RUSSIA'S DEMOGRAPHIC CRISIS CONTINUES
For decades, Russia has struggled with persistent demographic decline, and despite a series of remedial efforts attempted by the government of President Vladimir Putin, the downward trajectory is getting steeper. According to new statistics released last month by ROSSTAT, the country's state statistics agency, the number of live births in the Russian Federation totaled 599,600 in the first half of this year - 16,000 fewer than during the same period last year. That figure, moreover, is the lowest rate of birth charted in Russia since the late 1990s.
The data has alarmed officials in Moscow, confirming a trend that Kremlin officials have acknowledged is "catastrophic for our nation." "We must organize ourselves and conduct another special operation," urges Nina Ostanina, who chairs the Committee for the Protection of Families in the State Duma. "Just like a special military operation - a special demographic operation." (Reuters, September 10, 2024)
SURGING DRONE PRODUCTION...
In its war on Ukraine, Russia has come to rely on foreign technologies provided by allied nations - like drones from Iran - and worked to make them its own. That process appears to be progressing apace. Late last month, President Vladimir Putin told a key defense-industrial meeting in St. Petersburg that, last year, the Russian military received "140,000 unmanned aerial vehicles of various types" - and that indigenous production of this capability is now surging. This year, Putin projected "the production of UAVs is to be increased many-fold, specifically, almost tenfold." (Foreign Desk News, September 20, 2024)
...GETS A HELPING HAND FROM BEIJING
Those unmanned aerial vehicles, however, aren't just being built in Russia itself. Reuters outlines that, as part of the "no limits" partnership between Putin's Russia and the China of Xi Jinping, Russia has established a secret war drone factory inside the PRC. Specifically, it notes, "IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned arms company Almaz-Antey, has developed and flight-tested a new drone model called Garpiya-3 (G3) in China with the help of local specialists." (Reuters, September 25, 2024)
MOSCOW INCENTIVIZES CRIMINAL ENLISTMENT...
Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a new law that exempts defendants and suspects in the Russian legal system from facing liability for prior crimes or infractions, provided they sign up to fight in the war in Ukraine. The bill, which was introduced in the the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, over the summer, is designed to shore up the country's rapidly thinning military ranks on the Ukraine front. It effectively broadens a prior law that gave convicts or those under investigation the option to sign a contract with the Defense Ministry and join the "special military operation." Now, anyone at any point in their criminal charge can join the war effort and avoid prison. Via this new mechanism, Russian authorities expect to send 20,000 additional defendants to the front lines. (Washington Post, October 2, 2024)
...AND FIELDS A "GRANDPA" ARMY
In its efforts to bolster the ranks of its fighting forces in Ukraine, the Kremlin is increasingly relying on older recruits - cobbling together what critics have termed a "grandpa" army, and causing dissension in the military ranks in the process. Meduza, citing a new report by opposition outlet Verstka, details "a steady rise in the number of Russian contract servicemen over 45 on the front lines since the start of the year, a trend confirmed by data on Russian casualties calculated from open sources." The practice, however, is deeply controversial, because these older troops are less capable and more of a liability than their younger counterparts. Namely, "older recruits struggle with the physical demands of war as they lack the endurance and strength of younger troops" - so much so that the presence of "grandpas" has become, along with a chronic lack of ammunition, a "main complaint" of servicemen, according to accounts from the front. (Meduza, October 10, 2024)
VIKTOR BOUT IS BACK - AND HELPING MOSCOW MEDDLE IN THE MIDEAST
Since his release from U.S. prison some two years ago as part of a trade with Moscow for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, Victor Bout, the Russian arms dealer known as the "Merchant of Death," appeared to have turned over a new leaf. Upon his return to Russia, Bout joined a pro-Kremlin far-right political party, and last year won a seat in the local assembly in Russia's Ulyanovsk Oblast. But when Houthi emissaries went to Moscow in August to purchase $10 million worth of automatic weapons, none other than Bout was at the forefront of the negotiations.
While comparatively modest in scope, the pending arms transfer nonetheless promises to expand the lethality of the Iranian-supported Yemeni militia. It "would also mark an escalation for Russia, which has been strengthening security ties with Tehran but has generally stayed away from the confrontation between Israel and its Iran-backed foes," notes the Wall Street Journal. (Wall Street Journal, October 7, 2024)