Russian population may be halved within 70 years

The Russian population is dwindling by 0.7% every year. If this process continues then the population will be halved within the next 70 years. As a Rosbalt correspondent reports, these figures were made public at the international forum Quality of life: collaboration between science, power, business and community.

It was also mentioned that the health of the Russian population started deteriorating rapidly at the beginning of the 1990s and the death rate is now 50% higher than it was in the middle of the 1980s. About 7.7 million people have died prematurely from heart disease, strokes and other causes since the Soviet Union broke up. The birth rate has also halved.

The situation in the Central and North-West Federal Districts is particularly alarming. Here the population is dwindling by over 1% each year. Such figures usually signal a humanitarian catastrophe and the extinction of a whole species.