Vladimir Putin has channelled $26 billion into a national longevity initiative, turning anti-ageing science into a strategic state project. The Wall Street Journal reported the programme’s scope in detail this week, drawing on government statements, scientific critics, and people close to the Kremlin.
The scale of the ambition became clearer last September, when an open microphone at a military parade in Beijing appeared to capture Putin describing to Chinese President Xi Jinping how organ replacement could theoretically enable immortality. What might have sounded like idle conversation between two ageing leaders was, the Journal reported, a preview of a programme already well underway.
The initiative was formally unveiled in 2024. Its stated goal: save 175,000 lives by the end of the decade. Critics at the time noted the figure sits uncomfortably close to independent estimates of Russian military casualties in Ukraine.
Two figures close to Putin are steering the effort. His daughter Maria Vorontsova, an endocrinologist, oversees the state-backed genetics programmes. Mikhail Kovalchuk, head of the Kurchatov Institute, Russia’s Soviet-era nuclear research centre and brother of Putin ally Yuri Kovalchuk, has become the programme’s chief architect. “It is difficult to talk about immortality, but the ability to repair a person will certainly grow,” Kovalchuk told Russian media.
State scientists say they are working on two main technologies: bioprinting, or 3D printing of living tissue, and xenotransplantation, which involves growing human organs inside miniature pigs considered genetically compatible with humans. Researchers claim to have printed human cartilage and a mouse thyroid gland, with full organ replacement targeted by 2030. In April, Deputy Science Minister Denis Sekiirinsky described a gene therapy under development as “one of the most promising avenues in combating ageing.”
The Kremlin press office confirmed state support in an emailed statement: “In the Russian Federation, work is underway on a wide range of scientific programmes in this field. These projects are supported by the state, and many scientific and research institutions are involved.”
Independent scientists are sceptical. Alexander Ostrovsky, once Russia’s leading bioprinting researcher, left after the invasion of Ukraine and sold his company, which now works with the government. “If the research is not published, there will be no real results,” he said. “Their statements should be considered aspirations, if not dreams.” He added that Western sanctions have severed Russian science from its international networks, creating conditions where researchers may simply be telling Putin what he wants to hear in order to secure funding.
The programme has an ideological edge as well. In a widely circulated 2015 speech, Kovalchuk framed longevity science within the Kremlin’s broader civilisational confrontation with the West, warning that Western powers sought to create controllable “slave humans.” Putin has publicly said the Soviet film “Dead Season,” about a CIA plot with former Nazi doctors to control humanity, inspired him to join the KGB.
Putin, 73, has spent decades cultivating an image of physical vigour, through shirtless fishing photographs, ice hockey appearances, and Harley-Davidson rides. Russia’s male life expectancy currently stands at around 68 years, compared with roughly 76 in the United States and more than 80 across most of Western Europe.
