Hundreds of Russian villages disappeared in one year, intelligence says
Hundreds of villages disappeared in Russia over one year (illustrative photo: Getty Images)
In 2025, the decline of rural areas in Russia accelerated, with at least 266 settlements officially abolished over the year, most of them completely uninhabited, Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service reported.
The most significant number of disappeared villages was recorded in Kostroma and Novgorod regions, which together account for about three-quarters of all abolished settlements. Perm Krai ranks third, where authorities are not only recording the extinction of villages but are also deliberately resettling remote settlements with small populations.
Some small villages are being merged into larger ones to compensate for infrastructure shortfalls.
The Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine noted that this is not about development but about the legal formalization of decline. The population of Russian regions continues to shrink, and the territories of abolished villages are being repurposed for economic use.
This sharply contrasts with Moscow's statements about the so-called General Settlement Scheme, which is supposedly intended to revive the provinces.
In reality, according to Ukrainian intelligence assessments, this document merely records a profound demographic crisis, spatial inequality, and the lack of prospects for peripheral areas.
The absence of healthcare, education, and jobs makes life in half-empty villages unviable, while attempts to "redistribute the population" are purely declaratory.
"As a result, Russia demonstrates systemic decline outside a few large agglomerations: depopulation, the disappearance of villages, and the development gap continue to grow, while loud programs remain paper decorations against a reality that is rapidly emptying," the intelligence service said.
Earlier, the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine reported that Russia's population will shrink by 25% over the next 50 years, according to demographic forecasts. The main reason for these figures is the war, through which Russia has already lost more than one million citizens.
According to data from Rosstat, from January to May 2022, when the aggressor carried out a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia's population decreased by 430,300 people.
