The headline title makes little sense, of course. But Russia is using warfare to address its demographic problem of a shrinking population – by conscripting the people of nearby nations to bolster Russia’s shrinking population. A shrinking population that leaves the country with fewer military age young men.
How many other countries will take this approach?
Now, the Kremlin uses forcefully displaced Ukrainians to refill the population pool with educated, predominantly Slavic, Russian-speaking new citizens. It is no coincidence that Putin repeats that Ukrainians do not exist as a separate nation — they, according to him, should be integrated into Russian citizenship but in a specially designed category as “second-class” citizens. Now, Putin’s changes to Russian citizenship law have introduced a new category of citizens with acquired citizenship.
Surely, such demographic engineering offers a scary vision of the future envisaged by Putin. But as my analysis shows, it can also help us better conceptualize a biopolitical imperialism, i.e. one “in which death is figuratively exported and life imported back.” That is, we can understand this imperialism in its connection with social reproduction — the replenishment of the Russian population itself.
Source: Russia’s War Is a Failed Answer to Its Demographic Crisis
And:
This war has thus become a testing ground for the Kremlin in creating new tools of population management. It is developing a new type of biopolitical imperialism to manage the crisis in social reproduction. In granting and depriving citizenship, it is possible to expand Russia’s borders and its political influence, while also cleansing the internal population in the interest of creating an obedient and silent army of workers, soldiers, and future mothers.
Putin’s anti-woman rhetoric believes all women in Russia should have at least 3 children – but in Russia, most have insufficient incomes to have children. Having lots of children means living in poverty, in Russia.
Russia’s war on Ukraine is how Russia is attempting to fix its low fertility rate and population decline.
How many other countries will try this approach?
