Russia Reform Monitor: No. 1864

December 17:

Is Russia too old for revolution? That, at least, is the conclusion of a recent analysis by financial website FinMarket.ru, which suggests that – despite significant popular dissatisfaction with Vladimir Putin’s rule – population trends are working against prospects for systemic change. “Revolution,” the analysis notes, “is the work of the young,” while Russia’s population is both shrinking and aging. As a result, the analysis concludes, Russia isn’t likely to experience a surge of anti-establishment sentiment in the vein of the “Arab Spring” revolutions unless it mobilizes, and soon. The study cites economist Sergei Shulgin as saying that “the window may still be open,” but in order for that to remain the case the country’s opposition “must have a showing in the 2016 elections.”

The Kremlin has proffered a $15 billion bailout to the government of embattled Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, Reuters reports. The deal, already agreed to by Mr. Yanukovych, includes a Russian offer to buy Ukrainian bonds as well as to slash the cost of Russian natural gas exports. News of the bailout has generated outrage among pro-democracy protesters now rallying in Kyiv’s Maidan Square, who view it as a blatant effort by Moscow to thwart their country’s pro-European political trajectory.

Unless urgent action is not taken to ameliorate high levels of mortality and spur higher birth rates, Russia faces an imminent, catastrophic decline in the size of its population, a new study has concluded. According to a research report prepared by Daria Khalturina and Evgenni Yuriev of the Institute of Socio-Scientific Expertise, the findings of which have been detailed on the website of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, Russia is on the cusp of a massive decline in potential fertility, with the number of females aged 20-29 (who account for two-thirds of births within the Russian Federation) slated to constrict by nearly half over the next decade. At the same time, mortality in the Russian Federation remains extremely high – and in the year 2012 was 13.5% higher than in Mali, Burundi and Cameroon. Unless these trends are not corrected, Khalturina and Yuriev predict, Russia faces a “huge decline” in its working age population: “more than 26 million people by 2050.” And in the worst case scenario, Russia’s population could constrict by nearly a third – to just 100 million souls – by the middle of the century.

December 18:

The State Duma has resumed discussion of a bill that would prohibit government officials from holding bank accounts in foreign banks and owning real estate abroad, reports Russia’s Izvestiya newspaper. The bill, proposed last year, garnered attention after the scandal surrounding Vladimir Pekhtin – a parliamentarian from President Putin’s United Russia faction who was found to own a number of unregistered properties in Florida. The current version no longer includes the ban on foreign real estate, but the Duma will discuss restoring the amendment in the wake of the beating and robbery of Krasnoyarsk Krai governor Lev Kuznetsov earlier this month at a home he owns in France.

The Kremlin continues to formulate its response to the U.S. Conventional Prompt Global Strike program. The latest answer comes in the form of a fresh look at an old basing mode for nuclear missiles. RIA Novosti cites a top official in Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces as saying that the country is planning to draft a plan in the coming year to deploy new rail-mobile nuclear missiles. The effort comes as a response to the U.S. initiative, which has prompted “need to reconsider the issue of a rail-mounted missile system given its increased survivability and the extent of our railway network.” Lt. Gen. Sergei Karakaev has said. Russia’s rail mobile missiles, used during the Cold War because of their survivability and the lower profile, were all decommissioned as of 2005.

December 20:

After a decade in prison, Mikhail Khodorkovsky is a free man. London’s Guardian reports that, as part of a spate of year-end pardons, Russian president Vladimir Putin has pardoned the former oil tycoon. The presidential decree cited “principles of humanism” as guiding the decision of the Kremlin to release Khodorkovsky, who was convicted of economic crimes after wading into national politics in opposition to Mr. Putin’s government.