Russia’s population nightmare is going to get even worse

In recent years, Russia has been one of the most searched countries on Google. Certainly, a
controversial country from all points of view. War, dictatorship, poverty, these words are the
defining words for this country in the last 20 years.
Today I chose to talk about an article from the Economist. An article that reflects the
consequences of these 20 years.
Have you ever wondered what consequences could have these elements like poverty, dictatorship
in a society?
One of these is the population decrease.
I chose to talk about “Russia’s population nightmare is going to get even worse.”
I quote from the text:” The number of Russians born in April 2022 was no higher than it had
been in the months of Hitler’s occupation. But why? The war of the last year caused this
problem? Surely it is counted among them. According to Alexei Raksha, an independent
demographer, the number of births registered in April 2022 was the lowest since the 18th
century.
The Economist estimates that Russia had an excess mortality between 1.2 million and 1.6
million citizens between 2020 and 2023. What does this mean? This means that Russia hid the
true death toll from the Covid virus. Why did Russia hide this?
Because of a corrupt health system, where those with important jobs have priority. Russia may
have had the largest covid death toll in the world after India.
According to Western estimates, 175,000-250,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded
in the past year. All these soldiers are young, most of them married and with children at homes.
Somewhere between 500,000 and 1m mostly young, educated people fled abroad,because of war.
it is heartbraking for a country like Russia, which wants to be one of the world leaders, to have
these immature problems.
The roots of Russia’s crisis go back 30 years. The country reached peak population in 1994, with
149m people. The total has since zig-zagged downwards. Currently the population of Russia is
estimated to be between 144 and 145 million people.
According to Un projections, the total could be just 120m in 50 years.
That would be even worse than during the disastrous early 2000s, when the population was
falling by roughly half a million a year.
In conclusion Putin is making Russia a smaller, worse-educated and poorer country, from which
young people flee and where men die in their 60s.
Vocabular:
1.Peak population=apogeul populatiei
2.zig-zagged downwards= zig-zag în jos
3. flee=a parasi
4.roots=radacini
5.falling by roughly=scazand dramatic