ethnic Russians decreased from around 111 million to around 105.6 million between 2010 and 2021.

  • 24:09

    Ethnic Russians as a percent of population dropped from around 77.7% to somewhere around 71.9%.

  • 24:09

    In a couple of decades, there will be potentially less than half of the Russian population being composed of ethnic Russians.

  • 34:48

    Russia is declining as a globally relevant force because it valued things like ethnic dominance over actually caring for the people within their own borders.

Who and where

People · 1

  • Drawing of Vladimir Putin

    Vladimir Putin 10

    President of the Russian Federation

    Photo 1

1. Photo: Пресс-служба Президента России, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Wikidata · redrawn in our house style (Vladimir Putin)

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