Moscow Trying but Failing to Combat Demographic Collapse of Russian Far East
Paul Goble
Executive Summary:
The population of the Russian Far East continues to decline at an accelerating rate, now far faster than any other region of the Russian Federation except the Far North. Russian President Vladimir Putin has identified this development as a threat to national security.
Moscow is continuing to try to reverse this trend, but its efforts are failing not only because they are short-term and under-funded but also because they fail to address the underlying issues causing Russians to leave the Far East for regions west of the Urals.
As a result, the looming demographic collapse of the Russian Far East is likely to become an ever more serious challenge to Moscow, not only in terms of its domestic consequences but also because outside powers are likely to exploit the situation.
The population of the Russian Far East continues to decline at an accelerating rate, now faster than in any other region of the Russian Federation except the Far North. Russian President Vladimir Putin has frequently pointed to this development as a threat to his country’s national security (URA.RU, June 6, 2023). The number of residents of that region has fallen by more than 10 percent since Putin became Russian leader in 2000 and is now projected to decline by eight percent more before the end of this decade—three times the rate Russian officials had been projecting (EastRussia, January 25, 2023; RBC, April 4, 2024; PrimaMedia, August 8, 2024). That leaves Russia’s largest federal district—the Far Eastern Federal District, which occupies 40 percent of Russia’s territory—with fewer than eight million people, or just over five percent of the country’s population. This is far fewer than it had at the end of Soviet times, when the state forcibly populated it (Delovaya Rossiya, accessed April 30).
Moscow is devoting ever more attention to this trend and its reversal, most recently at a much-ballyhooed meeting of the Russian Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic on April 22 to discuss the Demographic Policy Strategy of the Far East (Russian Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic, April 22; Asia Russia Daily, April 23). Its efforts continue to fail, however, because they are short-term and underfunded and fail to address the underlying issues driving Russians to depart the region (Sibirskiy Ekonomist, December 25, 2025). As a result, a demographic collapse is now looming in the region and represents an increasingly serious challenge to Moscow. The collapse is domestically affecting a region where there are not enough people to do the work and where the share of ethnic Russians in the district is declining (see EDM, August 18, 2022, June 8, 2023, April 29, 2025). The likelihood that outside powers—including the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in particular—are already exploiting the situation and may do more in the future is increasing (Most Media, March 12).
The demographic decline of the Russian Far East reflects long-term trends that Moscow’s recent policies have exacerbated. Residents of the Russian Far East have been leaving because of the difficulties of life in its harsh climate, a crime rate higher than the rest of the Russian Federation, the lack of amenities available elsewhere, and greater opportunities in Moscow and Russian cities west of the Urals. Instead of addressing these challenges—which would be expensive and take years to achieve results—the Russian government has adopted a short-term approach based on the assumption that people will stay there if their pay is greater or if they are offered free land, incentives that may lead some to decide to remain but that have little effect on the decisions of most (RBC, April 5, 2024; Yesli Byt’ Tochnym, July 30, 2025). Unfortunately, many of these programs have never gone beyond pronouncements. For example, Moscow has boosted formal wages in the region to high levels but has not paid workers on time, causing many to flee. The center has also failed to build roads, railways, and other infrastructure in areas where free land is being offered, making such celebrated “gifts” of little or no value (Novye Izvestiya, July 26, 2023; RBC, September 12, 2023; Sibirskiy Ekonomist, April 26).
Russian experts and regional activists have long highlighted such shortcomings in Moscow’s policies (Demographic Review, 2023; EastRussia, January 25, 2023; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 1, 2023; RBC, April 5, 2024; Sibirskiy Ekonomist, May 1, 2025). Many are increasingly angry about what they see as the Russian government’s colonialist policies, and some are even discussing the potential for an independent Siberia in the future (LRT, June 19, 2024; Vostok.Today, June 28, 2025). Perhaps to the surprise of many, the situation is worsening due to climate change. Global warming is increasing Russia’s problems in the Russian Far East because the melting of the permafrost is making construction of transportation and other infrastructure prohibitively expensive and causing the spread of diseases that the Russian health system is ill-equipped to deal with (see EDM, March 12, 2024, February 4, 2025, March 5; Window on Eurasia, April 7, 2024; Yesli Byt’ Tochnym, July 17, 2025).
Moscow has continued to talk rather than act in response, something that has already led to at least two major developments and may soon lead to others as well (Asia Russia Daily, April 23). On the one hand, Russian commentators have increasingly called attention to the center’s failure to do more than hold meetings on the problems in the region (Window on Eurasia, December 26, 2025). On the other hand, some Russian officials have called for giant policies such as building “millionaire” cities in the region, which Moscow cannot possibly afford given budgetary stringency as a result of Putin’s war against Ukraine, and which the population in the region would likely resist moving to, given all the center’s broken promises in the past (see EDM, September 21, 2021).
Moscow is taking steps that might make sense elsewhere. They are proving, however, to be counter-productive east of the Urals. Putin’s “optimization” plan to cut spending on government operations by eliminating local municipalities may be reasonable west of the Urals, but to the east, these municipalities cover enormous areas and thus play a far larger, irreplaceable role than their counterparts elsewhere. That has led to greater protests against municipalization than elsewhere and will undoubtedly prompt many residents to consider leaving or supporting radical changes in Russia’s administrative structures (Federal Press, July 4, 2025). Additionally, residents of the Russian Far East are among the greatest victims of Moscow’s overall reduction in infrastructure spending since the start of Putin’s expanded war against Ukraine, a trend that is also pushing them to leave (Profile, February 5, 2024; see EDM, February 4, 2025).
The most thoughtful Russian experts on demographic problems in the Russian Far East have called on Moscow to change course. They advocate spending more money and adopting a 100-year plan to solve the region’s demographic problems before current trends become irreversible and what is now the Russian Far East ceases to be Russian (EastRussia, August 5, 2025). The departure of so many ethnic Russians from the Far East means the region’s population is increasingly composed of indigenous non-Russians and migrants from Central Asia and the PRC. Beijing is already paying more attention to non-Russians in the region than ever before (see EDM, March 9, 2023). Additionally, the combined numbers of Central Asian and Chinese migrants already in some cities in the Russian Far East are challenging the ethnic Russians for dominance (Versia, December 11, 2024). That, of course, feeds longstanding Russian paranoia about an overpopulated PRC moving northward into an underpopulated Russian Far East. These fears are likely overblown now regarding any change in the border between the two countries, but very real regarding the PRC’s expanding presence on the ground in the Russian Far East, something that is made easier for Beijing by the declining Russian population there.
Demography is not destiny except in the long term. Regarding the Russian Far East, however, Moscow’s failure to adopt and then fund policies to slow the exodus of Russians is reducing the time frame—and potentially leading to political and geopolitical disasters far greater than many now assume possible (see EDM, August 18, 2022; April 29, 2025).
This article was originally published in Eurasia Daily Monitor.
Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. While there, he launched the “Window on Eurasia” series. Prior to joining the faculty there in 2004, he served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He writes frequently on ethnic and religious issues and has edited five volumes on ethnicity and religion in the former Soviet space. Trained at Miami University in Ohio and the University of Chicago, he has been decorated by the governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for his work in promoting Baltic independence and the withdrawal of Russian forces from those formerly occupied lands.