Putin’s Invasion Has Cost Him 1.7 Million Workers: Report

Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has cost the Russia economy more than 2.2 percent of its workforce, or up to 1.7 million people, it has been reported, signaling the longer-term economic costs of the war for Russia.

Russian forces have suffered huge battlefield losses over the course of the war started by Putin in February 2022. Compounding the strain on a dwindling workforce has been the exodus of many Russians wanting to flee the draft.

Economists have warned that Russia’s economic growth, which has been boosted by high government spending on the military, will be hampered by a growing shortage of workers, with the knock-on effects of higher wages driving up inflation.

Independent Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe said its analysis found that between 860,000 and 1.08 million Russian military personnel had been sent to war in the first two years of the invasion. This included professional soldiers and those drafted in the partial mobilization announced by Putin in September 2022.

Estimates of Russian battlefield losses vary, with The Economist reporting this month between 462,000 and 728,000 Russian soldiers had been seriously injured in the war and between 110,000 and 150,000 killed. As of Saturday, Ukraine’s estimate of Russian casualties, which includes both those killed and injured, had reached 565,610.

But as well as battlefield losses, many who return home from the war are disabled, or unable to resume their previously held positions.

Novaya Gazeta said that with Putin showing little sign he wants to end the war, figures for the first half of 2024 point to the number of people being removed from the economy by conscription or voluntary enlistment rising by up to 60 percent.

Much depends on whether there is a further mobilization. However, even if only professional soldiers are recruited from now on, Russia’s economy stands to lose “between 1.7 million–1.9 million people in total between the start of 2022 and the end of 2024,” the outlet said.

But another mobilization could remove between 1.9 million and 2.1 million people, or 2.8 percent of the work force, posing major risks for the economy, the outlet added.

Another independent Russian news outlet, The Bell, reported this week that its analysis had shown the war had prompted the biggest exit of Russians from the country for three decades.

Its analysis of data from migration services and statistics agencies of nearly 70 countries found that since the start of the war “at least 650,000 people that left Russia have yet to return.” This is 150,000 more than the rough estimates it made at the end of 2022. Countries where Russian is widely spoken such as Armenia, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Israel were the most popular destinations.

The Bell said that some countries did not respond to its requests for information and the figures were “a low estimate,” with the overall figure posing “serious headaches for the Kremlin—both political and economic.”

Newsweek has contacted the Kremlin for comment.