The Slavic component as a percentage of the total population in the USSR declined sharply during the last years of the Gorbachev era, a trend that accelerated in the 1990s as part of a precipitous decrease in the overall population of the newly independent Russian Federation. Together with Andrei Kozyrev, Boris Yeltsin instituted actions intended to reverse the trend—but was unable to do so. This problem was seen as a crisis by Vladimir Putin when he assumed the presidency of the Russian Federation on the eve of the new millennium—and the concern continues to this day. As of this writing, the official population of Russia is approximately 144.7 million, nominally a 1% increase over the past decade—but since this figure now includes Crimea, actually a continued decline.1

Spurred on by conservative and ultra-nationalist segments of Russian society, Putin carried out various policy decisions intended to rectify this downward spiral. Some of these policies were purely domestic, aimed for instance at increasing the birth rate among Russian women.2 Many others, however, involved Russian nationals and persons in the “Russian World” living in the near abroad and beyond—so-called “compatriots” (сограждане) and “fellow countrymen” (соотечественники).

Emphasis on this transnational audience, including specific actions appealing to it, began hesitantly during the Yeltsin years, but gained ever greater importance once Putin assumed the Russian presidency. Such transactional elements support three strategic goals:

• Reversing projections of a dramatic decrease in Russia’s overall population through the first half of the 21st century,3 something Putin believes to be an existential dilemma for the nation;4
• On the domestic political scene, appealing to conservative and ultra-nationalist segments of the population, including members of the LDPR, the CPRF, and the essentially defunct, but nevertheless influential, CRC;5,6 and
• On the international front, advancing Russia’s insistence on its own “sphere of influence,” similar to the Monroe Doctrine in United States history, encompassing most of the former Soviet republics and projecting that influence on the former Warsaw Pact nations in East-Central Europe.

In conjunction with military and diplomatic actions undertaken by Putin and Sergei Lavrov, these population policies contributed to the growing worldwide perception that Russia was following a particularly aggressive course in the international arena.

Global Population Concerns – A New Phenomenon

In terms of population trends, Russia is not alone: in recent months, leaders in economically advanced countries have been coming to the (rather belated) realization that they are “confronting population stagnation and a fertility bust.”7 Further, “[d]emographers now predict that by the latter half of the century or possibly earlier, the global population will enter a sustained decline for the first time.”8 Women are having fewer babies, and the median age of all individuals is increasing, along with increased longevity, resulting in a situation where fewer and fewer working-age people must support more and more retirees—an unsustainable long-term economic situation.9 In the United States, the first results released by the Census Bureau from its 2020 count of the population demonstrate that the “world may be running low on Americans—most crucially, tomorrow’s working-age, childbearing, idea-generating, community-building young Americans.”10 Moreover, “[g]rowth is not just an option but a necessity—it’s not just that we can afford to have more people, it may be that we can’t afford not to.”11

There are two ways to remedy this situation: “make them” or “invite them in.”12 China has chosen the first path. Recent census figures have shown that, after years of rapid growth, the nation’s population “is on the cusp of a historic turning point.”13 Following decades of draconian enforcement of a “one child” policy, the Chinese government completely switched gears, moving first to allowing all married couples to have two children, then announcing a new policy allowing as many as three.14 The reason is simple: in 2020 China’s fertility rate (the average number of children a woman will bear over her lifetime) dropped to 1.3;15 and that figure declined again in 2021 to around 1.15—“the lowest level in modern Chinese history,”16 with births barely outnumbering deaths (10.62 million vs. 10.14 million)—“suggesting the day may be near when China’s populations starts to shrink.”17 Indeed, one observer predicted that the decline was inevitable.18

That day came sooner than anyone had expected. Early in 2023, the National Bureau of Statistics reported that, for the first time since 1961—following three years of famine caused by Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward19—China’s population had fallen by around 850,000, accompanied by the lowest birth rate on record.20 As a result, India’s population now exceeds that of China.21 In combination with the country’s current economic woes,22 particularly its real estate market crash,23 this will lead to dire long-term societal consequences in China: a catastrophic loss of individual retirement savings; disruption of the traditional multi-generational safety net;24 and an increasing retirement age.25

The comparable number for the United States in 2020 was 1.6426—its lowest level in 35 years—a drop of four percent in the birth rate.27 The data for 2021 were even worse,28 although in absolute terms the number of births in the US did increase slightly in 2021.29 But nowhere is the situation as dire as in South Korea, where the fertility rate has sunk to a world record low 0.81.30

It is important to keep in mind that demographers generally consider that the “replacement” fertility rate, independent of any gains through inward migration, is 2.1 babies per woman.

In Russia, the fertility rate fell to just 1.25 in the year 2000, when Putin took office,31 in part because the nation had the highest abortion rate in the world.32 According to official Rosstat figures published in its “Demographic Yearbook” (Демографический ежегодник), that year saw nearly 2,140,000 abortions performed, whereas only 1,270,000 live births were recorded.33 In 2020, the number of abortions performed decreased to approximately 550,000 (compared to about 1,400,000 births). On the other hand, prescriptions for “morning-after pills” (таблетки экстренной контрацепции)—which were not available when Putin first took office—have averaged more than 2,000,000 annually for the past several years.34

When Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, his new emphasis on “traditional values”—what in the West are called “family values”—was motivated at least partially by his concerns over Russia’s intractable declining population. Early in his new term there arose calls on the federal level to limit the rights of individuals with a “non-traditional sexual orientation” in advance of the upcoming 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Prior to that, during Putin’s first two terms in office, “various Russian regions had started to adopt laws banning ‘gay propaganda.’”35 Despite his obvious dislike for homosexuals and homosexuality on moral grounds, Putin disingenuously tied this issue to the country’s population decline.

“Russia is going through a difficult time regarding demographics. Thus, we have a genuine interest in having full-fledged families so that there will be more children.” (А Россия переживает непростые времена с точки зрения демографии. И мы заинтересованы в том, чтобы семьи были полноценные, чтобы детей было больше.)36

Thus, it was not surprising that in 2013 the State Duma passed federal laws ostensibly outlawing “gay propaganda.” However, Putin explicitly denied that the laws were directed against “individuals with a non-traditional sexual orientation.” As reported by TASS,

In his words, the law that was adopted regarding gay propaganda was intended to improve the demographic situation in the country and will not negatively impact the conduct of the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. (По его словам, принятый закон о гей-пропаганде направлен на улучшение демографической ситуации в стране и он не скажется негативно на проведении сочинской Олимпиады в 2014 году.)37

Similarly, calls to limit abortions began hesitantly during Putin’s third term as president, with Duma deputies from the Samara oblast proposing that abortion be excluded from the national health service’s list of covered procedures, and in 2016 Patriarch Kirill supported a national petition of churchgoers to ban all abortions,38 comparing abortion to drug addiction as a social evil.39 At the time, Putin opposed the idea, which he recognized as being very unpopular.40 Nevertheless, in 2019, Kirill proposed outlawing abortion explicitly as a way to increase Russia’s population.41 In 2021, he again proposed limiting abortions as one way to improve the nation’s demographics,42 but the Duma rejected the idea.43 Just recently, however, in discussions with Duma deputies, the Church proposed requiring a husband’s permission before a woman is allowed to have an abortion;44 and in June 2023 the Duma called upon the Ministry of Health to ban medically induced abortions (медикаментозные аборты) in private clinics, insisting on stringent government monitoring of the situation45 as a means to “support families” and “increase the birth rate.”46

