Russia sees first rise in disability registrations in 11 years — but wartime injuries are only part of the story
In 2023, the number of people in Russia registered as having a disability increased for the first time in 11 years. Some of this spike can be explained by longstanding issues, including a recorded rise in childhood disability as well as corruption among medical examiners in the Caucasus. Other likely drivers are new, such as the addition of people from Ukraine’s occupied territories to Russia’s disability register. Increases in categories that could be tied to war-related injuries number in the tens of thousands, though determining exactly how much of the growth is directly due to the war is nearly impossible. Meduza shares key points from new reporting by the independent outlet Verstka on Russia’s surge in registered disabilities.
Falsified records and forced migration
The official number of people with disabilities in Russia began falling in 2011. For 11 years, until 2023, it steadily decreased, ultimately dropping by more than 2 million. The authorities have attributed this to the gradual passing of the older generation, which was both larger and had a higher share of disabled people. Meanwhile, many Russians have reported difficulties in actually getting official disabled status. In 2021 and 2022, the number of people with disabilities decreased by 300,000 and 400,000 people, respectively. But this trend changed drastically in 2023, when the total number of people with disabilities rose by 108,000. In other words, Russia suddenly now has 400,000–500,000 more people with disabilities than it would if the trend of the previous decade had remained steady. And this doesn’t include people currently living in the Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia in 2022.
Russia’s North Caucasian Federal District accounted for more than 30 percent of the increase in the number of people with disabled status. Among the regions with the highest increases are Dagestan (14,800) and Chechnya (12,400), followed by the Novosibirsk and Moscow regions, which saw increases of about 7,600 people each. Demographers have noted that falsifying disability status is a widespread practice in the North Caucasus. According to researchers’ estimates, the share of the population with official disability status in Chechnya is about 15.9 percent — more than twice the national average in Russia.
About a third of the increase in people with disability status in 2023 is due to a rise in childhood disability. About 89,000 minors were officially recorded as disabled for the first time, more than in any year since at least 2008 (earlier data is not publicly available). This is 12.7 percent higher than in 2022 and 20.6 percent higher than in 2021; previously, yearly figures had fluctuated between 67,000 and 76,000. The overall number of children with disabilities in Russia has consistently grown: in 2007, they numbered about 523,000; in 2018, about 651,000; and by late 2023, about 755,000. Russian officials and experts attribute this trend to higher survival rates among children born with congenital diseases and improved diagnostic capabilities.
A demographer who spoke to Verstka on condition of anonymity said that the rise in both children and adults with disabilities in 2023 could be due in part to migration from Ukraine’s occupied territories. According to the Russian authorities, over 3.2 million people in the four Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia in 2022 have received Russian passports. Among this population, the demographer said, about 10 percent, or 300,000 people, could have disabilities. Because of the war, the share of elderly people living in the occupied territories is relatively high, which raises the percentage of people with disabilities. In 2023 alone, 93,700 residents of Ukraine’s partially occupied regions registered as living in Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea. According to Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service, people from occupied Ukraine who relocate to Russia most often move to the Moscow region, the Rostov region, Krasnodar Krai, and Crimea. These and other popular regions for migrants saw some of the highest increases in disabled children in the country.
War-related injuries
In 2023, about 726,000 Russian adults were officially registered as disabled for the first time — a one-third increase from 2021. The number began to rise in 2022, with an increase of 5.4 percent; in previous years, it had been gradually declining, according to data from the Russian Labor Ministry.)
Official disability rates in categories potentially linked to to war-related injuries also increased, but it’s nearly impossible to determine exactly how much of the growth is directly attributable to the war. The largest absolute increases between 2021 and 2023 were among people with conditions unlikely to be war-related, such as cancer and circulatory system diseases.
The category with the highest percentage increase, meanwhile, was respiratory diseases, which saw a 75 percent rise, followed by the category “consequences of injuries, poisonings, and other external causes,” which increased by 62 percent. In 2022, this group increased by just 1,000 people, whereas from 2021 to 2023, it increased by about 10,000. According to the demographer who spoke to Verstka, this increase is too small to directly reflect disabilities from war-related injuries; independent experts have estimated the number of severely wounded Russian soldiers in 2022–2023 at about 130,000 people.
The Russian Labor Ministry also publishes data on new disability registrations by impairment type. In 2023, the largest percentage increase was in the category “simultaneous impairment of hearing and vision,” which grew by 75 percent (possibly due to concussions and other injuries), or by about 3,000 people. Before 2023, annual growth in this category was consistently only a few hundred people. Additionally, around 79,000 new registrants required a wheelchair, up by roughly 23,000 from 2021. This increase is nearly five times larger than the growth seen in this category from 2019 to 2021.
Other indicators
In 2023, the number of people officially recorded as needing a wheelchair, a commode chair, or lower-limb prosthetics rose by more than 137,000, or 42 percent, according to data from the Russian Labor Ministry. However, this increase also can’t be fully attributed to war injuries; if that were the case, the change would likely be much larger, as independent estimates suggest about 130,000 people were critically wounded in 2022–2023 alone. (It’s important to note that not everyone with war-related injuries is granted disability status.) As of this writing, these figures have been removed from the website of Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service, and the agency has “temporarily suspended” the publication of data on disability status among people ages 18–30.