Russian President Vladimir Putin is demanding that his country's women have more children to boost the population.
He made this remark during a video call at the World Russian People's Council on Nov. 28. The Russian leader argued that women having more children were necessary to prevent "catastrophic demographic problems" that could impact Russia's economy down the line.
"Many of our people 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," said Putin.
"Having many children, [and] a large family, should become a norm, a way of life for all the people of Russia. A family is not just the foundation for the state and society. It is a spiritual phenomenon, the source of morality."
Putin's comments followed the Russian population dropping by 550,000 during the first year of the Russia-Ukraine war. According to the Daily Express, "some have blamed Russia's population woes on the war in Ukraine, leaving [some] reluctant to start families."
Russian parents produce an average of just 1.42 children between them, prompting Putin to encourage the country's women to have more. He backs up his words with action; while the Russian leader reportedly has six children with three partners, only two daughters are acknowledged publicly.
"Russia's stagnating birth rates have been a factor since before the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s," the Express noted. "Life expectancy in the country has barely climbed since 1991, reaching just 71.34 years in 2020.
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While Putin encourages Russian women to have kids, Ukrainian women work
According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), "some of the objective reasons for Russia's demographic problems reflect historical dynamics. The number of women of childbearing age is falling, and the average age at which women are having children is rising steadily in modernized, urban [and] well-educated populations."
The Washington, D.C.-based CEIP also noted that the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has become a potential factor deterring Russians from having children. It added: "This has predictably changed family planning. Some people are deciding not to have children or to postpone starting a family or having another child until more psychologically and financially stable times."
Moreover, the think tank pointed out that "the militarization of life in Russia" serves as an impediment to those wanting to start a family. This would only be favorable for "those who consider it their duty to supply the motherland with cannon fodder for future wars," it added.
Putin's call for Russians to replenish the population contrasts with that of Ukraine. Because of the martial law order announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the majority of Ukrainian men were drafted and sent to the meat grinder. This left Ukrainian women no choice but to work.
"With male workers drafted and sent to the front lines, hundreds of women have been put to work in Ukrainian coal mines," Russia Today reported, citing a piece from Reuters. According to the original article, 3,000 of the roughly 20,000 male mine workers employed by Ukrainian energy company DTEK were drafted. To make up for the shortfall, it hired around 400 women.
"Our boys were taken to the front, and now we need to support them," said a 22-year-old female miner. "There is no one else to work in the mine now." (Related: Reuters: Ukrainian women now work in mines because so many men were sent to the battlefront.)
The country had legislation from the Soviet era prohibiting women from dangerous jobs like mining. However, Zelensky repealed this law shortly after the Russia-Ukraine war began in February 2022.
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Watch this video about Russian forces discovering Ukrainian women among military casualties.
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