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Today, the phrase “Palestinian terrorism” immediately conjures up Arab violence against Jews—suicide bombings in buses or restaurants, Hamas rockets launched from the Gaza Strip. Seventy years ago, ho...

Paul Goble             Staunton, Mar. 10 – Last month, the seasonally adjusted fertility rate fell in every federal subject of the Russian Federation with the largest percentage declines coming in the republics of the North Caucasus where these rates remain higher than in predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays, official data show (t.me/sterngang/1760).             In the first two months of 2026, Chechnya saw its fertility rate fall by 6.5 percent; but that Muslim republic along with its neighbors still has a much higher fertility rate than do predominantly ethnic Russian regions (kavkazr.com/a/chechnya-i-dagestan-v-chisle-liderov-po-spadu-rozhdaemosti/33700297.html).             That means that Chechnya and other Muslim republics even if their fertility rates are declining and now in most cases below the 2.2 children per woman per lifetime needed to keep their populations stable will retain a relative advantage compared to predominantly ethnic Russian regions.             Thus, in time, all federal subjects may decline on this metric; but the ones with predominantly ethnic Russian populations will decline faster than those with Muslim populations. And that means at the end of the day, the Muslim republics will form a larger share of the country’s population than they do now, even if they too are less numerous.             Only if fertility rates in Muslim republics fell below the figures for the Russian Federation as a whole or for overwhelmingly ethnic Russian cities, where these metrics currently stand at under 1.3 and approximately 1.0 would that no longer be the case, a prospect that no expert Russian or Western sees taking place.