"Russia is changing, Europe is changing, and the world is changing. We have many problems, but there is a clear competitive advantage over other countries. This is what life shows," Putin stated in a televised interview on Russia's Vesti v Subbotu weekly news program.
He drew attention to the influx of migrants and the growth of the population in Russia.
Putin cited as an instance the situation in Lithuania, where over 3.5 million people used to live in 1985–1990, while the current population is about one-third less, according to the census data.
"The situation is even worse, for example, in Latvia. It is slightly better in Estonia. But the outflow of population is huge, simply huge," Putin added.
In 2013, Russia recorded its first year of natural population growth since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, with the number of births exceeding the quantity of deaths by margin of 24,013.
