Russia requires migrants to flourish due to its diminishing local workforce, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview published on Friday, Nov. 22.
“Migrants are a necessity,” he told state news agency RIA Novosti.
“We have a tense demographic situation. We live in the largest country in the world but there aren’t that many of us,” he said.
The Russian parliament passed a law earlier this week that forbids “child-free propaganda,” which essentially forbids anyone or any group from advising others against starting a family.
The goal of the action was to assist address a demographic catastrophe that was left over from the Soviet era and has gotten worse since the conflict in Ukraine.
“We need a labour force in order to have dynamic development and carry out all our development projects,” Peskov said.
He stated that Russian authorities welcomed migrants.
Anti-migrant rhetoric is frequent in Russia, particularly against workers from ex-Soviet countries in Central Asia who work in crucial sectors of the economy.
In July, the Kremlin admitted that the low population was “disastrous for the future of the nation.”
The country’s population has not rebounded since Soviet times, despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government providing hefty rewards and mortgage discounts to large families.
A low birth rate, a high number of COVID fatalities, and hundreds of thousands of men escaping the nation to escape being mobilized to fight in Ukraine are some of the recent demographic issues.
According to predictions from the national statistics bureau Rosstat, which news source RBC quoted, the fertility rate in 2023 was 1.41 births per woman of childbearing age.
That is less than the rate of 2.0 required to replace the current population.
According to Rosstat data, Russia saw 920,200 births between January and September of this year, a 3.4 percent decrease from the same time last year.
According to Russian media, it was the fewest births since the 1990s.
A Gentle Reminder: Every obstacle is a stepping stone, every morning; a chance to go again, and those little steps take you closer to your dream.
Nnamdi Okoli