June 21, 2025: The Ukraine War is now in its fourth year with no end in sight. This has become a serious problem for Russia, where popular support for the Special Operation in Ukraine is plummeting. Over a million Russian men have been killed, captured, or deserted because of the war. Millions more have left the country to avoid military service, and certain death in Ukraine. Even before the Ukraine War Russia was facing a population crisis. Since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and Russia lost its empire, the Russian population has declined. It was 148.5 million in 1992 and is currently 143.5 million. Russia has a low birth rate that is not producing enough new Russians to replace those who have died or been killed in Ukraine, or even normal deaths and emigration. Russia sought to solve that problem by encouraging immigration from poor Central Asian nations that were once part of the Soviet Union. Russia needed the workers; the Central Asians needed the jobs. This effort failed when Russia decided it needed more soldiers for the Ukraine War and that was the end of Central Asian migration to Russia.

Seeking another solution, Russia sought to glorify military service in Ukraine and came up with an incentive program called Time of Heroes. This involved organizing special training for veterans, to train them for government jobs. This program immediately ran into problems because many returning veterans were anti-social and a growing number were derelicts, drug addicts or active criminals because all the heroes had been killed. Enough stable veterans were found for the first class of future bureaucrats. Most veterans were not interested in working for a government owned firm or local government. The criminal life was more lucrative and had more use for combat veterans skills. The veterans who had given up usually turned to addictive drugs for relief. Cash payments given to discharged veterans did not last long if the ex-soldier turned to drugs.

Another problem was that Russia eventually emptied its prisons to obtain new soldiers. This worked until reports reached undecided prisoners that joining the army often got you killed. It was safer in prison, which you would eventually be released from. Now the government fears that when the Ukraine War ends, several hundred thousand soldiers will be discharged into a Russian economy that has been ravaged by international economic sanctions and a conversion to mainly military production at the expense of consumer goods. Returning heroes will not be pleased if they become unemployed civilians with few job prospects.

Russia faced this problem before. When the Soviet Union collapsed, so did the economy of the newly independent Russia. It took years for the economy to recover. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left Russia as the largest, wealthiest, and most populous of the fourteen new states that emerged after the demise of the Soviet empire. At first the prospects for the new Russian Federation looked bright. That did not last long because population growth ended in 1993.

Desperate to deal with this problem, Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. While Ukrainians share many characteristics with Russians, like customs, education levels, and similar languages, Russian rule was not wanted. For centuries Ukrainians have held on to their desire for independence. Russian domination, misrule and mismanagement of the economy led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and an opportunity for forty million Ukrainians to finally regain self-rule. That lasted for 23 years before the Russians decided they could solve their declining population problem by rebuilding their empire, starting with the 40 million Ukrainians. Russia initially believed that most Ukrainians would welcome this and ignore their plans to join the European Union and NATO. The Ukrainians disagreed and fought the Russians to a ruinous, for Russia, standstill. Substantial military and economic aid from NATO enabled the Ukrainians to stop the Russians and eventually expel them.

The Russian government then outlawed emigration to avoid military service but has not been able to enforce the new law. All this means that the Russian population is rapidly approaching 138 million and, unless Russia wins or abandons the Ukraine war, the Russian population will continue to shrink. Nearly all the lost men were part of the workforce and so many men are now gone that the Russian economy suffers from a significant labor shortage.

Eventually a growing number of Russian soldiers refused to fight in Ukraine. This led to tense standoffs between reluctant soldiers and their officers who have been told to shoot soldiers refusing to fight. This didn’t go well because the soldiers in question were also armed and inclined to shoot back, or shoot first, and then leave the war. These deserters could not go home because the military police would be waiting for them. Many deserters left the country or went to some remote part of Russia where they would not be noticed or bothered, for a while anyway. With over two million Russian men killed, disabled, deserting the army or fleeing the country, Russia has a growing labor shortage. Importing men from remote parts of Russia with promises of jobs and no forced service in the army did not work. Memories are long when it comes to life and death situations, and the trustworthiness of government promises. By 2025 Russia had an escalating shortage of soldiers and workers. Russia was losing the war because of that, and the economy was limping along because of the labor shortage.

The failure of the Time of Heroes program and a similar effort to indoctrinate high school students also failed. Some of the students were attracted to the pro-war Time of Heroes effort, until internet inquiries revealed the reality of the war. The emergence of the internet in the 1990s was initially seen as a promising new tool by Russian propaganda specialists. It was a false promise because widespread access to the internet meant anyone could make inquiries about new government programs. Deceptive internet commentators, often working for the Russian government, were eventually revealed to be false prophets of whatever idea or program the government was promoting.

The Time of Heroes turned into the Time of Zeroes and left Russian propagandists looking for another way to deceive Russians in general and military age men in particular.