In an article on the website Voyennoye Obozreniye, Alexander Adintsov focused on demographic data showing that between 2002 and 2010, the indigenous Russian population decreased by 4.9 million, and according to the 2021 census, their population decreased by another 7 million.
Simultaneously with the decline of the indigenous Russian population, the share of Orthodox Christians in Russia is also declining. According to Adintsov, Russia is facing a serious civilizational crisis, one that is not limited to the economic sphere and has extended to the issue of existence itself.
He explains that according to 2020 statistics on population based on religious affiliation, the number of Muslims in Russia reached 14.5 million, roughly equivalent to 10 percent of the country's population. By 2024, this figure had risen to about 20 million, equivalent to 13.6 percent of the country's population, and Russia entered the list of the world's top 20 countries in terms of Muslim population for the first time.
According to him, if conditions do not change, the Russian population will reach about 90 million by 2040, and their share of the total population may decline to 50 percent by 2060.
In contrast, the Muslim ethnic groups living in the Caucasus region are experiencing the highest population growth rates in Russia.
Russia's Demographic Catastrophe
Adintsov continues that Russia's natural population decline in 2024 reached about 596,200 people. This figure shows a 20.4 percent increase compared to 495,300 in 2023.
He believes this process is not entirely understandable, and people have the right to know what is happening in the country.
According to him, Russia has experienced three demographic catastrophes over the past 124 years: the 1917 revolution and civil war, World War II, and the current liberal reforms that have continued in Russia since 1992.
From the author's perspective, what is happening today is the result of a long-term project to destroy Russia and reduce its population, a project he says was designed by Western countries and may have even begun before the perestroika era.
He adds that Russia, in the face of this serious civilizational challenge, must maintain the role of the Russian people in the political system's structure while preserving ethnic balance. Otherwise, he says, the country will fall apart, and the West, Turkey, and China will absorb it.
Reasons for the Demographic Crisis from the Author's Perspective
Adintsov lists the main reasons for what he calls the demographic catastrophe in Russia as follows:
Deterioration of the employment structure in a resource-based economy
Lack of high-income jobs
Hidden unemployment and consequently reduced incomes
Severe population decline caused by the falling birth rate during the shock of the 1990s
Rising housing costs and shortage of residential units at current prices
Rising abortion rates
Concentration of population in large cities, where the maximum birth rate reaches two children per family living in a three-room apartment
Spiritual and moral crisis in society
A sense of futility and fruitlessness
The entrenchment of individualism alongside insufficient awareness about the value of family and childbearing
Rising infertility due to imported food products
Problems with the pension system, which has reduced the ability of grandparents to help care for grandchildren
He continues that about 60 percent of Russia's population lives in poverty and cannot afford housing costs, to the extent that childbearing in this country has become an expensive luxury.
At the same time, companies in Russia, to achieve maximum profit, raise real estate prices to the highest possible levels, and as a result, housing, after income, has become the second most important factor in forming a family and having children.
Crisis of the Value System
According to this author, over the past 20 years, a powerful and relentless propaganda machine in Russia has tried to change what is now called the people's mentality, to the extent that many of society's traditional institutions, including the family, have been subjected to the worst types of media repression.
However, from his perspective, it is clear that this situation cannot continue forever or even for long and must change.
He writes with surprise that while Russian authorities are trying to compensate for the declining birth rate, they simultaneously encourage an immigration policy that he believes is dangerous.
One of the examples he refers to is granting Russian citizenship to more than one million citizens of Central Asian republics over the past seven years.
This process does not end there. Due to labor shortages, Russia is set to accept one million migrants from India and is simultaneously negotiating with Sri Lanka and North Korea about attracting migrant workers.
However, Adintsov emphasizes that Russia lacks a clear goal for development, resource exploitation, and ensuring an active demographic situation.
According to him, nearly half of Russia's youth and middle-aged people in the 18 to 45 age group—46 percent of those surveyed—are unwilling to have children, citing financial instability or a lack of desire to have children.
Our Islam and Their Islam
The author continues that the most important principle in national policy should be ensuring peace among religions and forming a correct identity for citizens.
He warns that ethnic and religious conflicts that have been flaring up since the collapse of the Soviet Union are a very dangerous phenomenon that can disrupt internal stability.
According to him, Russian Islam is generally peaceful, but due to some common characteristics, there are aggressive and expansionist branches—especially outside Russia—that try to carry out subversive activities in Russia as well.
He continues that what is happening cannot be ignored because the issue relates to preserving the country's present and future.
From Adintsov's perspective, Russia is an Orthodox country, and its internal unity with Muslims is one of the country's fundamental pillars, and this relationship must be valued.
