The Russian Prime Minister issued the warning as he announced plans to invest $53billion (£46.9billion) to help raise reproduction rates in the country by 2015.
Despite being the worlds largest country at over 6.5million square miles, high rates of smoking, alcoholism, pollution and poverty, together with falling rates, mean Russia's population will shrink to 116 million by 2050 from 143million last year.
Russia also has the world's third-largest heroin abuse rate and accounts for a third of all heroin deaths worldwide.
Prime Mininster Putin wants to boost the nation's birth rate by 25 per cent in the next three years to counteract the predicted decline.
Addressing parliament in an annual report today, he said: 'According to preliminary calculations, between 2011 and 2015 some 1.5trillion roubles (£46.9billion) will be invested in demography projects.
'First, we expect the average life expectancy to reach 71 years. Second, we expect to increase the birth rate by 25 to 30 percent in comparison to the 2006 birth rate.'
Experts believe the country's impending demography disaster will drain 1 million people from its workforce every year until 2017.
Russia's population peaked at over 146 million in 1991, shortly after the break-up of the Soviet Union, but declined by nearly 800,000 a year until the mid 2000s.
Earlier this week Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev called for drug testing in schools, as the country's narcotics abuse is harming Russia's economy, as well as it's population.
The UN's World Health Organisation says heroin use has fuelled Russia's HIV/AIDS epidemic, one of the fastest growing in the world.
But health workers criticise Moscow for refusing to finance harm reduction programmes, like needle exchanges, or legalise the replacement drug methadone.
Medvedev said children as young as 11 were using drugs and it might be necessary to expand drug testing in schools and strengthen other programmes.
source: www.dailymail.co.uk
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