“How Ukraine Won the War to Keep the Lights On”
“Russia was determined to break Ukrainians’ will by plunging them into cold and darkness. Its failure, in the face of Ukrainian resilience, offers lessons as winter has released its icy grip.”
“Electric trams are running again in Kyiv, and electric scooters dot the sidewalks. With curfew extended to midnight, the streets are bright and buzzing. Portable generators, nearly impossible to find as they flew off the shelves in December, are being sold at half price.”
“Russia’s population nightmare is going to get even worse”
“War in Ukraine has aggravated a crisis that long predates the conflict“
“A demographic tragedy is unfolding in Russia. Over the past three years the country has lost around 2m more people than it would ordinarily have done, as a result of war, disease and exodus. The life expectancy of Russian males aged 15 fell by almost five years, to the same level as in Haiti. The number of Russians born in April 2022 was no higher than it had been in the months of Hitler’s occupation. And because so many men of fighting age are dead or in exile, women now outnumber men by at least 10m.
War is not the sole—or even the main—cause of these troubles, but it has made them all worse. According to Western estimates, 175,000-250,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the past year (Russia’s figures are lower). Somewhere between 500,000 and 1m mostly young, educated people have evaded the meat-grinder by fleeing abroad. Even if Russia had no other demographic problems, losing so many in such a short time would be painful. As it is, the losses of war are placing more burdens on a shrinking, ailing population. Russia may be entering a doom loop of demographic decline.
The roots of Russia’s crisis go back 30 years. The country reached peak population in 1994, with 149m people. The total has since zig-zagged downwards. It was 145m in 2021 (that figure, from the un, excludes the 2.4m people of Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014 and incorporated into its national accounts). According to un projections, the total could be just 120m in 50 years, if current patterns persist. That would make Russia the 15th-most-populous country in the world, down from sixth in 1995. According to Alexei Raksha, an independent demographer who used to work for the state statistics service, if you look just at peacetime years, the number of births registered in April 2022 was the lowest since the 18th century. April was a particularly cruel month, but it was a revealing glimpse of a chronic problem.”