Putin’s War in Ukraine May Open the Way for Civic Partnerships in Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 26 – The Russian government under Putin has long sought to promote marriages as a way to increase the birthrate and has refused to register civic partnerships, in which couples live together and enjoy many of the same rights that married people do as far as government assistance and inheritance and a practice now common in Europe.

            But now, Putin’s war in Ukraine may be changing that; and Duma deputies have introduced a bill to recognize civic partnerships between those servicing in Ukraine and their partners at home, allowing the latter to collect benefits in the event of the death or injury of the former (kommersant.ru/doc/6479680).

            Among the factors behind this effort, Aby Shukyurov says, are changes in marriage and divorce rates among Russians over the last several years, changes that reflect both the impact of the covid pandemic and that of the war in Ukraine (tochno.st/materials/v-2022-godu-v-rossiia-vysla-na-pervoe-mesto-v-evrope-po-cislu-brakov-na-dusu-naseleniia-eto-byl-effekt-mobilizacii-no-on-prodlilsia-vsego-piat-mesiacev).

            Reviewing these changes, the To Be Precise journalist says that there was a five-month-long increase in the number of marriages following Putin’s declaration of a partial mobilization but that it was followed by decreases in the number of marriages and the restoration of the declining trend of earlier years but the number of divorces continued to grow throughout.

            More than that, Shukyurov continues, “if one excludes from the analysis of the period of mobilization, it turns out that for the period of January through August 2022, Russians concluded 3.8 percent fewer marriages for the analogous period of 2021.” That means that “the marriage boom was linked to mobilization” and the fears of injuries and deaths among those sent to fight.

            Significantly, increases in the number of marriages was greatest among the poorest regions and republics of Russia, precises the places from which the Putin regime initially sought to find soldiers to fight its war.  Meanwhile, divorces in these places also shot up, although these may have been of fictional marriages contracted to get government benefits, demographers say. 

            According to Shukyurov, “the marriage boom during the period of mobilization is an indirect indication that for part of the population, the most preferred form of partnership is the civic marriage” because it allows female partners to get benefits if their male partner dies in combat.

            But other demographers suggest that the government’s maternal capital is also playing a role given that many parents would like to receive it but don’t want to have to enter into a marriage to do so. Civic partnerships would allow them to do so and also to reduce the share of Russia children listed as born out of wedlock, 23 percent or more than twice that in Soviet times.