Along with His War against Ukraine, Putin has Conducted ‘Special Demographic Operation’ against Russian Women, Russia’s Feminist Anti-War Resistance Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 28 – Since he launched his expanded war against Ukraine in 2022, Putin has expanded his “special demographic operation” against the reproductive rights of Russian women, gradually hollowing these rights out rather than banning them all at once, Russia’s Feminist Anti-War Resistance says in new report.

            The report, ‘A Special Demographic Operation’: The Erosion of Reproductive Rights in Russia during Military Times, is available in Russian at femantiwar.org/ru/report-reproductive-rights/ and is discussed at nemoskva.net/2026/09/28/opublikovan-doklad-o-narushenii-reproduktivnyh-prav-zhenshhin-v-rossii/).

              The report’s conclusions recall the famous Russian story, often repeated in Putin’s time, that a frog thrown into boiling water will try to jump out but one put in water that is gradually warmed to boiling will result in the death of the frog given that, according to the Russia Outside of Moscow portal, rights haven’t been abolished but hollowed out.

              Among the examples the report gives of both the changes and popular reaction to them are the following:

·       In 1996, Russian law allowed late abortions for 13 different reasons; now, it allows it only in cases of rape.

·       The right to abortion continues to be maintained in Russian law but is limited in 75 of the more than 80 federal subjects of the country, with induced abortion banned in more than a third of them.

·       Over the last decade, the share of Russians favoring a total ban on abortion has increased from three percent to 10 percent, while the share who consider abortion to be exclusively the decision of women has fallen from 65 percent to 47 percent.

Because these are relatively slow moving changes, they are often ignored in comparison with more dramatic and all-Russian actions; but the result, as the new report says, is that Putin’s “special demographic operation” is just as destructive of human rights as are any of his other “special operations.”