Russia’s fertility rate did improve over time, as Putin instituted dramatic programs designed to encourage more women to have more children, but recently the situation has become dramatically worse—and the trend is not encouraging. According to official figures released by Rosstat, the “natural decline in population” (естественная убыль населения) of nearly 260,000 in 2019 was “massive” (масштабная)—the steepest in eleven years,47 but the figures for 2020 were even worse, as Russia’s total population decreased by more than one-half-million, the sharpest drop in fifteen years.48 Yet another negative record was set in 2022, when the nation’s population “shrank by a record average of 86,000 people a month—eclipsing the previous record set in 2002.” Indeed, “Russia’s population decline has almost doubled since 2021 and nearly tripled since 2020.”49

Moreover, the fertility rate, which had already dropped back to 1.50 in 2020, is now expected in 2023 to plummet to the 2000 level—or even lower—due to the combined impacts of the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine.50 In fact, Rosstat reported a 10% drop in the birth rate year over year between June 2021 and June 2022, setting a new “anti-record” (антирекорд).51 Furthermore, the introduction of mandatory covid vaccination led to a precipitous drop in the birth rate over a nine-month period.52 The situation is so bad that Moscow’s Higher School of Economics has concluded that Russia’s “population is expected to decline even under the most favorable scenarios of birthrates and mortality.” In the “worst-case scenario,” HSE predicts that by the year 2100 the nation’s population would drop by more than 50% to only 67.4 million people.53

Historically, the United States has chosen a different strategy to increase its population, one based on the notion that it is a “nation of immigrants.”54 (China, on the other hand, attracts almost no immigrants.) Over many decades the United States has taken in more immigrants than any other country. For instance, in 2015—counting “lawful permanent resident status” only—the country accepted more than one million migrants.55 Additionally, it has traditionally also been the top refugee resettlement country.56 According to the United Nations refugee agency, the United States has the world’s largest resettlement program. Since 1975, the country has accepted more than three million refugees, including nearly 85,000 in fiscal year 2016.57

Although the attitude shifted dramatically under the Trump administration, immigration has always been the “secret weapon” in America’s economic prosperity: as the “land of opportunity,” the country has historically attracted young, ambitious, and hard-working individuals intent on making a better life for themselves and their families. For instance, in the latter third of the nineteenth century business leaders and clergy in the sparsely populated frontier states that now comprise the US Midwest actively recruited immigrants from northern Europe.58 In Iowa—where more than 13,000 men had been killed during the Civil War59—the State Board of Immigration developed and translated into Danish, Dutch, German, and Swedish a 95-page description of the state for distribution overseas.60 As a result, the foreign population in Iowa grew from less than 21,000 in 1850 to just under 324,000 in 1890.61 In Minnesota, German immigrants recruited by the Reverend Francis Xavier Pierz, a Slovenian missionary, settled throughout many areas of the state.62 Germans dominated broad swaths of rural Minnesota, comprising in the 1880s more than 90% of the population in many townships.63 So pervasive was the immigrant culture in the Midwest that even as late as the 1950s it was not uncommon for children entering public school to have no English capability whatsoever.64

Indeed, “[i]mmigration is a force that has bolstered the American population, and boosted the economy, bringing a younger work force that is helping support a growing older population.”65 It is estimated, however, that legal immigration has been cut almost in half since Donald Trump took office in 2017.66 The US Census Bureau had projected that “the number of immigrants. . . would increase by 1.4 million from July 2017 to July 2019.” Instead, it climbed by a net of only 400,000.67

Canada, faced with the identical situation—an aging work force and an inadequate number of workers for the available jobs—has taken a diametrically opposite path, doing everything it can to attract immigrants. For one thing, it has a Ministry of Immigration within the executive branch of the federal government specifically tasked with addressing the issue.68 Its most recent action was to announce a program designed to attract nearly 1.5 million immigrants over the 2023-2025 timeframe.69

Economically, the situation in the United States has already become a significant concern in business circles. Accordingly, the US Chamber of Commerce, whose members enthusiastically supported the candidacy of Donald Trump in 2016, now faces the impacts from one of his most significant achievements. In 2021, Neil Bradley, chief policy officer for the Chamber, offered the following comment:

In addition to securing the border, we should be focusing on how to secure avenues for more legal immigration. For a whole host of communities all across the United States, immigration will determine whether the local economy will continue to grow. . . .”70

Increasing the labor supply is also seen as a remedy for the inflation spike that afflicted the US economy after Covid restrictions were relaxed.71 Nor has the situation improved. A May 2023 story posted on the Business Insider website carried a very explicit epigraph:

Two simple words: more immigrants. America needs more workers.72

That said, on the opposite side of the ledger, life expectancy in the United States has dropped in recent years, in large part due to the opioid crisis: “Over 47,600 Americans died of an opioid-related overdose in 2017.”73 In 2019 that number increased to more than 70,000,74 resulting in a small decline in overall life expectancy. It has only gotten worse: in the 12-month period ending in April 2021, more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths were recorded in the United States.75   For the 12-month period ending December 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, reports a total of 106,719 deaths due to the use of illegal drugs.76 In June 2023, the American Medical Association stated that “the nation’s drug overdose and death epidemic continues to worsen.”77 According to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, “drug overdose deaths are up 30% year-over-year.”78

This problem was exacerbated by the Coronavirus pandemic: in July 2021 CNBC reported that, primarily as a result of Covid-19, average life expectancy in the United States plummeted in 2020 by an unprecedented 1.5 years,79 and it declined even further the following year, reaching the lowest it has been since 1996.80

Russia’s Population Concerns – A Long-Standing Issue

While Russia is not unique, it finds itself in an anomalous situation. With random exceptions—including Gorbachev’s effective, but politically disastrous, anti-alcohol campaign and the nation’s economic boom during the first decade of this century, resulting from sustained, historically high prices for petroleum exports—Russia has experienced a declining population since at least 1980, in part a consequence of rising infant mortality in previous years.81 Existing demographic problems inherited by Yeltsin and the newly independent Russian Federation were exacerbated by uncontrollable inflation (which created food insecurity even in Moscow and St. Petersburg), environmental degradation throughout the country,82 as well as by a backward public health system,83 particularly in rural areas. As a consequence, from 1992 to 2009 the population fell by nearly 7 million, due in part to the fact that more than six million people have left Russia since the 1980s.84 To some extent, inward migration from the other former Soviet republics did serve as a mitigating circumstance.85

During that period there were approximately three deaths for every two births.86 A deeper long-term obstacle was the fact that “very few children were born during the crisis years of the 1990s.”87 “Births depend on the number of women who reach childbearing age”;88 and with fewer such women in the country having, on average, fewer children each, prospects for reversing the direction were dismal. In this context, Putin was rightly proud of the fact, which he announced during his Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly in December 2012, that:

For the first time in our country’s recent history, natural population growth has been posted for five months in a row: the birth rate has finally started to exceed the death rate. . . . In the past four years life expectancy in Russia has grown by almost 2.5 years—a good sign—and now exceeds 70 years. (Впервые за всю новейшую историю нашей страны мы пять месяцев подряд фиксируем естественный прирост населения—рождаемость стала превышать смертность. . . . Сегодня продолжительность жизни в России за последнее четырёхлетие выросла почти на 2,5 года—это хороший показатель—и превысила 70 лет.)89

Putin clearly sees the population issue as a matter of national security on economic, military, and political grounds.

