Murmansk region lost 10 percent of its population during the years of full-scale war
Up to 30 percent of the population has disappeared from some of the closed military towns of the Northern Fleet, according to calculations by the news-outlet Chronicles.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the population of the Murmansk region has decreased by 73,000 people. This follows from the official data of Rosstat.
As of 1 January 2022, according to officials, 724,500 people lived in the region. By April 2025, just over 650,000 remained. Thus, the Murmansk region, if the statistics are to be believed, has lost 10 percent of its population.
Significant demographic changes have occurred in the closed cities of the Northern Fleet, according to Chronicles. This refers to Severomorsk, Polyarny, Gadzhievo, Snezhnogorsk, Vidyayevo, Zaozersk, Polyarny, Ostrovnoy, and the village of Safonovo. According to the journalists' calculations, from 2022, 20 to 30 percent of residents have disappeared from there.
“The military experts we interviewed did not reach a consensus. Some suggest that the changes may be related to hostilities in Ukraine... Others believe that residents may have simply left en masse, but experts do not recall large-scale troop movements or major infrastructure closures,” the Chronicles reported.
Barents Observer previously reported that small towns in northern Russia are under threat of disappearing. The population decline is linked to a lack of jobs, infrastructure degradation, and a general decline in quality of life. The population is aging, and the population is less and less able to renew itself. There is a difficult situation in the labour market as well. The shortage of workers is caused by many factors: an aging population, discriminatory policies towards migrants, emigration, and, of course, the war in Ukraine. Thus, Barents Observer found that hundreds of soldiers from the Murmansk region are listed as missing.
