Russia’s Election Recap: Putin Won,
Russia Lost
Putin has consolidated his political power while Russia continues to lose what it can
least afford.
Vladimir Putin won his election this past weekend; Russia lost it. With Putin’s power
secured at a historic level in the Duma, Russia should be prepared to lose even more.
To no one’s surprise, Putin’s United Russia party won last weekend’s State Duma elections in a cakewalk. It was no surprise, because Putin had walked away with the cake before the
walk began—Bloomberg aptly calling it a “Potemkin election.”
Serious opposition parties were excluded (Yabloko, Russia’s antiwar party was banned
last month from participating in the State Duma), occupied areas of Ukraine were included (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kerson, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea), online balloting was allowed,
and voting extended over three days. The result: United Russia garnered over 58% of
the votes cast and is projected to hold the largest State Duma supermajority (343 of 450
seats) in its 25-year domination of Russian politics.
The only real surprise of last weekend’s preordained outcome was that it was not larger. Reading between the lines of the results, what jumps out is that turnout, although the
highest in over a decade, was still below 60 percent.
To put that in context, look at the U.S.’s 2024 presidential election. Almost 175 million Americans were registered to vote, and 73.6% did. Yes, voter participation drops in U.S. midterm elections compared with presidential elections, but no one deliberately orchestr-
ated (The Associated Press termed it “a massive state media campaign”) efforts to boost
turnout at all costs, as in Russia.
While there was no doubt about Russia’s election outcome, there is a big question as to
what it will mean for Putin’s war in Ukraine. And of course, curiosity has been at the
heart of Russia’s war in Ukraine from the moment of Putin’s 2022 invasion.
Consider that Russia is far and away the world’s largest country. Its territory amounts to
6.593 million square miles. The world’s second largest country, Canada, has only 3.849
million square miles—almost 3 million square miles less. If you added Australia’s 2.968
million square miles to Canada, it would roughly equal Russia’s expanse.
Russia hardly needs more territory. What Russia desperately needs is more people.
Russia’s population has been declining for a long time. World War II effectively wiped
out a generation of Russians. The country has never really recovered. Instead, each
succeeding generation has had falling birth rates. The fertility decline is now so great
that Russia’s population is declining. An April 29, 2025, Jamestown report by Paul
Goble stated:
“Russia’s population has declined for the last seven years as the fertility rate, the
number of women of reproductive age, and the immigration rate continue to decrease. According to Russian demographer Aleksey Raksha, Russian women gave birth to
fewer than 294,000 babies during the first three months of 2025, the lowest quarterly
figure for Russia in 225 years (The Moscow Times, April 11; Tochka, April 25).”
Russia’s population peaked at 149 million in 1994; today it stands at about 145 million.
The population decline has gotten so bad that Putin is going to increasingly greater
lengths to hide it. A Russia Matters article by Monica Duffy Toft on August 6 states:
“Earlier this summer, Russia’s statistical agency Rosstat quietly stopped publishing
monthly demographic data—a move that should alarm any Russia analyst who under-
stands the relationship between population dynamics and political stability.1 According to demographer Alexei Raksha, ‘We consider the full suppression of regional demographic statistics a clear sign of failed demographic policy at the regional level.’ This isn’t
merely bureaucratic housekeeping; it’s a desperate attempt to hide a serious demographic crisis that threatens the foundations of the Russian state. Russian President Vladimir
Putin, well aware of the dynamics even earlier, canceled part of the All-Russian
Population Census until 2029 last October.”
The article continued: “This reflects a longstanding tradition, continued under Putin, of
concealing demographic and military realities from both domestic and foreign observers.”
Russia’s national fertility rate is down to 1.4 children per woman; in some major cities
it is just 1.0 children per woman. Both are well below the estimated 2.2 fertility rate needed to
offset population decline.
Of course, Putin’s war in Ukraine has only accelerated a population crisis that was
generations in the making. Putin’s war has figuratively bookended (with WWII’s carnage
on one end and Europe’s greatest wartime casualties since WWII on the other) what The
Economist called Russia’s “population nightmare” over three years ago—before Russia’s losses had reached their current levels (in 2023, U.S. officials estimated Russia’s casualties at 500,000). As of September 22, 2026, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense claims Russia has suffered 1,520,880 casualties, and these have averaged well over 40,000 per month this summer.
Battlefield casualties are not Russia’s only loss of manpower in this war. It is conservatively estimated that over 800,000 Russians have fled the country since Putin’s Ukraine invasion.
No wonder that Russia has sought more manpower for its war. North Korea is only the
most noted source for additional soldiers. Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America
have also seen their young men lured to Russia for employment that turned out to entail enlistment.
What Putin’s Ukraine war boils down to is expending what Russia doesn’t have for
what Russia doesn’t need: Dwindling people for more land. Last weekend’s election
results give Putin carte blanche power to continue the grim, grisly grinding away of his
countrymen in pursuit of more ground. Can another mass mobilization now be far
behind?
J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left from RealClear Publishing. Follow him on Substack.
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