Biopolitics has seldom been discussed, even though there are experts in the field also in Estonia, among them University of Tartu research fellow Andrei Makarõtšev and a few others. The idea to talk about biopolitics in the Russian context came after Makarõtšev pointed out that Vladimir Putin's regime is busy putting it in practice in Russian society.

In theory, biopolitics is associated with philosopher Michel Foucault who coined the term in the 1970s. Biopolitically speaking, a person's life should be an object of policy and include mechanisms for the execution of power and security. In other words, we are talking about public activities aimed at hygiene, birth rate, mortality, migration and infectious diseases.

It is little wonder that biopolitics resurfaced as a topic of conversation around the time of the coronavirus pandemic. It should be a positive phenomenon as it seemingly covers public activities to foster births, social welfare and public health.

However, here we are dealing with a different kind of biopolitics – leaders busying themselves with shaping humans as biological creatures both socially and physically.

Andrei Makarõtšev said that things became clear to him when Putin let slip his attitude when meeting with the wives and mothers of Russian soldiers killed in the Ukraine war. While the regime leader expressed his condolences for the deaths, he added that it was preferable to drinking oneself to death. For Makarõtšev, that was clearly a biopolitical statement. Death has been given new meaning in Russia, having become a part of its aggressive state of mind as well as a kind of cult.

The Moscow Orthodox Church is adding fuel to the fire by offering the population mass death should things go awry. As put by Patriarch Kirill, any attempt to cause Russia to experience a military defeat could spell the end of humanity... This phrase took the Russian clique's biopolitics to the global level.

Biopolitically speaking, an individual's life has gone from a private matter to a public matter, an object of policy in Russia. A person's body is no longer theirs, it belongs to the state. Considering Russia's cannon fodder tactics in Ukraine – in other words, sending soldiers off to certain death to suppress the enemy using sheer mass – the need arises to keep producing more of these bodies.

Both physically and psychologically. That body must be always and without protest ready to do whatever it is told to do.

And so, the authorities in Russia have started to permeate all facets of a person's life, even the most intimate. To keep up population replacement, women must not get tired of giving birth, and it has been suggested that every woman should aim to have eight children.

Officially, the target is more modest. While Russia currently has a birth rate of 1.41 children per woman, this should grow to 1.8 by 2030, which isn't all that ambitious and even falls below the replacement rate. The plan was included in a May ukase on Russia's national goals. Some Russian politicians have suggested that considering not having children at all should be classified as extremist and come with all relevant legal ramifications.

This leads to another logical conclusion. Birth rates tend to fall when the standard of living goes up. The wealthier a society, the lower its birth rate. Birth rates are falling slower in countries where the standard of living is low or is rising very slowly. Should Russia's standard of living suffer because of the war, it should please the brass through more births. Combating sexual minorities can also be filed under promoting births in Russia.

The regime in Moscow seems to be serious about the psychological side of producing new and obedient bodies in uniform too. After Vladimir Putin's fact-finding and exchange of experience mission to North Korea, Russia decided to start sending children to train there. It is no doubt a brainwashing destination suitable for the Putin regime's goals.

Sure enough, the Russian state youth organization Movement of the First soon unveiled an option of sending children to the Songdowon study camp. The movement itself is under EU and U.S. sanctions for its role in brainwashing children taken out of Ukraine.

For Putin, it is likely the reincarnation of his beloved Young Pioneers organization. Its aim is to shape in children military discipline, following orders and cooperation, coupled with the right attitude toward so-called hostile forces. The movement has its own law, state funding and access to educational institutions.

Efforts led by former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu have seen the opening of over 100 Avangard centers where youths are prepared for military service and given military-patriotic education, including with help from Ukraine front veterans.

Last year, branches of the "Warrior" center started appearing, which now number at least 33, and where schoolchildren and cadets, but also adult volunteers, are trained to be sent to the front lines. Athletes have the separate Soyuz unit, with the participants trained in a higher education institution of Chechen special units.

Children and youths are told that to get ahead in life, they need to exhibit complete political loyalty. These are all methods to help the authorities shape an obedient mass of people who can be sent wherever and against whoever. Some observers have suggested that changing this situation would require a new living environment, a new anthropological type of person, their thinking and behavior. How to do that makes for a whole other problem.

While there were attempts in the Soviet Union to breed a new kind of man, the so-called Homo soveticus, modern Russia is working on a new type of creature we could refer to as Homo putiensis – a creature freed from independent thought and ready to follow whichever orders. That is biopolitics a la Russia.

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