In 2025, the degradation of the village network continued in the aggressor country of russia. At least 266 settlements were officially liquidated during the year, most of which are completely extinct villages. This is stated in a report by the Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS) of Ukraine.
According to intelligence data, the leader in the "disappearance" of settlements was the Kostroma Oblast for the second time, followed by the Novgorod Oblast. Together, these two regions accounted for about three-quarters of all liquidated settlements. In third place is Perm Krai, where not only the so-called death of villages is recorded, but also remote settlements with a small number of inhabitants are purposefully resettled. Some small villages are simply annexed to larger ones in order to somehow patch up the infrastructure gaps.
"In fact, this is not about development, but about the legalization of decline: russian regions are consistently losing population, and the territories of "liberated" villages are simply transferred to economic needs," the FIS report says.
The intelligence service emphasized that this sharply contrasts with Moscow's loud statements about the new "General Resettlement Scheme", which is supposed to revive the province.
"In fact, the document only records a deep demographic crisis, spatial inequality and hopelessness of the periphery: life in half-empty villages without medicine, education and work does not attract anyone, and attempts to "disperse the population" are an attempt to cosmetically cover up the failure," the intelligence service emphasized.
The FIS also emphasized that as a result, russia is demonstrating systemic decline outside of several large agglomerations: depopulation, the extinction of villages, and the development gap are only growing, while high-profile programs remain paper decorations for a rapidly emptying reality.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, according to the FIS, the aggressor country of russia is increasingly sinking into economic dependence on China. Raw material extraction projects in the Far East and Siberia are turning into a resource base for Beijing.
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