Vladimir Putin Urges Russian Women To Have “8 Or More” Children

New Delhi: Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged women in the country to have as many as eight children and make large families the “norm”.  Putin said this while addressing the World Russian People’s Council in Moscow on Tuesday. Russia’s birth rate has been falling since 1990s and the country has suffered more than 300,000 casualties since the start of Ukraine War in February last year, The Independent said in a report. Putin said boosting Russia’s population will be “our goal for the coming decades”.

The conference was organised by the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, and was attended by representatives of several traditional organisations of Russia, said The Independent.

“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 Russian families, many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven, eight, or even more children,” Putin said while addressing the council via video link.

“Let us preserve and revive these excellent traditions. Large families must become the norm, a way of life for all Russia’s peoples. The family is not just the foundation of the state and society, it is a spiritual phenomenon, a source of morality,” he added.