Commenting on this situation in 2012, Valery Elizarov, a demographer at Moscow State University, predicted that, barring significant changes in Russia’s immigration policy, “the working-age population is likely to decrease by about one million a year over the next decade.”90 Thus, despite Putin’s best efforts, Russia nevertheless faces “the certainty of long-term. . . demographic decline.”91 In fact, the situation did not improve significantly: in 2020 Putin himself reported to the Federal Assembly that the official fertility rate as of 2019 was only 1.5.92

One perhaps unanticipated consequence was the politically unpopular 2018 decision to raise the retirement age in the country by five years.93 (Whatever else is true, such a decision instantaneously increased the number of working-age individuals in the country going forward.)94

To put this socio-political situation in perspective, it is important to realize that—surprisingly to many—Russia is already one of the world’s leaders in accepting immigrants. In fact, with twelve million immigrants, Russia ranks fourth—just behind Saudi Arabia and Germany with thirteen million.95 Russia’s willingness to accept so many migrants has been driven largely by two factors—its “rapidly growing economy” through the Medvedev years and “the declining working-age population.”96 Indeed, according to one estimate, Russia has the second highest foreign-born (immigrant) population in the world.97 Which, it would seem, should go a long way toward reversing the population decline. To a certain extent, of course, it does, since without this flow of new residents, all of the demographic trends would be significantly worse.

However, other facts would seem to counteract the impact of immigration. First of all, it is estimated that at least 20 million—and perhaps as many as 30 million—ethnic Russians live outside the borders of the Russian Federation,98 including seven million who were born abroad, have either one or two Russian parents, and have never spent any length of time in Russia.99 As of mid-2015, more than three million Russian migrants lived in Ukraine (1.9 million) and Kazakhstan (1.2 million) alone.100 Despite Putin’s best efforts and some sporadic success, the vast majority of these people have had no interest in moving to (or back to) Russia. For most of them, life and the standard of living they enjoy in the countries where they currently live—even as non-citizens—seem much better than the life and standard of living they were likely to experience were they to move.

In contrast, emigration from Russia peaked at around 200,000 per year during the economic crisis of the latter Yeltsin years (1997 ̶ 1999) but declined considerably through Putin’s first two terms as president and Medvedev’s one term, reaching a low of about 25,000 in 2010. However, starting with the Bolotnaya protests in late 2011 and continuing at least through the Crimean crisis and the economic downturn that began in 2013, the number of emigrants increased dramatically, reaching 350,000 in 2015.101

Nor are these people with so-called “low measured skills.”102 According to Vladislav Inozemtsev, “former Russians” in the United States are, on average, better educated and earn almost 40% more than natural-born Americans. At least 10,000 émigrés “work as scientists and professors in American and European universities and research centers.”103 Equally disheartening, from Putin’s perspective at least, in 2019 the Levada Center reported that more than half of all Russians 18 ̶ 24 years of age would like to emigrate104—exactly the “working-age, childbearing, idea-generating, community-building” young people a country needs to thrive.

There is yet another difficulty facing Russian leaders—one that is seldom, if ever, mentioned in public. Whereas the cohort of people who have emigrated from the country over the past 40–45 years are predominantly of Slavic ethnicity or Russian-speaking Jews, the vast majority of in-migrants have come from Central Asia (the “Stans” as they are known colloquially in the West) or the Caucasus region. And, predominantly, they are Muslim. Thus, the proportion of “Europeans” or “whites”—as perceived in Russia—compared to all the others is trending in the direction of the latter. With a generally declining birth rate among the European portion of society and a generally increasing birth rate among the Asians, it is likely that by 2040 or 2050 the country will have become a Muslim-majority nation—much to the consternation of Russia’s ultra-nationalist faction.105 (The United States faces a similar problem—losing its white majority status—for a similar reason.)106 As a partial counterbalance, in his 2012 Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly, Putin recommended establishing “federal grants for the implementation of programmes for the legal, social and cultural adaptation of immigrants” (бюджетные гранты для реализации программ по правовой, социальной, культурной адаптации мигрантов)107 in the hope of inculcating greater knowledge and respect for Russian culture.

Russia’s support for fiercely nationalist (read: anti-immigration) political leaders and parties throughout the world is well attested. In particular, Putin has supported Victor Orban, President of Hungary, and Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front in France.108 It is hardly astonishing, therefore, that a recent study in the Harvard International Review drew parallels between white nationalism in the United States and Russia.109 According to the author:

With Russian President Vladimir Putin serving as a beacon of hope for many white supremacists in the United States, it comes with little surprise that there are connections between the nationalist groups of both of these countries.

For example, an “extreme right, white supremacist militant organization” based in St. Petersburg, Russia, called the Russian Imperial Movement110 collaborates with similar groups in the West. Reportedly, terrorists from Western Europe have received training at RIM paramilitary camps.111 According to Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the Moscow-based SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, Russian authorities knowingly tolerate RIM’s paramilitary camps.112

The organization’s US connections go back to 2017, “when RIM officials visited US white nationalist Matthew Heimbach,” who would go on to be one of the organizers of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.113 Another ultra-nationalist, Richard Spencer—president of the white supremacist think tank National Policy Institute—has called Russia the “sole white power in the world.”114 In addition, it has been reported that some arch-conservatives in the United States have converted to Orthodox Christianity, “using the religion to spread white nationalist views.”115

This affinity should not, perhaps, be surprising: despite McCarthyism in the 1950s and the associated slogan “Better Dead than Red,” Mikhail Zygar contends that “[s]ince the days of the Soviet Union, Moscow has always found common ground with the Republicans, but not with the Democrats.”116

When Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022, Trump and several right-wing commentators praised Putin,117 and Conservative personalities in the United States began spreading Russian disinformation over the airwaves.118 The most prominent of these personalities, Tucker Carlson, formerly of Fox News, is widely quoted in Russian media and has openly supported Russia since the onset of hostilities—to the point of echoing Putin’s claim that the invasion of Ukraine was taken in self-defense.119

Immediately after the start of the invasion, The Guardian claimed that Putin had “morphed into a far-right savior” in the United States. His strong-man image and disdain for liberals “has turned him into a hero for white nationalists.” 120

Once the war began, many of the most outspoken Republican politicians openly supported Putin.121 Remarkably, according to YouGov even before the invasion Republicans nationwide had a more positive opinion of the Russian president than they did of leading Democratic Party politicians.122 Max Boot, a columnist for The Washington Post, has written that MAGA Republicans “aren’t solationist”—rather, they are “pro-Putin.”123 Further, The Guardian reported that “House Republican Freedom Caucus members such as Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Scott Perry” were among nearly sixty Republicans who voted against an aid package for Ukraine. Further:

Some of the Kremlin’s most blatant falsehoods about the war aimed at undercutting US aid for Ukraine have been promoted by major figures on the American right, from Holocaust denier and white supremacist Nick Fuentes to ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Fox News star Tucker Carlson, whose audience of millions is deemed especially helpful to Russian objectives.124

More bluntly, Peter Baker—a reporter for The New York Times—was quoted in an interview as saying, “I think there’s a Putin caucus within the Republican Party right now.”125

White supremacism126 has always been a feature of American society, so the backlash against Muslims after 9/11 did not shock many people. What is interesting, however, is the fact the US government response to domestic (white supremacist) extremism is so markedly different than its efforts against international (Islamic) terrorism.127 Not surprisingly, the public response of many white Americans to white terrorism such as the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City OK by Timothy McVeigh,128 the violent anti-Semitic clashes during the 2017 demonstrations in Charlottesville VA, and the January 6, 2021, riots in Washington DC has been muted and almost accepting,129 whereas violence against Muslims after 9/11 and against Asians during the coronavirus pandemic demonstrate growing frustration with the presence on American soil of groups that white America considers “other.”

