President Vladimir Putin calls on Russians to adopt large families as the norm, citing tradition and resiliency, in an effort to combat population decrease and deal with the fallout from the Ukraine War.
In his speech to the World Russian People’s Council in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized the need to normalize large families by pushing women to have up to eight children. This call is being made at a time when Russia’s birth rate has been falling since the 1990s. Furthermore, a study by The Independent states that since the start of the Ukraine War in February of last year, the nation has suffered over 300,000 casualties.
Putin voiced worry over Russia’s declining birth rate and said that growing the country’s population would be a major priority in the ensuing years. He emphasized the nation’s rich history of robust, multigenerational families that include four, five, or more children belonging to different ethnic groups.
The president urged the resuscitation of traditional customs, stressing that having big families had to become the standard and way of life for all Russians. In his view, families serve as the cornerstone of society and the state in addition to serving as a spiritual phenomenon and a wellspring of morality.
Putin emphasized in his speech the need of maintaining and growing Russia’s population, viewing it as a priority for both the near and long term. Representing the timeless, millennia-old Russia, he claimed that this endeavor is crucial to the future of the Russian world. The official website of the Russian President has the speech in its entirety.
Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, hosted a conference at which Putin delivered these remarks, and attendees included members of other traditional Russian groups. Despite the fact that Putin did not specifically mention the deaths from the Ukraine War, some media sources have drawn a connection between his remarks and the current fighting.
According to estimates from the UK Defense Ministry, there were probably more than 300,000 Russian casualties in Ukraine. Furthermore, according to a research by the independent Russian policy group Re: Russia, 820,000–920,000 people have left the nation as a result of the fighting.
Russia is facing a number of difficulties as a result of the Ukraine War, including a severe labor shortage and an economic slowdown brought on by Western sanctions. According to The Independent, Russia had 146,447,424 people living there as of January 1, 2023—a less number than there was in 1999, the year Putin took office.
