Putin Begs Russian to Have ‘Large’ Families After Population Plummets Amid Ongoing Ukraine War Debacle

Vladimir Putin is urging Russian women to consider having "eight or more" children in response to a decline in the country's population by 550,000, due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

In a surprise video appearance at the World Russian People’s Council on Nov. 28, the 71-year-old Russian despot called on Russian couples to start having “large” families, the Daily Mail reported.

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

Putin went on to say that Russians should “revive these traditions” and that having “a large family, should become a norm, a way of life for all the peoples of Russia.” He added that family is a “spiritual phenomenon” and the “source of morality.”

In 2022, Russia’s population dropped by a surprising 550,000 people, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This was in large part attributed to the ongoing war in Ukraine as well as other factors.

Not only are the war deaths taking a toll, but the Washington, D.C. think tank claimed the “number of women of childbearing age is falling” in Russia and the average age when women are choosing to have children is rising, Daily Mail reported.

“This has predictably changed family planning,” the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explained. “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.”

The institution also reports the war in Ukraine is having a significant impact on Russia’s decreasing population.

As Front Page Detectives previously reported, this new push by Putin comes days after the Russian leader was accused of sending “children to slaughter” in Ukraine.

In the video shared by Ukrainian internal affairs adviser Anton Gerashchenko, an alleged Russian soldier complained of troops being sent to fight without adequate training or weapons.

"I am recording this video on behalf of the Kamchatka Battalion, who were sent to slaughter, who were just sent to death, who are not even trained," read the video's translated caption.

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"There are 18-year-old children, untrained, who died here, who only joined this Kamchatka Battalion," the soldier continued. "They've been on the firing range for four days."

The soldier claimed that the ill-equipped "children" were defenseless and "didn't even shoot, because there was no ammunition."

"And they sent them all to the front line," the soldier added. "They sent the Kamchatka Battalion to the front line."