Concern About Immigration from Central Asia
However, the author believes not all Muslims are the same. He distinguishes between our Muslims and other Muslims and also considers the difference between Soviet-era Asians and today's generation, a generation that, according to him, does not speak Russian and effectively creates an internal island or closed neighborhood in society.
He writes that citizens who come to Russia from Central Asian republics are very religious and attached to their traditions, and their integration into Russian society seems difficult even at a limited level.
From his perspective, perhaps the children of these immigrants who study in Russian schools and receive proper secular education will be different, but not all of them are.
Adintsov warns that when the number of these new citizens in Russia reaches several million, they will begin to demand their legal rights, and this issue will turn into a real conflict.
He asks why we should fill Russia with a population that is culturally alien?
From his perspective, Russia needs its own children, meaning first and foremost Russians and Slavs.
He adds that the bureaucracy deciding on these issues is naturally influenced by global forces that have gone to war against the Russian and Orthodox world.
At the same time, Adintsov emphasizes that the measures the Russian government has taken to support the birth rate have not yet yielded the desired result.
Economic Incentives Are Not Enough
According to the author, the reason is that the system of financial aid and incentives is often insufficient to create a positive effect.
He says social security is not an attractive topic because one cannot earn much money through it.
According to him, the maternity capital program initially had a positive effect on the birth rate, and this effect was evident in 2013-2015, but inflation later reduced its impact.
To increase Russia's birth rate, the author believes the country needs an innovative economic model that is not dependent on raw materials; it must also move the population to villages and suburbs, rather than continuing to concentrate it in cities.
He also proposes measures similar to those that existed during the Soviet Union, including imposing a tax on single men over 30.
Tax on Childless Individuals and Combating Abortion
Adintsov describes the traditional capitalist mortgage-based approach proposed by Russian authorities, which he sees as aimed at bank profitability, as a dead end.
He gives two reasons for this claim. First, housing loans are only accessible to the middle class, which he says is small in Russia. Second, these loans drain the energy and strength of young families.
He writes that housing is being built, but the houses are not selling. From his perspective, the proposed plan could create an upward, sustainable, and tangible trend for the construction sector and turn this sector into one of the main sectors of the economy, including by attracting Russian citizens rather than migrants.
The author also emphasizes that as long as a tax is not imposed on childless individuals in Russia, the problem of the low birth rate in the country will continue.
He explains that such a tax artificially creates a destiny-shaping model for men in Russia and obliges them to become fathers before the age of 30. According to him, such a model existed in the Soviet Union and had proven effective.
The second main factor from his perspective is anti-abortion propaganda, to the extent that women are forced to pay the cost of abortion personally, and this cost is covered only in medical cases through mandatory health insurance.
The third factor is social advertising to encourage family formation and having multiple children, advertising that should show the necessity of childbearing for having a decent life and a secure old age.
Development of Empty Lands; A Prescription for Russia's Growth
In this regard, Adintsov reminds that Russia has vast and undeveloped areas, especially outside the Moscow province, that have not been utilized.
From his perspective, developing these lands, similar to what the United States did in the 19th century, could be a major step in Russia's economic growth. This is possible through providing electricity and gas, building houses, developing roads, expanding industries, and producing agricultural machinery.
At the same time, he proposes starting industrialization in various regions of Russia so that the goods needed for development are produced in the same regions.
A Reverse Process
Meanwhile, the author refers to the process of Christians converting to Islam in Russia but says it was not possible to find up-to-date data in this area because none of the denominations are willing to publish these statistics.
He considers Russia a multi-ethnic country where Islam is the second most important religion, and therefore believes that misunderstanding between Orthodox Christians and Muslims can be very dangerous, while mutual understanding can bring great results.
From his perspective, Orthodoxy and Islam differ in their doctrinal teachings, but they share many practical moral principles, including respect for family, honoring the elderly, rejecting violence and deception, and mercy and helping the needy.
Can Russia Become Islamic?
Based on what has been said, the author emphasizes that Russia cannot become an Islamic country, and the Russian people cannot lose their role in the system's structure. This remains valid even given the current difficulties that have weakened Russia's economy and consequently affected the country's birth rate.
He also believes that what is happening today is the result of a temporary foreign domination by the West that began with the destructive era of communism, namely Boris Yeltsin, and the influence of global governance through pro-Western elites within the country continues.
Adintsov concludes that the time has come for Russia's elites to cut their relationship with the West, and for Russia to remain forever as a solid fortress for Christianity in its pure form—that is, Orthodoxy.
According to him, when the Russian people no longer have any options before them, as has happened many times in history, they will rise up and expel their oppressors.
