Putin’s War Escalation Is Hastening Demographic Crash for Russia

President Vladimir Putin spent years racing against Russia’s demographic clock, only to order an invasion of Ukraine that’s consigning his country’s population to a historic decline.

Besides casualties in the thousands on the battlefield, the enlistment of 300,000 reservists to join the fight -- and an even bigger flight of men abroad -- is derailing Putin’s goals of starting to stabilize the population already this year.