Authors

Discussion

This paper examines how the Russian political discourse on demographic issues has evolved in the context of the war on Ukraine. The decision to engage in warfare and territorial expansion may seem contradictory to Russia’s current demographic challenges, which have been taken seriously by Putin’s regime (e.g. the sub-replacement fertility and projected population decline). The contradiction between these two imperatives – fighting an increasingly deadly war, and concerns about a shrinking population – has fuelled a new wave of ‘demographic anxiety’ in Russia.

Since the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion, different state and para-state actors have attempted to reframe the public debate, calling for a ‘demographic mobilisation’ that goes (far) beyond the introduction of (supposedly) demographics-related restrictive measures, such as penalising ‘LGBT propaganda’ and banning propagating ‘childfree ideology.’ These calls form a particular backdrop that testifies to the qualitative influence of war on public perception of demographic change.

Drawing on theoretical insights from political demography and illiberalism studies, the paper engages with three types of sources: text collections extracted from the websites of key Russian state institutions (the Russian presidency and the State Duma), selected Russian nationalist ideological writings (e.g. Agentstvo politicheskikh novostei and Zavtra), and semi-structured interviews with experts on Russian demography and nationalist politics. A critical analysis of this material allows for a mapping of changes in how the demographic agenda has been reframed in both official and unofficial/dissent narratives in wartime.