Following the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol, FBI representatives publicly admitted that insufficient attention had been paid to domestic terrorism. However, such indifference is long-standing and well-documented. According to a 2014 report issued by the International Center for Advocates Against Discrimination (ICAAD), the “U.S. government has failed to protect minority communities from hate crimes through a combination of inadequate data collection, limited training of law enforcement to investigate and document hate crimes, and the failure to devote resources to monitor domestic extremists with supremacist ideologies.”130 Official reporting of hate crime statistics is haphazard at best,131 particularly at the state level.132 For the period 2007–2011, the National Crime Victimization Survey reported an average of 259,700 hate crimes per year (although two in three such crimes are not even reported to police), whereas the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program reported only 7,713 hate crime victims in 2012.133 Moreover, according to official government statistics, for the entire 2005–2019 period, only 1,864 suspects were investigated for the commission of hate crimes by US attorneys.134 According to Daryl Johnson, a former senior analyst at the Department of Homeland Security, in response to a study he authored in 2009135 “DHS made the decision to cancel all of its domestic-terrorism-related reporting and training for law enforcement.” Further, “the Department not only decided to stop all of our work, but they also disbanded the unit, reassigned us to other areas within the office, and then made life increasingly difficult for us.”136 More recently, “[t]he Trump administration rescinded the grants awarded to organizations working to counter white supremacist extremism. Recent news reports indicate that after this year, DHS will dismantle the grant program altogether.”137

Although barely recognized in the West—if at all—the racist leanings among Slavic/European/white residents of Russia are equally long-standing. According to Nikolay Zakharov, Western European intellectuals see Russia as an exemplary racist society.138 Although this situation is viewed as a “sudden development of racist ideologies and practices [that] contrasts with the Soviet ideological legacy of militant anti-racism,”139 the fact of the matter is quite the opposite: anyone familiar with Soviet society knows that Asians were routinely described as “blacks” (черные).140 Or, more succinctly,

The Soviet Union also had its own “orient”—the Central Asian peoples and cultures that were viewed to be culturally backward and inferior to the more advanced Russians.141

Strategic Goals in the Russian Effort to Promote Population Growth

It is in this context that we discuss Russian Federation efforts to expand the percentage of citizens in the country who are of Slavic ethnicity—predominantly Russian, but also Ukrainians and, to a lesser degree, Belarusians. It is significant that for many ethnic Russians—and certainly for Russia’s political leadership—all people of Slavic blood living in Ukraine and Belarus are “Russians” notwithstanding their actual citizenship.

As noted earlier, three goals have been in play throughout the twenty-first century. In addition to increasing the Slavic population in Russia, these goals include appealing to the conservative and nationalist leanings of a significant portion of the citizenry and advancing the Russian Federation sphere of influence in the near abroad.

The Russian World and Nationalist Politics

In 1993, Gennady Zyuganov—leader of the recently rehabilitated Communist Party (now of the Russian Federation rather than the USSR)—attempted to expand the Party’s popularity during the upcoming Duma elections by (a) advocating a mixed private/public sector response to social “safety net” issues such as housing and medical care, along with (b) a direct appeal to conservative elements in Russian society:

You cannot talk about the country’s revival when the values established throughout its history and its national icons are being trampled on.142

According to Zyuganov, the program of the reformers was “not just that of overthrowing socialism but of destroying a thousand-year-old state”—the nation’s “historical memory.”143

With this and similar statements Zyuganov directed his appeal to adherents of Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and the CRC/Congress of Russian Communities (КРО: Конгресс русских общин)—an arch-conservative bloc (фракция) founded by Dmitry Rogozin and Alexander Lebed.144 As described by Marlène Laruelle,

A few months after the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, the nationalist Congress of Russian Communities. . . emerged as the first movement seeking to defend Russians abroad.145

The intellectual foundations for the CRC can be seen in the writings of Soviet-era historian Lev Gumilev—whom Charles Clover146 has called “the standard for a generation of hardliners in Russia”—and Igor Shafarevich, a regular contributor to the ultra-conservative newspaper Den’ whom Arkady Ostrovsky147 has identified as “one of the ideologists of Russian nationalism.” Gumilev was an anti-Semitic, anti-Western historian; Shafarevich, a well-respected mathematician, was a rabidly anti-Semitic nationalist.148 Interestingly, as Russia’s demographic issues began to overshadow the Jewish question in Shafarevich’s thinking, he turned his attention (also his wrath) toward the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Nor was the thrust of Zyuganov’s campaign rhetoric lost on Yeltsin or his Foreign Minister, Andrei Kozyrev. Kozyrev stated his “hope” that, throughout the entire post-Soviet space, “force will never be used except jointly—to defend the interests of our compatriots” (никогда не будет использоваться сила иначе, как совместно—для защиты интересов наших соотечественников).149 Kozyrev expressed Russia’s displeasure as follows:

Speaking yesterday at a meeting of the Foreign Policy Council, Andrei Kozyrev characterized as unsatisfactory the status of the Russian-speaking population in a number of countries in the near abroad. This conclusion, in the Minister’s opinion, follows in particular from data regarding the growing number of migrants into Russia. (Выступая вчера на заседании Совета по внешней политике, Андрей Козырев признал неудовлетворительным положение русскоязычного населения в ряде стран ближнего зарубежья. Этот вывод, по мнению министра, следует, в частности, из данных о растущем числе мигрантов в Россию.)150

Kozyrev warned the newly independent states of possible consequences:

Moreover, there may be cases when the “use of direct military force will be needed to defend our compatriots abroad.” (Более того, в некоторых случаях “необходимо применение и прямой вооруженной силы.”)151

Kozyrev, of course, was following the lead of President Yeltsin, who consistently championed the rights of Russia’s “fellow countrymen.” In 1994, Yeltsin stated:

Wherever they may live, our fellow countrymen must feel that they are fully equal citizens with all their rights. (Везде, где бы они ни проживали, наши соотечественники должны чувствовать себя пол­ноправными и равноправными гражданами.)152

Given Yeltsin’s precarious situation in 1994, following the 1993 dissolution of the Duma and the attack on the “White House” that nearly precipitated a civil war, the Russian president was particularly cognizant of the need to placate the most conservative forces in the country. Accordingly, he returned to the status of Russian speakers in the Baltics in each of his last three presidential addresses to the Federal Assembly:

1997: The status of the Russian-speaking population in Estonia, Latvia, and a number of other countries is of special concern. Their leaders should clearly understand that we want good relations with our neighbors, but we will never let the legal rights of our fellow countrymen languish in oblivion. (Особое беспокойство вызывает положение русскоязычного населения в Эстонии, Латвии и ряде других государств. Их руководители должны ясно понимать: мы за добрые отношения с соседями, но никогда не предадим забвению законные права соотечественников.)153

1998: An important element in our Baltic policy remains concern for implementation of the legal rights of our fellow countrymen in other countries. (Важным элементом нашей балтийской политики остается забота о реализации законных прав соотечественников за рубежом.)154

