Page 25 - RusRPTApr19

population shrank continuously from the mid-1990s to 2009, when the population began to grow again. 2018 was the first year since 2009 that the Russian population declined. In this decade, population growth has been driven by an increase in immigration and life expectancy. The World Health Organization reports that the current average life expectancy of a Russian woman is 77.2 years and a Russian man 66.4 years.
Russia’s birth rate has also declined over the past two years. In 2017, the total fertility rate was 1.62, which is typical also for EU countries and China. At the end of 2018, Rosstat forecasted that Russia’s population will continue to decline slowly. By their projection, the Russian population would be 144mn in 2036.
Last year, net immigration was no longer sufficient to make up for the gap between births and deaths. Rosstat says that net immigration was only about 125,000 persons, down from about 210,000 in 2017. Following the established pattern, many immigrants and emigrants are from former Soviet countries. Last year, the largest sources of net immigration to Russia were Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.
The attitude of Russians and Ukrainians to each other has warmed a little: according to independent pollster the Levada Center and the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) the proportion of Ukrainians who relate well to Russia has increased from 48% to 57% between now and November 2018 and Russians with a positive perception of Ukraine has risen to 34% vs. 28% over the same period. About half of all Russians and Ukrainians believe that there should be open borders between the two countries, with no visas or customs, while 25% and 38%, respectively, want closed borders. Over the year, the share of Russians supporting reunification into one state increased from 10% to 17%, versus only 4% in Ukraine. The overwhelming majority of respondents see the authorities of neighbouring countries very negatively: only 7% of Russians and 13% of Ukrainians give positive assessments of their fellow’s governments. But the share of Russians who see the citizens of Ukraine in a good light has increased from 59% to 82% over three years, while in Ukraine the same indicator increased from 67% to 77% in the same period. “One can hardly talk about warming with respect to Russians, rather, it has become less anti-Ukrainian propaganda,” the Levada Center director Lev Gudkov told Vedomosti. “Its intensity has slightly decreased since March 2018. Moreover, Russians have become more worried about domestic policy than foreign policy.” The head of KIIS, CEO Vladimir Paniotto agrees: “In Ukraine, the improvement is statistically significant. It began after the end of active hostilities and, above all, is connected with improving the attitude towards the Russians, and not towards the leadership of the country,” he said as cited by Vedomosti. “This may be related to the presidential elections in Ukraine [March 31] - the pro-Russian forces are more active, the pro-Russian TV channel has opened. The improvement came at the expense of the eastern region.”
25 RUSSIA Country Report April 2019 www.intellinews.com