Their live birth ranking is nit that bad.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/rus/russia/birth-rate
EDIT: Holy hell! WTF happened to Puerto Rico? That is a shocking birth rate collapse.
The current number is about 8 births per 1000 people. It is pretty low, but could be lower.
Puerto Rico is being robbed by the US, so young people leave and the ones who stay are too poor to have children.
Just read the article. The Moscow Times is referring to numbers provided by Rosstat, Russia’s official Statistical Office. This is official data by the Kremlin.
According to data released by the state statistics agency Rosstat, 195,400 children were born in Russia during January and February 2025 — a 3% drop compared to the same period in 2024.
The decline was even steeper in February alone, with births falling 7.6% year-over-year to 90,500 — 7,400 fewer than in the same month last year.
Some regions saw even sharper drops. Births fell by 18.7% in Arkhangelsk, 19.4% in the republic of Karelia, 18.6% in the Oryol region, 21.6% in Kostroma and 26.6% in Smolensk.
I read the article as well. It was because they did not list the actual fertility rate that I decided to look up the data. The numbers are not ideal and they are indeed in decline (as the article states) but they are nowhere near the bottom of the pile.
South Korea is one of the leaders, last I heard. They’ve had a massive shift towards childless couples.
No offense, but I think Moscow Times has better access to secret (true) data, the fact that the published result is not trustworthy doesn’t mean russia doesn’t have a real number. They (the russians I mean) are known for having obsessive amounts of information about all kinds of things.
You mean killing a lot of your men has a consequence. Putin telling women to have 8 babies might have been for a reason.