1999: Russia’s policy to defend the legal rights of our fellow countrymen remains unchanged. We have not taken off our agenda the problem of discrimination against the Russian-speaking population in Latvia and Estonia. (Курс России на защиту законных прав наших соотечественников остается неизменным. Мы не снимаем с повестки дня проблему дискриминации русскоязычного населения Латвии и Эстонии.)155

Thus, it is natural that Vladimir Putin would continue to appeal to the conservative elements of Russia’s population in this manner throughout his tenure at the helm of the country. In his 2001 address to the Federal Assembly, Putin stated:

There is one more problem that I am simply obligated to mention from this podium—that is defending the rights and interests of Russian Federation citizens (and) our fellow countrymen in other countries. (Еще одна проблема, о которой просто обязан сказать с этой трибуны—это защита прав и интересов российских граждан, наших соотечественников за рубежом.)156

In 2004, Putin mentioned as one of the nation’s most important foreign policy issues the “effective defense of the rights of our fellow countrymen in other countries.” (эффективная защита прав соотечественников за рубежом)157 But it was his statement in 2005 that generated significant commentary around the globe:

Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the most significant geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our [fellow countrymen] and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself. (Прежде всего следует признать, что крушение Советского Союза было крупнейшей геополитической катастрофой века. Для российского же народа оно стало настоящей драмой. Десятки миллионов наших сограждан и соотечественников оказались за пределами российской территории. Эпидемияраспада к тому же перекинулась на саму Россию.) 158

Putin emphasized his personal commitment to this issue when he greeted delegates to the October 2006 “World Congress of Compatriots Living in Other Countries” (Всемирный конгресс соотчественников, проживающих за рубежом) in St. Petersburg.

I should say, first of all, that collaborating with the diaspora—supporting and defending the rights of our compatriots—is one of our national priorities. This approach is dictated by the logic of our country’s development. (Должен сразу сказать, что взаимодействие с диаспорой, поддержка и защита прав соотечественников являются одним из наших национальных приоритетов, и такой подход продиктован логикой развития нашей страны.) 159

Therefore, it was hardly a surprise to Kremlin watchers when Putin spoke so aggressively in his February 20, 2007, speech at the 43rd Munich Security Conference during the last year of his second term as President, where he openly criticized the United States regarding its striving for a unipolar world.

As a side note, it is interesting that Dmitry Medvedev, in his four presidential addresses to the Federal Assembly, never once mentioned “fellow countrymen” or “compatriots.”160

As Kozyrev before him, Sergei Lavrov—Putin’s foreign minister since 2004—has complemented the President’s approach to this issue. Not only did Lavrov deliver major speeches at conferences devoted to Russia’s fellow countrymen in 2011, 2012 (twice),161 and 2013, in a March 2012 presentation he announced the formation, by Presidential Decree, of a “Foundation for Support and Defense of the Rights of Fellow Countrymen Living in Other Countries” (Фонд поддержки и защиты прав соотечественников, проживающих за рубежом)162 that was created to conduct “monitoring of the status of our fellow countrymen in the lands where they are living, providing them legal and organizational assistance in the event their rights are violated.” (мониторинг положения соотечественников в странах проживания, оказания им правовой и организационной помощи в случаях нарушения их прав)163

In September of that year Lavrov specifically challenged Estonia, NATO, and the entire European Union over the status of Russian-speaking residents in Estonia who, as “non-citizens,” were not eligible to vote in local elections. Appearing at MGIMO,164 Lavrov had this to say to its students:

In our conversations with the Estonian government, in our conversations with the European Union, we will not turn a blind eye to violations of the obligations set forth in the “European Convention on Human Rights” and the “European Convention on Regional Languages [and Languages of National Minorities].” The most significant problem in our relations with the Baltic states is the “non-citizenship” problem. (Мы не будем в диалоге с правительством Эстонии, в диалоге с Евросоюзом закрывать глаза на нарушение обязательств Европейской конвенции о правах человека, Европейской конвенции о региональных языках. Крупнейшая проблема в наших отношениях с прибалтийскими государствами — это проблема “негражданства.”)165

Furthermore, in October at the second 2012 fellow countrymen conference, following a video presentation by Putin himself, Lavrov drew a direct connection between the members of his audience and the “Russian World”:

Russian President V. V. Putin emphasized the great significance that the leadership of the country attaches to strengthening relationships with our fellow countrymen in other countries and consolidating the Russian World, which consists of many millions of people. (Президент Российской Федерации В.В. Путин подчеркнул большое значение, которое руководство страны придает укреплению отношений с соотечественниками за рубежом, консолидации многомиллионного Русского мира.)166

There are four additional statements by Vladimir Putin that should be mentioned in this discussion. The first appears in his 2012 Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly, cited above. In this speech, Putin turned to history and an understanding of nationalism that was “more militant than the ‘strikingly pragmatic’ tone in his first term.”167 Much of this new orientation aligns with and was drawn directly from the writings of Russian ultranationalists.168

Who will take the lead and who will remain outsiders and inevitably lose their independence will depend not only on the economic potential, but primarily on the will of each nation, on its inner energy, which Lev Gumilev termed “passionarity”: the ability to move forward and to embrace change. (Кто вырвется вперёд, а кто останется аутсайдером и неизбежно потеряет свою самостоятельность, будет зависеть не только от экономического потенциала, но прежде всего от воли каждой нации, от её внутренней энергии; как говорил Лев Гумилёв, от пассионарности, от способности к движению вперёд и к переменам.)169

This was a direct challenge to any former Soviet republics that might reject Russia’s claim to a sphere of influence.170 The term “passionarnost” was coined by Gumilev, an exponent of nationalism and what came to be called Neo-Eurasianism. Drawing on Gumilev’s work, Clover describes “passionarity” as “a quantifiable measure of the mental and ideological energy at the disposal of a given nation at a given time.”171 By invoking Gumilev and passionarity, Putin was sending a clear—if “coded”—message. As Clover has written:

[A]lmost no one was paying attention to the most important thing in [this speech]. . . . [T]his odd word. . . meant little to the uninitiated; but to those familiar with the conservative theories of nationalism that have made dramatic inroads into Russian politics. . . , it indicated a lot. It was a classic Kremlin signal, what is known in U.S. politics as a “dog whistle,” used to communicate to certain groups a message that only they could hear.172

Next is his March 2014 speech justifying the annexation of Crimea, in which Putin spoke directly to the “residents of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol” in the following manner:

It was you who decided Crimea’s future. . . . It is at historic turning points such as these that a nation demonstrates its maturity and strength of spirit. The Russian people showed this maturity and strength through their united support for their fellow countrymen. (Это именно вы решили судьбу Крыма. . . . Именно в такие переломные исторические моменты проверяется зрелость и сила духа нации. И народ России показал такую зрелость и такую силу, своей сплочённостью поддержал соотечественников.)173

In 2016, Putin issued a decree announcing a revision of the nation’s Conceptual Design of the Russian Federation Foreign Policy (Концепция внешней политики Российской Федерации),174 in which nearly two pages within a section entitled “International Humanitarian Collaboration and the Rights of Man” (Международное гуманитарное сотрудничество и права человека) are devoted to protecting the rights of Russian speakers wherever they may live and “developing on the intergovernmental level cultural and humanitarian connections among the Slavic peoples.” (развивать на межгосударственном уровне культурные и гуманитарные связи славянских народов)

Finally, within the span of two weeks in July 2021, there appeared a revised Russian Federation National Security Strategy (Стратегия национальной безопасности Российской Федерации)175 and an article signed by Putin entitled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” (Об историческом единстве русских и украинцев) that many foreign observers consider to be a scandalous statement of the affinity between Russians and Ukrainians. Remarkably, this article was promulgated in Russian, English, and Ukrainian.176

The National Security Strategy document states that “Russian Federation citizens and fellow countrymen living in other countries are subjected to discrimination and open persecution.” (Российские граждане и соотечественники, проживающие за рубежом, подвергаются дискриминации и открытому преследованию.) Further, the document promises to “provide support to fellow countrymen living in other countries to exercise their rights, including the right to maintain their common Russian cultural identity and to ensure protection of their interests.” (оказание поддержки соотечественникам, проживающим за рубежом, в осуществлении их прав, в том числе права на сохранение общероссийской культурной идентичности, обеспечение защиты их интересов)177 This in a document devoted to the security interests of the Russian Federation.

