The demographic structure for Russia and Ukraine are not unlike much of the world. Russia is in negative growth, so is China. I find it interesting that the lowest is South Korea
Joe bloggs has done some good work on this,not sure this who this is from, but valid point. In an agrarian society children are a positive, ie more workers for the farm…., in the city children are a liability in relative terms.
In western societies, children if they become successful don’t really benefit the parents, at least financially, and with a wife who does home health a lot of children see parents as a burden with little respect for what they sacrificed to raise and educate them
Russia and Ukraine have the added stress on their demographics due to the war casualties and population leaving the country.
If interested Perun has a good video (they are all good) on Russia and Ukraine and covers why the average age for BOTH nations is in the 40s.
Like ww2 as the war progressed and casualties mounted the median may stay the same but the more age for soldiers will include more of the young and old.
Much has been made of the hitler youth and the elderly fighting in the last days of the reich, less about soviets were doing the same and though it may not have seemed like it, we’re running out of people to fight and were using increasingly younger and older people as well as women to stick the forces.
Russia has a larger population to draw from, but much of what they have is from eastern non ethnic Russian sources. As the “internal security” forces have been reduced to feed the war effort, control of these regions become more problematic.
As the need for more forces become more desperate, and these regions can’t or won’t fulfill the govts requirements the need to fill with folks from St. Petersburg and Moscow side of the federation will become more and more necessary
Apparently they started with migrant workers, homeless, and prisoners ( one source claims that prewar prison population was 400k and now around 260), once depleted the general ethnic Russian population will be drawn upon to fill the ranks
At that point, and I think it will begin after “election” will see if all the stories of”everything is fine in Russia” continues .
Control for Russia/putin is key, and keeping white Russia relatively free from war hardships has been a priority, when reality meets desires things may become complicated.
Fortunately for Kremlin the only budget line to see increases like the military is the “internal security” budget and that is understandable
Pretty sure the 40% military budget does not include internal security so in reality war budget is most likely somewhere north of 50%
Interesting times indeed
blitz128:
"Pretty sure the 40% military budget does not include internal security so in reality war budget is most likely somewhere north of 50%
Interesting times indeed" I think the way that works is Russia's nominal GDP is circa $2 trillion, of which Russia spent $87 billion on defense in 2022 or roughly 4% of GDP.
That compares to about 3% of US GDP spent on defense and less than 2% by most western style democracies.
But Russia's $87 billion is about 15% of Russia's total government spending in 2022, which was ~35% of GDP or around $700 billion.
And 15% is the number which is said to increase up to 40% or 50%, meaning Russia's defense spending could rise from $87 billion to something like $300 billion, which would be circa 15% of Russia's GDP.
Those Russian numbers are not yet approaching percentages of many countries during the Second World War, however as of today, only one other country in the world spends as much of its GDP on its military.
Ukraine = 34% of GDP spent on its military in 2022.
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