Kremlin Ignores Realities of Russian Family Life and Instead, to Boost Birthrates, Uses Highly Offensive and Ineffective Propaganda, Arkhipova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 6 – Moscow’s current demographic policy, especially since Putin launched his expanded war against Ukraine in 2022, Aleksandr Arkhipova says, “ignores the reality of serial monogamy” among Russians, the economic constraints and unstable partnerships they live with and other factors that shape people’s reproductive decisions.”

            Instead, the independent Moscow anthropologist says, the Russian state “attempts to influence reproductive behavior through language and text,” putting up posters telling women their job is to have children and telling doctors to use “pseudo-folksy and patronizingly patriarchal language” (istories.media/opinions/2026/03/06/zai-rozhai-kak-ustroena-demograficheskaya-propaganda/).

            “The solicitous tone of doctors’ conversations and the avoidance of unpleasant words ike abortion,” according to guidance the government provides medical professionals and uses in posters and advertising, “are supposed to encourage women to make ‘the right reproductive choice.’ Otherwise, both the women and the doctor face public shame and moral censure.”  

            “But demographics are difficult to change with slogans alone,” Arkhipova says. “Language can shape social norms but it cannot replace social policy; and when the state tries to compensate for the lack of systemic solutions with symbolic pressure and newspeak, the result is not an increase in the birth rate but an increase in public cynicism.”

            In a detailed article, the social anthropologist documents each of these statements by examining posters, advertising, documents given to medical professionals and teachers, and in-depth conversations with Russian women. Her implicit conclusion is a dark one: Moscow won’t boost the birthrate by slogans alone. Instead, it will breed resistance to propaganda in general.