Without going into great detail, in the article “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” Putin asserts that Russians and Ukrainians are one people—joined by history, culture, and religion—and that Ukrainian sovereignty is a fabrication of the Western powers after World War I. The thrust of this essay echoed what Putin had said in his 2014 speech justifying the annexation of Crimea and expounding his notion of a mythical, transnational Russia:

Everything in Crimea speaks of our shared history and pride. This is the location of ancient Khersones, where the blessed Prince Vladimir was baptized. His spiritual feat of adopting Orthodoxy predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilization and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine, and Bielorussia. The graves of Russian soldiers whose bravery brought Crimea into the Russian empire are also in Crimea . . . we are in fact one people. Kiev is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus′ is our common source, and we cannot live without each other. (В Крыму буквально всё пронизано нашей общей историей и гордостью. Здесь древний Херсонес, где принял крещение святой князь Владимир. Его духовный подвиг – обращение к православию – предопределил общую культурную, ценностную, цивилизационную основу, которая объединяет народы России, Украины и Белоруссии. В Крыму – могилы русских солдат, мужеством которых Крым .. . был взят под Российскую державу . . . мы фактически один народ. Киев – мать городов русских. Древняя Русь – это наш общий исток, мы всё равно не сможем друг без друга.)178

As it turned out, all of these steps were to no avail, as Russia’s population decline simply worsened. As recently as last summer, The Moscow Times had this to say: “Russia continues its freefall into the demographic abyss.” [Россия продолжает свободное падение в демографическую пропасть.] 179

However, the efforts Putin had made in order to “turn the tide,” so to speak, were substantial, notwithstanding the fact that ultimately they were unsuccessful.

Passports

So, how did Russia attack its population decline and, simultaneously, advance its other strategic goals? In a word: PASSPORTS!

This started in 1994, as political leaders in Estonia and Ukraine became alarmed when the Foreign Ministry under Kozyrev’s direction began issuing passports to Russian speakers in Estonia and Crimea.180 As Igor Zavelev noted, dual citizenship “could serve as a convenient source of leverage and influence on the neighboring states and as an instrument for implementing a Russian policy of domination and hegemonism.”181 In this regard, Gail Lapidus commented that

efforts to claim for Moscow the right to intervene on behalf of loosely defined compatriots in neighboring states, by force if necessary, were firmly rebuffed by various international figures who pointedly compared them to similar efforts by Nazi Germany in regard to the Sudetenland and prewar Poland. Indeed, the resistance of the independent states to Russian governmental pressure for dual citizenship was motivated precisely by a determination to avoid providing Russia with a legal basis for intervening in their affairs.182

Starting in 2002 during Putin’s first term as president, Russia began issuing passports to residents of the breakaway Georgian provinces Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia. By 2008, nearly 85% of the population (out of approximately 300,000 residents) in these two provinces had received Russian Federation passports.183 Not surprisingly, when the conflict between Russia and Georgia erupted, protecting the interests of Russian citizens became the primary justification for Russia’s actions.

There followed, in recent years, these events:

• Moldova: passports were issued to nearly half of the population of Transdniestria (approximately 225,000 people);184
• Crimea: in excess of one million passports have been issued since 2014 (more than half of the population); and
• Donbas: between April 2019 and May 2021, more than 525,000 passports were issued to residents of Donetsk and Luhansk, in addition to the tens of thousands of Russian speakers who simply crossed the border into Russia.185

Passport holders in the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces had the ability to vote in the Fall 2021 Russian State Duma elections, either online or by crossing the border on buses into the Rostov region.186 Moreover, in May 2021 Donbas residents were authorized to run in the primaries for the Fall 2021 Russian State Duma elections.187

What has yet to be determined is whether Belarus, with approximately 9.5 million residents, more than 90% of whom speak Russian as their first (or only) language, will merge with Russia into a single nation. Putin certainly has been lobbying for such a change, and the actions taken by Belarus since the onset of full-scale hostilities in February 2022 undoubtedly call that nation’s sovereignty into question.

The Latest Initiative

In 2021 RFE/RL reported188 that Putin had signed a decree concerning civil order and crime prevention, in which a new federal program was announced to repatriate Russians living in other countries.189 As described by RFE/RL:

The Russian Government plans to return a half million “fellow countrymen” to their homeland before 2030. A government decree states that, in order to achieve this goal, representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) will travel to other countries and try to convince people to return. For those who agree to return, funds from the federal budget will pay for their move. (Полмиллиона соотечественников планирует вернуть на родину российское правительство до 2030 года. В постановлении правительства говорится, что для достижения этой цели за границу будут выезжать группы сотрудников МИД и МВД и убеждать людей вернуться. Тем, кто согласится возвратиться, переезд оплатят из федерального бюджета.)

The actual text within this decree, which can be found near the end of the document (page 16 of 17), reads as follows:

Within the regional resettlement programs, activities will be organized involving participants in the Government Program to Assist the Voluntary Resettlement to the Russian Federation of Fellow Countrymen Living in Other Countries, implementation of which envisions a comprehensive approach to resolving issues related to assisting the voluntary resettlement to the Russian Federation of fellow countrymen living in other countries, making it possible for the conscious choice of fellow countrymen living in other countries [to choose] where they will live, work, or study in the future, taking into consideration the socio-economic situation in Russian Federation territorial entities, the scope of government guarantees, and the social support that will be provided to the returnees based on where they choose to live.

Subsidies will be provided to Russian Federation territorial entities from the federal budget within the Program to Provide Government Support to reimburse the expenses incurred by the Russian Federation territorial entities for implementation of the regional resettlement programs.

(В рамках региональных программ переселения организуется работа с участниками Государственной программы по оказанию содействия добровольному переселению в Российскую Федерацию соотечественников, проживающих за рубежом, реализация которой предусматривает комплексный подход к решению вопросов оказании содействия добровольному переселению соотечественников, проживающих за рубежом, в Российскую Федерацию, получения возможности осознанного выбора соотечественниками, проживающими за рубежом, мест своего будущего проживания, работы, обучения с учетом социально-экономического положения субъектов Российской Федерации, объемов государственных гарантий и социальной поддержки, которые предоставляются переселенцу в зависимости от выбранной территории вселения.

