A plan of the pension reform was unexpectedly announced by Dmitry Medvedev's Second Cabinet on June 14, 2018, which was the opening day of the 2018 FIFA World Cup hosted in Russia.

[4] During the tournament, any demonstrations were prohibited but from July 2018 thousands of Russians expressed their negative opinion on the planned reform of the pension system.

An intention to hike the national retirement age and the more so a final decision to launch the reform have drastically downed the rating of the president Vladimir Putin and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev in Russia.

[6][7] On June 14, 2018, the Russian government announced the plan of the pension reform presuming a substantial increase of the retirement age (for men from 60 to 65 and for women from 55 to 63).

[9] On July 19, during the first reading of the corresponding bill in the State Duma, the pro-Putin political party United Russia (with a single exception of Natalia Poklonskaya) has supported the retirement age hike, while all the opposition fractions, left-wing and liberal, were against it.

[10] Statistical studies show that the number of protest actions in the country has nearly tripled in the third quarter from the year before, almost exclusively because of the plan to raise the retirement age.

Several thousand people protested across Russia against an extremely unpopular government decision to hike the pension age that has led to a record slump in President Vladimir Putin's approval ratings.

[citation needed] Nevertheless, the opposition forces and the overwhelming majority of ordinary Russians estimated the presidential changes as by far insufficient and were disappointed at his decision.

However the activity has gradually diminished and, except on November 5–7 (which commemorated the 101st anniversary of the October Revolution), no large anti-reform rallies were organized.

Numerous picketing actions and conferences aiming at attracting attention to the potential dangers of the new pension law were organized by the left-patriotic Sut Vremeni group (leader: S. Kurginyan).

Furthermore, on March 23, the CPRF called the meetings against the social politics of the Russian government (including the retirement age hike) in the largest cities of Russia, e.g. in Moscow there were several thousand attendees.