Grigorii Golosov
Facebook
October 14, 2021
Yesterday, President Putin, driven mainly by the curiosity of journalists, publicly tried to solve problems. There are a lot of problems, he noted: they are literally “raining down.” He named only two: the decline in incomes among the population and the population’s rapid decline (the “demographic” problem). He promised to solve the first one non-linearly, i.e., not by growing incomes per se, but through economic growth. As you know, the Russian economy grows rarely and slowly, but when it does grow (which has happened over the past ten years), then for some reason this has no effect on the incomes of the population. However, it depends on whom we understand by “the population.” There is definitely a population of several thousand people constantly getting richer, although this population is more often outside of Russia than inside it. Putin did not elucidate his methods for solving the second problem, but he is certain that they will also be nonlinear. There are no other problems in Russia, however. There is no problem with political prisoners: they are all criminals. I would probably doubt that. But I totally agree with Putin that there is no problem with democracy in Russia. If there is no democracy, there is no problem with it. Verily, “if you don’t have an aunt, then you won’t lose her.”
Translated by the Russian Reader
President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia — one of the world’s biggest producers of oil and gas — is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2060.
“Russia in practice will strive for carbon neutrality of its economy,” he said at an energy forum in Moscow.
“And we set a benchmark for this — no later than 2060.”
Source: AFP/Moscow Times
Russia’s natural population underwent its largest peacetime decline in recorded history over the last 12 months, an analysis of official government statistics has shown.
Russia’s natural population — a figure which counts registered deaths and births, excluding the effects of migration — declined by 997,000 between October 2020 and September 2021, demographer Alexei Raksha calculated.
The stark drop comes as Russia, which has one of the world’s highest Covid-19 death tolls, continues to see record numbers of lives lost to the pandemic. The country has recorded at least 660,000 excess deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Russia’s total population of around 145 million is lower than it was when President Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000 despite Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 which added 2 million to Russia’s official population statistics.
Source: Moscow Times
Only 12 World Leaders Greet Putin on His 69th Birthday. In another sign of Putin’s isolation, only 12 world leaders sent him greetings on his birthday this year. None at all came from the US or from EU countries (business-gazeta.ru/article/524870).
Source: Window on Eurasia (Paul Goble)
The Russian Reader 