The population of the Russian Federation last year declined by 510,000 people, according to RBC. It is reportedly a record decline over the past fifteen years.
Citing the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), RBC says that the death rate registered in Russia over the first eleven months of 2020 turned out to be the maximum over the past decade.
According to Rosstat, the last time such a population decline was recorded fifteen years ago, when the population declined from 143.8 million in 2005 to 143.2 million at the beginning of 2006.
From 2007 through 2009, Russia’s population declined to 142.7 million and from 2010, Rosstat had recorded an annual increase.
Since 2017, the population of the Russian Federation had not fallen below 146.8 million, RBC says. The first sharp decline was registered last year.
As of January 27, the number of the officially confirmed coronavirus-linked deaths in Russia was 116,000.
Meanwhile, an article by Matt Rosenberg notes that Russia's population peaked in the early 1990s (at the time of the end of the Soviet Union) with about 148 million people in the country.
In 2010, the United States Census Bureau estimated that Russia's population will decline from the 2010 estimate of 143 million to a mere 111 million by 2050, a loss of more than 30 million people and a decrease of more than 20%.
The primary causes of Russia's population decrease reportedly are related to a high death rate, low birth rate, high rate of abortions, and a low level of immigration.
