Out of 10 nests in two locations in Kalmykia, alarmingly, 7 contained dead embryos that never hatched. Thus, the breeding success rate here was quite low at 30-40%. Study from the Altai region determined that than occupied nests produced an average of 1.52 fledglings. Within the Ukok Plateau part of the Altais, 31.6% of 19 checked nests were found to be successful. The mean number of fledglings in Mongolia per nest was 0.9 with a fledgling success rate of 42.2%, with no strong annual variations. Nest located on cliffs were more successful in Mongolia, the reasons inferred were greater protection from the elements and from predators, while for those nesting on artificial substrates, the success rate was lower (37.5%). Of 30 failures recorded in Mongolia, 37.5% were due to desertion by the parents, 16.7% due to infertile eggs, 6.7% due to predation (possibly from wolves and common ravens (Corvus corax)), 10% due to starvation, 3.3% from cannibalism and the remaining 26.7% from unknown causes. In the Lake Baskunchak area, several nests were abandoned due to reportedly accidental human intrusions. Study in Xinjiang indicated that about two-thirds of nesting attempts by steppe eagles there appear to fail. In Tuva, the dictating factors of nesting success were considered habitat quality, food supply, disturbance levels, and the ability to rapidly change home ranges as habitats were unnaturally altered via the felling of tall trees. Starvation and dehydration seem to be leading causes of chick mortality in Lake Baskunchak. In the Orenburg region, 41.1% of nestling mortality was due to starvation (after a decline of the little ground squirrel), 38.3% due to steppe fires, human disturbance at just under 10% and more minor causes were parental inexperience and predation. Among active nests in the Karaganda Region, as of 2017, 42.26% were successful and a high rate of 54.46% completely failed, producing 0.61 fledglings per occupied nest and 1.45 per successful nest. Many Karaganda nests were noted to include infertile eggs, while many nests were destroyed in steppe fires. A follow-up study 2 years later found even more severe nest failure rates, with only 28.42% of nests succeeding. The reduction of number of occupied nests here was 18.9% and by number of successful nests, the reduction was 63.9%. The breeding of a large quantity of visibly younger eagles in a breeding population is generally thought to indicate stress on the population of a raptor species. The steppe eagle, in sync with its overall decline, has shown an alarming increase of subadult specimens breeding. In Kalmykia, the number of breeding subadults increased from 1.75% prior to 5.26% during the 2011-2015 period. This is relatively small amount of breeding underaged eagles compared to some other populations. In the Aral and Caspian areas, 39.62% of 58 breeding pairs contained 1 subadult breeding bird of around 3-5 years of age. Similarly, within the Ukok Plateau, only 23.8% of 67 sighted steppe eagle were mature adults, indicating the reduction of mature individuals is similarly severe there. Subadult breeding steppe eagles were also noticed in Mongolia.