Russian life expectancy fell by more than two years in 2020 to 71.1 years from 73.3 in 2019, the first decline in almost two decades, RT reports.

The fall was attributed to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The virus has killed over 100,000 people in the last year out of a population of more than 146mn, giving Russia the seventh-biggest death toll in the world.

The fall in life expectancy was the first decrease since 2003, shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin took office. At that time Putin charged the government with raising life expectancy to 78 years by 2030.

To achieve that goal, authorities had hoped to raise the metric to 75.2 years by 2024. Instead, according to the data, it will take three years just to return to 2019 levels. However, a full demographic report from the statistical agency Rosstat has not yet been published.

Under the former president Boris Yeltsin life expectancy crashed to only 56 years for men.

Life expectancy improved rapidly under Putin as the economy boomed in the noughties. But after the president decided to sacrifice prosperity for the sake of rearming the military Russia has been running an austerity budget since 2012, and real incomes have stagnated and the quality of life decayed.

That fuelled nationwide protests in January, called by jailed anti-corruption activist and opposition politician Alexei Navalny, that saw over 100,000 people come out onto the streets in towns and cities around Russia.

Still, the news is not all bad. Russia's infant mortality rate has hit an all-time low of 4.5 per million Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said on March 16.

"The infant mortality rate has hit an all-time low of 4.5 per million, which is 8.5% lower than expected," he pointed out.

According to the Federal State Statistics Service, 538 babies died in the country in January 2021 and the infant mortality rate dropped by 1.3% compared to January 2020. In 2020, Russia's infant mortality rate fell by 12% compared to 2019, with the highest rate of 20.2% recorded in the Northwestern Federal District.