Can you cite that? According to the official statistics the population of the whole region is around 1 032 000 people now and has been around 1 029 000 in 2021, the stats are mirrored in wiki, russian only: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B4%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8 The official source is rosstat.gov.ru but my browser says that there is a potential security risk.