Для софинансировання расходов бюджетов субъектов Российской Федерации на реализацию региональных программ переселения за счет средств федерального бюджета субъектам Российской Федерации в рамках Программы предоставляется государственная поддержка в виде субсидий.)

One would be hard pressed to explain how, exactly, repatriating 500,000 ethnic Slavs might contribute to “civil order and crime prevention.” In all likelihood the goal was to hide these initiatives from public scrutiny.190

Conclusion

As we have seen, formal recognition of the émigré situation within the Russian government began under Boris Yeltsin and his Foreign Minister, Andrei Kozyrev. Without question, Russia’s unprecedented step in issuing passports to residents of Estonia and Crimea in the mid-90s caught the attention of the United States, the EU, and—most assuredly—all three Baltic republics. This was understood in Eastern Europe as a direct threat to the security and, perhaps, the very survivability of the former Warsaw Pact nations that just a few years earlier had been freed from Soviet domination. Subsequent events in Georgia and eastern Ukraine more than a decade later did little to ease apprehensions in Eastern Europe, which were confirmed quite clearly upon the onset of Russia’s “special military operation” in February 2022.

However, despite further statements throughout Yeltsin’s time in office, a good case can be made for the belief that his administration just gave this issue “lip service.”191 Indeed, issuing passports may simply have been recognition that the reformers were in retreat nationally, while serving mainly as an attempt to pander to the CRC and the conservative elements that dominated the new Duma, which was elected after the October 1993 crisis.

In contrast, issuing passports to non-citizens of Russia became a significant diplomatic activity under Vladimir Putin. While obviously currying favor with ultra-nationalist elements of society, Putin also used the excuse of protecting the Russian World as a mechanism for projecting his conception of Russia as a mythical, transnational creation with a one-thousand-year history, unbounded by any physical or geopolitical borders.192 Not surprisingly, Putin utilized this mechanism only against those countries in the near abroad that resisted his concept of the Eurasian Economic Union as the embodiment of Russia’s sphere of influence.193

It should be noted, however, that Estonia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine do not allow dual citizenship, nor did Georgia prior to 2018. In those instances, accepting Russian citizenship required renouncing one’s existing citizenship. In general, Latvia and Lithuania do not allow dual citizenship either, but make an exception for members of their diaspora, who can apply for dual citizenship if their home country allows this. Like other “foreigners,” Russian speakers living in these specific countries may apply for citizenship under two conditions: passing a language test and renouncing one’s previous citizenship. In Belarus, the only persons who can hold dual citizenship are minors under the age of eighteen who live in Belarus and have a parent who is a citizen of another country. Of all the nations in the near abroad discussed in this essay, only Moldova allows dual citizenship with no restrictions. Accordingly, from a legal standpoint, most expatriate Russians living in the near abroad were not citizens of the countries in which they lived—nor, in most instances, could they be. Thus, again from a legal standpoint, insisting on protecting their “rights as citizens” was without merit—and may, in fact, simply have been a smokescreen to mask Russia’s international aspirations.

With regard specifically to Ukraine, Putin’s ultimate goal became crystal clear once the war began.

In the final analysis, issuing passports and considering the recipients to be citizens of the Russian Federation has, by itself, increased the Slavic population of the country by approximately two million people— not an insignificant shift in the proportion of Slavs vs. “others.” In the long run, however, this is probably insufficient to turn the tide of what seem to be inexorable demographic trends. Unless Slavic women begin producing—and continue to produce for the next two decades—many more Slavic babies, Russia is doomed to become a Muslim-majority nation, perhaps not as quickly as has been predicted, but inevitably, nevertheless.

Nevertheless, it is obvious that Putin believes drastic methods are needed to restore what he considers to be the appropriate balance within the population of Russia. During his Inaugural speech in 2018, he invoked traditional family values, stating:

We will pay special attention to supporting traditional family values, motherhood and childhood, so that as many wanted, healthy, smart, and talented babies as possible will be born in Russia. It is they—our children—whose task it will be to build our country further, to achieve even greater successes than their parents. To respect and to continue the history of our Fatherland. (Особое внимание уделим поддержке традиционных семейных ценностей, материнства и детства, чтобы в России рождалось как можно больше желанных, здоровых, умных, талантливых малышей. Это им, нашим детям, предстоит строить нашу страну дальше, добиваться еще больших успехов, чем их родители. Уважатьи продолжать историю нашего Отечества.)194

As recently as June 2022, he made the following statement during a speech at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum: “We need to take drastic measures to support families with children. Russia’s future is families with two, three, or more children.” (Нужно принять кардинальные меры по поддержке семей с детьми. Будущее России—семья с двумя, тремя и большим количеством детей.)195

That said, given the fact that Alexander Lukashenko has allowed his country to serve as a base of operations during the course of the war, most observers would say that Belarusian sovereignty has been seriously weakened, if not entirely obliterated. The stationing of Russian troops on the ground in Belarus and the conduct of joint military exercises,196 the use of Belarusian soil as a staging area for the attack on Kyiv197 and, ultimately, Russian airstrikes from Belarus198 all clearly indicated that Belarus had fully been drawn back under Russian domination. As a result, nine and a half million Russian speakers came under Putin’s practical control. This was a major step forward in Putin’s strategic campaign to reunite the Slavic people into a single geopolitical unit. No one should be surprised if this situation led to the formal absorption of Belarus into the Russian Federation. Certainly, such an event—should it come to fruition—would go a long way toward resolving Putin’s initial concern of retaining a Slavic majority among Russia’s citizens.

Putin clearly expected that Russian soldiers would be welcomed in Ukraine with open arms by many of those Slavs, but he was sorely disabused of this notion by the citizenry, including most of the Russian speakers in the country. This fact has frustrated his three primary policy goals: reversing the demographic trends; appeasing the ultra-nationalists; and expanding Russia’s sphere of influence on the international stage.

The consequences have been staggering. According to a recent US government estimate, “Russian military casualties. . . are approaching 300,000. The number includes as many as 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 injured troops.”199 Moreover, since the mobilization was announced in September 2022 approximately 700,000 young professionals have abandoned Russia.200 This is in addition to at least 200,000 young professionals who left the country in the months following the start of hostilities.201 The original cohort consisted primarily of people with a technical or financial background, particularly IT specialists,202 but the mass exodus of draftable men following the September 21, 2022, mobilization was much more diverse. As a result, the number of “eligible bachelors” who might possibly marry someday and raise a family has shrunk by as many as 1,000,000.

Nevertheless, as the saying goes, Putin persisted. He has not been deterred despite the failure of his military strategy, the stresses that Western sanctions have placed on the economy, or the accelerated brain drain. To be certain, of course, he is not without the tools to continue the war indefinitely or ultimately to achieve his military aims. But to the extent that he has focused his government—for more than two decades now—on the demographic crisis facing Russia, the war has not been a resounding success.

In the remainder of this study, we will identify the additional actions taken since the start of the war by the Russian government and by its forces with the goal of increasing the proportion of ethnic Slavs among the population.

