After failing to boost Russia’s fertility rate via pronatalist policies and to extend life expectancies, Putin “seems to have concluded that the only way to achieve a sizable increase in his population is by annexing and subordinating ethnically and culturally related neighbors, by force if necessary.”

President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that the large number of men signing up for the Russian military voluntarily was turning the tide of the Ukraine war in Moscow's favour and said he hoped his army would keep advancing.