Russia’s state statistics agency, Rosstat, has ceased the monthly release of data concerning births and deaths, a decision made in the context of an escalating demographic crisis and ongoing military losses in the conflict with Ukraine.
For the first time, Rosstat, in its latest monthly socio-economic report, omitted statistics on births, deaths, migration, and the overall population of the country.
Earlier this year, the agency had already stopped providing regional data related to births and deaths.
Demographer Alexei Raksha remarked at that time, “Since March 2025, there has been almost no publicly accessible demographic information in Russia. The complete suppression of regional demographic statistics signals a clear indication of ineffective demographic policies at the local level.”
The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) connected this recent data omission to the Kremlin’s attempts to “conceal the significant military personnel losses.”
Raksha substantiated this assertion with internal statistics from an undisclosed region that allegedly indicated a drop in life expectancy for men from 66 years in 2024 to 61 by mid-2025, while women’s life expectancy remained unchanged at 75.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the country has progressively limited access to demographic data that specialists have relied upon to estimate wartime fatalities, including age, regional, and cause-specific deaths.
Rosstat’s May data omission follows the agency’s report of a mere 90,500 births in February—the lowest monthly total in over two centuries. Raksha estimates that the first quarter of 2025 likely recorded the least number of births since the early 1800s.
On Saturday, federal lawmaker Nina Ostanina shared an appeal from a group of economists urging the government to clarify the absence of data and encouraging Rosstat to recommence the publication of national birth and death statistics.
