[16] Between 2020 and 2021, prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia's population had undergone its largest peacetime decline in recorded history, due to excess deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic.

[fn 1][19] According to the United Nations, Russia's immigrant population is the world's third largest, numbering over 11.6 million; most of whom are from other post-Soviet states.

[31] In March 2023 The Economist reported that "Over the past three years the country has lost around 2 million more people than it would ordinarily have done, as a result of war [in Ukraine], disease and exodus.

[33][32] In January 2024, the Russian statistics agency Rosstat predicted that Russia's population could drop to 130 million by 2046.

Infant mortality rate Notable events in demography of Russia: All numbers for the Russian Federation in this section do not include the Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk, which Russia annexed in September 2022 and which are currently partly under Russian military control.

In 2006, in a bid to compensate for the country's demographic decline, the Russian government started simplifying immigration laws.

[53] In 2012, the Russian Federal Security Service's Border Service stated there had been an increase in undocumented migration from the Middle East and Southeast Asia (Note that these were Temporary Contract Migrants)[54] Under legal changes made in 2012, undocumented immigrants who are caught will be banned from reentering the country for 10 years.

[55][56] Since the collapse of the USSR, most immigrants have come from Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Belarus, from poor areas of China, and from Vietnam and Laos.

They primarily live in cities such as Moscow and Moscow Oblast, Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Kazan, Nijniy Novgorod, Vladivostok, Samara, Krasnodar, Ufa, Sochi, Khabarovsk, Krasnoyarsk, Chelyabinsk, Rostov on Don, Volgograd, Omsk, Tyumen, Voronezh, Perm and others.

[64] Russia has encouraged or even forced people in occupied or annexed regions to become Russian citizens, a procedure known as passportization.

This includes the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts of Ukraine,[65] and South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia.

[76] However, Russia's historically high alcohol consumption rate is the biggest health issue in the country,[77][78] as it remains one of the world's highest, despite a stark decrease in the last decade.

Analysis of excess deaths from official government demographic statistics, based on births and deaths and excluding migration, showed that Russia had its biggest ever annual population drop in peacetime, with the population declining by 997,000 between October 2020 and September 2021, which demographer Alexei Raksha interpreted as being primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[86] In 2010, four-fifths of Russia's population originated from West of the Ural Mountains — of which the vast majority were Slavs,[87] with a substantial minority of Finno-Ugric and Germanic peoples.

[96] According to the United Nations, Russia's immigrant population is the third-largest in the world, numbering over 11.6 million in 2016;[20] most of which are from post-Soviet states, mainly from Central Asia.

[116][117] There is some presence of Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism; pagan beliefs are also present to some extent in remote areas, sometimes syncretized with one of the mainstream religions.

In 2017, a survey made by the Pew Research Center showed that 73% of Russians declared themselves as Christians—out of which 71% were Orthodox, 1% were Catholic, and 2% were Other Christians, while 15% were unaffiliated, 10% were Muslims, and 1% followed other religions.

[120] Buddhists have a sizable population in three Siberian republics: Buryatia, Tuva, and Zabaykalsky Krai, and in Kalmykia, the only region in Europe where Buddhism is the most practised religion.

Russia is among the world's most educated countries, and has the third-highest proportion of tertiary-level graduates in terms of percentage of population, at 62%.

[125] Its pre-school education system is highly developed and optional,[128] some four-fifths of children aged 3 to 6 attend day nurseries or kindergartens.

Primary school is compulsory for 11 years, starting from age 6 to 7, and leads to a basic general education certificate.

[125] An additional two or three years of schooling are required for the secondary-level certificate, and some seven-eighths of Russians continue their education past this level.