Russians Now Dying in Numbers Nearly Equal to Those Reached During Covid Pandemic, Raksha Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, May 7 – Last month, independent Russian demographer Aleksey Raksha says, data from registration offices in 13 federal subjects suggests the number of Russians who died in the country as a whole jumped to a figure roughly equal those who passed away at the height of the covid pandemic, driving down Russian life expectancy to below 72 years from birth.

    In a majority of those regions which have reported so far, deaths jumped by 15 to 20 percent from April 2024, a rise not explained by the fact that winter weather had been better or that there was one more working day this year than last (t.me/RakshaDemography/4862 and moscowtimes.ru/2025/05/07/vrossiiskih-regionah-zafiksirovali-anomalnii-skachok-smertnosti-dorekorda-sovremen-kovida-a162916).

    Among the federal subjects where deaths increased by the most were Arkhangelsk Oblast (39.1 percent more this year than last), Astrakhan Oblast (24.2 percent), Buryatia (24.1 percent), and Tula Oblast (20.3 percent). These figures put Russia on course to suffer more than 160,000 deaths in April, the largest for that month except in covid times since 2011.

    This increase in deaths, Raksha says, reduced average Russian life expectancy from 72.5 percent and, when combined with dramatically falling birthrates, further accelerated the declines in Russia’s population and life expectancy figures that have been reported in recent years (t.me/RakshaDemography/4280).

    Rosstat, the Russian government’s statistical arm, has not yet released figures for April. Its latest are from January and February (https://cjh.tgsession.com/6wa847r86_2azafppdzdyflav/7hzrpeynfj/9cmerclufuqo/EDN_02-2025.htm), and those show nothing like the catastrophic trends that Raksha is reporting. How or even if Rosstat will report the declines Raksha suggests very much remains to be seen.