Russia Reform Monitor: No. 2089

August 9:

Russia faces an increasingly grim demographic future, a leading expert has predicted. Nezavisimaya Gazetareports that, in a recent interview with with the "Moscow Speaking" radio station, Yuri Krupnov of Moscow's prestigious Institute of Demography, Migration and Regional Development noted that the country is on the cusp of a massive population implosion. "Those who were born in the 1980s, at the peak of fertility, have now grown up and become parents," Krupnov told the radio channel. As a result, by 2025, he noted, the number of women aged 20-30 years will be 75 percent less than it was in 2010, which will significantly hinder the country's potential birth rate in the years that follow.

August 10:

Russia claims to have thwarted an attack by the Ukrainian government after two armed men attempted to sneak saboteurs into Crimea, Reuters reports. Kyiv, for its part, denied the accusation, calling it an excuse by Moscow to escalate the frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine and Crimea. As the Kremlin accelerates its military activity around Ukraine, the claim has left experts worried that Moscow is seeking a pretext for a renewed Russian attack.

August 11:

Experts have warned that the Russian cyberattack that targeted the Democratic Party was much bigger than originally thought, with more than 100 private email accounts breached. According to the New York Times, the main victims of the attack were Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign officials and party operatives. However, it is believed that organizations like the Democratic Governors' Association were also targeted. The worst, moreover, may not yet be over; the Democratic Party is said to be preparing for the possibility of another politically damaging leak.

August 12:

Is Russian President Vladimir Putin further consolidating power ahead of Parliamentary elections in September? An ongoing leadership shakeup has seen Putin's older and politically established colleagues replaced by a younger generation of loyalists. Most recently, Putin fired his longtime chief of staff Sergei Ivanov and appointed a relatively unknown aide to the position. The New York Times notes that Ivanov was considered one of Putin's closest allies and was considered a potential successor when Putin temporarily left office back in 2008. Experts believe the Russian president is looking to surround himself with followers ill-equipped to question his authority, and too politically weak to threaten it.

According to the BBC, Russian news sources are reporting that the Kremlin has announced imminent plans to station new air defense missiles on the Crimea Peninsula as part of its efforts to strengthen control over the former Ukrainian holding. The deployment was ostensibly planned before the most recent round of tensions between Kyiv and Moscow, but the positioning of the missiles is nonetheless part of a larger militarization of the region, one that also includes planned exercises designed to simulate counter-weapons of mass destruction operations set for the near future.

August 13:

After helping to expose Russia's state-sponsored doping scandal and going into hiding, Russian runner Yulia Stepanova has now found that her personal WADA account has been hacked. The account held secret information about her current whereabouts. Stepanova had told the BBC that she no longer felt safe in Russia because of the negative reaction from her home country, which prompted the World Anti-Doping Agency to move her into hiding.