Vladimir Putin Demands Russian Women Have ‘8 Or More Children’

Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the World Russian People’s Council to emphasize an urgent need to repair Russia’s decrease in population and called on women to have more children.

Rather than rely solely on financial incentives and social support, Putin stressed that Russian female citizens must take personal responsibility and actively choose to start or enlarge their families.

Putin suggested that women should consider “seven, eight or more” children as a means to combat what he referred to as the country’s “catastrophic demographic problems.”

Putin said, “Many of our peoples maintain the tradition of the family, where four, five or more children are raised. Recall that in Russian families our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had both seven and eight children. Let us preserve and revive these traditions.”

He continued, “Having many children, a large family, should become a norm, a way of life for all the peoples of Russia. A family is not just the foundation for state and society, it is a spiritual phenomenon, the source of morality.”

It is speculated that Putin has six children from three different partners, although he has only publicly acknowledged two daughters. 

The decline in Russia’s birth rate, coupled with a surge in deaths, is attributed to Putin’s military involvement in Ukraine, which has had a detrimental impact on his popularity in the run-up to the March 2024 elections.

After the invasion, Russia’s population experienced a significant decrease of approximately 550,000 individuals in the first year alone. Many families have been hesitant to have children due to economic instability, and Russian parents currently produce an average of 1.42 children.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has identified various objective reasons for Russia’s demographic challenges, which include a decrease in the number of women able to give birth and a rising average age at which women choose to have children, particularly among urban, well-educated populations. The think tank has also highlighted the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s military involvement in Ukraine, which have created an atmosphere of profound uncertainty about the future. 

The report published in 2023 grimly observed that the militarization of life in Russia does not encourage people to expand their families, except for those who perceive it as their duty to provide future soldiers for the country.