Event	Timeline	Description
Mass deportation	ongoing	On May 28, 2022, Kommersant203 reported figures obtained from the Ministry of Defense regarding the number of Ukrainian citizens who had been deported (“evacuated” in the press release) to Russia during the preceding 24 hours. Overall, the MOD reported, more than 1.5 million Ukrainians—including more than 250,000 children—had been relocated to more than 9,500 DP camps (пункты временного размещения—temporary relocation points).
Filtration centers	ongoing	Russian troops have forced hundreds of thousands of Russian speaking Ukrainians into so-called “filtration centers,” where their passports and cell phones are confiscated before they are deported to far-off destinations in Siberia.204 As of September 1, 2022, up to 1.6 million Ukrainians “have been forcibly transferred to Russia or the separatist republics by the Russian authorities.”205
Newborns declared Russian citizens	ongoing	A representative of the new administration in Kherson province told TASS that all babies born in the province since February 24, 2022, are automatically issued Russian passports.206 The same article reported that “in March the UN had expressed fears regarding the forced adoption of Ukrainian children” by Russian families. “Approximately 90,000 children living in orphanages or foster homes in Eastern Ukraine” were impacted.207
Simplified citizenship procedures	March 5, 2022	Putin issued a Decree (Указ)208 that simplified procedures for foreigners and stateless persons from the LPR, DPR, and Ukraine to enter Russia.209
Forced resettlement	March 12, 2022	The Russian government issued Edict (Постановление) № 349 regarding large numbers of persons arriving in Russia under extreme conditions (в массовом порядке).210
Immigration legislation	April 6, 2022	The Duma introduced legislation that would: (a)  fast-track citizenship for Russian speakers currently living in NATO countries; (b) offer citizenship to everyone living in regions that Russia has annexed or overrun militarily; (c)  ease immigration procedures specifically for white Slavic migrants from Ukraine (excluding Tatars and other nationalities).211
Assisting fellow countrymen outside of Russia	May 20, 2022	The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the formation of a new working group that will “provide assistance to fellow countrymen living in other countries who wish to return to their historic Homeland—to Russia.212
Simplified citizenship procedures	May 25, 2022	Putin issued Decree (Указ) № 304—amending Decree № 183, dated April 24, 2019, which simplified immigration procedures for residents in the DPR and LPR—to encompass the Zaporozhe and Kherson provinces in Ukraine.213
Russian citizenship for Ukrainian children	June 30, 2022	According to an article on the Current Time website, “Moscow is introducing new laws that will fast-track Russian citizenship for Ukrainian children and ease adoption procedures for Russian families.”214
Russian citizenship for all citizens of Ukraine	July 11, 2022	Reuters reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed Decree (Указ) № 440 extending a simplified Russian naturalization process to all citizens of Ukraine.215
Refugees	July 24, 2022	TASS announced that since the beginning of the “special military operation” more than 2.8 million “refugees” had “arrived” in Russia from Ukrainian territory and the Donbas.216
Mobilization	September 21, 2022	Putin announced a “partial” mobilization of 300,000 Russians to augment the forces fighting in Ukraine.217
Citizenship for military service	September 24, 2022	Putin signed orders “granting Russian citizenship to any foreign national who signs up to serve a year in the country's military.”218
Citizenship for foreign children	November 1, 2022	Tatiana Moskalkova, Russia’s Commissioner for Human Rights, proposed allowing an ethnic Russian parent residing in another country to obtain, at a consular office in that country, a Russian passport for a child—without requiring the permission of the other parent, even if that person is not an ethnic Russian.219

Late in 2022 there appeared in the Western media a number of articles highlighting the plight of Ukrainian children who had been forcibly removed from the country and sent to Russia for adoption, “re-education,” and permanent re-settlement. One of the first publications to highlight this issue was The New York Times.220 The story was picked up by The Hill, an influential political website.221 Similar stories followed in The Washington Post,222—including an editorial charging the Russians with genocide.223

In February 2023 a major investigative study by Yale University exposed Russia’s “systematic program” for adoption and re-education of Ukrainian children.224 This report resonated throughout the world: articles appeared from Reuters,225 Agence France-Presse (reprinting a story from The Moscow Times),226 Al Jazeera,227 and RFE-RL.228 CNN telecast a story about Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights, who oversaw the adoption program.229 The Washington Post followed up with a second OpEd piece,230 and subsequently linked the policy with Russia’s demographic crisis:

Vladimir Putin may be seeking military solutions to demographic problems. . . . So there’s little hope that Russia’s demographic woes will curtail the threat it poses anytime soon. If anything, Putin’s awareness of the ‘demographic doom loop’ makes him more desperate and more dangerous.231

What followed was historic: on March 17, 2023, The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, who are charged with a war crime for unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children to Russia232 As reported by The New York Times, Lvova-Belova claimed that she is merely “running a humanitarian evacuation of abandoned Ukrainian children.” The ICC, however, “accuses her of abducting them wholesale.”233 Immediately thereafter, both CNN234 and The New York Times235 carried stories about a small number of Ukrainian mothers who had managed to rescue their children and take them back home.

Afterword

Upon receipt of a Call for Papers in March 2021, our research team (авторский коллектив) sent a proposal to Professor Alexander Burak, which he immediately accepted “in principle” subject to the usual academic procedures. Per agreement, a first draft was submitted on 14 August 2021. In response to editorial comments and suggestions, followed by active correspondence and the appearance of relevant new information, several interim drafts were prepared, culminating in submission of what we believed to be a final manuscript early in February 2022. At which point, the world changed.

The basic thrust of the paper that we proposed—describing what we perceive as the three overarching goals of Putin’s tenure as president of the Russian Federation—remains intact. Ever since he returned to the presidency in 2012, Putin has been guided by the pro-Aryan, anti-Semitic, anti-Western writings of the “New-Eurasianist” Alexander Dugin.236 And we do still believe that Putin’s ultimate goal for Russia was, and remains, creation of a new Aryan nation—only this time populated by Slavs rather than Germans.237

But events that have transpired over the past twenty months made our paper seem anachronistic, at best, and tentatively too optimistic, at worst. Accordingly, the version we have now presented has been significantly revised, expanded, and updated. We trust that this version more accurately reflects the current status of the overall situation in Russia.

David Cratis Williams is recently retired Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Florida Atlantic University. His scholarship focuses on argumentation, rhetorical theory, and criticism; he is a recognized authority on Kenneth Burke. His work on Russian political discourse began during a meeting in Russia in January 1992. Marilyn J. Young is the Wayne C. Minnick Professor of Communication Emerita at Florida State University. Her research has focused on political argument with an emphasis on the development of political rhetoric and argument in the former Soviet Union, particularly Russia. She remains an active scholar in retirement. Michael K. Launer is Professor Emeritus of Russian at Florida State University. In 1987 he interpreted for the first group of Soviet scientists visiting the United States following the Chernobyl nuclear accident. A State Department certified technical interpreter, he supported Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Energy assistance programs through 2012.

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RUSSIA SERIES

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RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY, THE RUSSIAN STATE, AND THE RUSSIAN NATION

By David Cratis Williams, Marilyn J. Young, and Michael K. Launer

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The Montréal Review, September 2024

THE RHETORICAL USE OF HISTORICAL ANALOGY IN

PUTIN’S CRIMEA SPEECH

By David Cratis Williams, Marilyn J. Young, and Michael K. Launer

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The Montréal Review, September 2024

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ON THE NATURE OF EUROPEAN CULTURE AND ON ITS RELATIONSHIP TO RUSSIAN CULTURE

By Ivan Kireyevsky

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The Montréal Review, November 2017

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NOTES

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137     Confronting White Supremacy (Part I): The Consequences of Inaction. Hearing before the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the Committee on Oversight and Reform. House of Representatives. One Hundred Sixteenth Congress. First Session. May 15, 2019. Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 2019.

 

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