Putin asks Russian women to have ‘8 or more’ children, says it should be ‘way of life’

Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged Russian women to have as many as eight children and make large families the “norm” as the country continues to lose its soldiers.

In the ongoing war with Ukraine amid a declining birth rate. He made the statement while addressing the World Russian People’s Council in Moscow on Tuesday (November 28) via video link. Putin said that boosting the Russian population will be their “goal for the coming decades and even generations ahead”.

“Many of our ethnic groups have preserved the tradition of having strong multigenerational families with four, five, or even more children. Let us remember that (in) Russian families, many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven, eight, or even more children,” the Russian President said during his address.

He said that Russia should “preserve” and “revive” such “excellent traditions” by making large families a “way of life”. “The family is not just the foundation of the state and society, it is a spiritual phenomenon, a source of morality,” Putin added.

The Russian President said that monetary assistance, social benefits, allowances, privileges or dedicated programmes will not “solely” overcome the “daunting demographic challenges” that the country is facing.

“True, the amount of the budget’s demographic spending is extremely important, but that is not all there is to it. A person’s points of reference in life matter more. Love, trust, and a solid moral foundation are what the family and the birth of a child are built on. We must never forget this,” he added.

Putin said all Russian public organisations and traditional religions should focus on strengthening families, and that it should be the future of “the millennium-old, eternal Russia”.

All public organisations and our traditional religions should focus on strengthening families as well. Preserving and increasing the population of Russia is our goal for the coming decades and even generations ahead. This is the future of the Russian world, the millennium-old, eternal Russia.

The World Russian People’s Council conference was led by the head of Russia’s Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, and was attended by the representatives of other traditional religious organisations of the nation. This year’s theme was ‘The Present and Future of the Russian World”.

In November, the UK Defence Ministry said that the number of Russian soldiers killed in action in the ongoing war with Ukraine has crossed a staggering 300,000. Furthermore, state-owned Russian news agency (TASS) reported earlier this year that the country’s population as of January 1, 2023, stood at 146,447,424 people – which is lower than the figure in 1999 when Putin became the Russian President.