Newsweek Calculated How Long Putin Has Left To Live

• 7.10.2026, 14:54

He has reached a very significant age.

Putin turned 74 on October 7. For Putin, this is not just a birthday, but also a very telling figure. The average life expectancy for men in Russia is about 68 years, according to Newsweek.

Putin is already older than the average life expectancy for men in 82 of Russia’s 85 regions. In Chukotka, that figure is just 58.7 years.

For Russians, the situation looks particularly bleak against the backdrop of the war against Ukraine. According to estimates by Mediazona and the BBC Russian Service, the names of 259,000 fallen Russian servicemen have been identified to date. Mediazona and Meduza estimate that 352,000 men between the ages of 18 and 59 will have died by the end of 2025.

At the same time, Russia’s demographic problems began long before the war. Thousands of people die every year from drugs, HIV, alcohol, and poisoning from counterfeit methanol. On average, women live nearly 12 years longer than men—one of the widest gaps in the world.

Putin has set a goal of increasing the country’s average life expectancy to 78 years by 2030. But this goal is at odds with the reality of the war, which is claiming the lives of predominantly young men.

“Many of his Russian citizens would be happy just to live to 60,” the authors write.

Russian authorities are trying to conceal demographic problems. Rosstat has not published separate statistics on life expectancy for men and women for 2024, and much of the data on mortality and population is now unavailable.

Putin himself, meanwhile, speaks of the possibility of extending human life. In a conversation with Xi Jinping, he stated that thanks to advances in transplant medicine, people in the future will be able to “even achieve immortality.”