Rosstat refuses to release data on life expectancy in Russia

25.03.2025

Article published on the Moscow Times (www.moscowtimes.ru) website

Rosstat has decided not to publish detailed statistics on life expectancy in Russia, which has already fallen to a record low since the pandemic amid the many thousands of deaths in Ukraine.

The only figure published on Rosstat’s official website for 2024 was life expectancy for the whole country. Statistics by region and separately for the male and female population that could show the mortality rate for young men where recruitment for frontline duty was actively taking place were not included.

Rosstat told the To be Precise CSO that it had decided to suspend publication of these data for 2024 but did not say why or whether they would be publicly available at a later stage.

According to Rosstat, total life expectancy of Russians fell by seven months last year to 72.84 years and was the first recorded drop since 2020, excluding the period of the pandemic.

Detailed Russian Federation and regional mortality statistics from 2023 are also not available, which always happens when there is a marked deterioration in the overall situation, said demographer Alexey Raksha.

2024 was the first year when military losses were more seriously reflected in the figures than in 2023 and even more so in 2022 because those who died in the fighting were included in Rosstat data with a time lag of 1.5 years, said Raksha.

According to Rosstat, the official death rate in the whole of last year was higher