Russian President Vladimir Putin is urging Russians to have more children. 
"Large families must become the norm," Putin said in a speech Tuesday. 
Russian birth rates are falling amid war in Ukraine and a deepening economic crisis. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin is urging women to have as many as eight children as the number of dead Russian soldiers continues to rise in his war with Ukraine, worsening the country’s population crisis.

Addressing the World Russian People’s Council in Moscow on Tuesday, Putin said the country must return to a time when large families were the norm.

“Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, had seven, eight, or even more children,” Putin said.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    2461 year ago

    I find it hard to imagine wanting to have kids just so your dictator has more meat to feed into his meat grinder. Perhaps the only good news is Putin hopefully doesn’t have 18 more years in him, so the kids won’t have to deal with him directly, but who knows who will sit in the throne next…

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      791 year ago

      I doesn’t work either. Appeals to nationalism, religion, and even straight up paying and providing luxury benefits to people, in order to have them start having more kids just did nothing in the long run. The world is different. Your children are more likely to become independent adults when you put your resources into a smaller number of children. The cost/benefits ratio of having large families to produce stability, and increase the chances at least one child will be successful, has completely reverse from 100+ years ago.

      • Jaysyn
        link
        fedilink
        411 year ago

        Putin will open rape/baby factories for female prisoners next. Just watch.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          121 year ago

          That might end up being the scary reality for the women and girls who have been abducted in Ukraine.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          71 year ago

          The scale at which they would need to do this would make even forcing pregnancy and birth not really sustainable. Especially when the child are being birthed into the world where the economics are against large fertility rates.

        • I Cast Fist
          link
          fedilink
          English
          61 year ago

          I think the irony is that you don’t even need to do something like that. Just open a bunch of “orphanages” that are all about hammering absolute loyalty to the dear leader, offer to pay money for any kids that are left there, reap the rewards in a couple of years. As a double whammy, parents are also free to continue fully dedicating to work.

          Libertarians would probably have the weirdest hate boner if that happened, selling kids (great!) to the govt (horrible!)

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            11 year ago

            Christ my mind went somewhere else. I thought you were gonna suggest that after they open the orphanages and they get populated they would offer the kids a bunch of benefits once they were of age to start breeding. I bet a significant portion of those kids would take it in a heart beat since the alternative is being kicked out at 18 without anywhere to go or money.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              41 year ago

              since the alternative is being kicked out at 18 without anywhere to go or money.

              Legaly, all orphans who don’t already own home, will get one from state. But governor wants 5th yacht too.

        • Cosmic Cleric
          link
          fedilink
          English
          41 year ago

          Putin will open rape/baby factories for female prisoners next. Just watch.

          If anything, they would outlaw contraception first, before going down that road that you’re describing, not that that road would be successful in either case.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        41 year ago

        I don’t know if or when they ended the Maternity Medal, Order of Maternal Glory, and Mother Heroine awards for having large families in Russia. I don’t know much about the programs, just what a friend who emigrated told me about them (and what wikipedia says)

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      481 year ago

      You’re already projecting compassion he doesn’t have by assuming he’d wait for them to turn 18. If he thought it would work, he’d march 5 year olds in bomb vests over the border then have Elon announce that Ukraine kills children.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        13
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I mean it’s unlikely Putin lives another 16 years, so even if they’re sending 15 year olds to the front this won’t help the war machine

        It’s more about long-term population loss. There’s a reason combined-arms forces are used and mass infantry assaults are not. Problem is, Russian military hardware sucks for a lot of different and systemic reasons so that option isn’t realistic over a large theater.

        Putin is straight up bleeding Russia out and it’s really sad that this many people are displaced and dying over one man’s ego and lust for his station.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      51 year ago

      The hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die liberty will never perish.

      Source

      • @[email protected]B
        link
        fedilink
        English
        11 year ago

        Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

        Source

        Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

        I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.

    • Amanduh
      link
      fedilink
      251 year ago

      What doesn’t make sense to me is that even if women start churning out babies putin will be dead by the time theyre at fighting age? Is he just trying to help the next war hungry dictator after him?

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        221 year ago

        He’s trying to repair the damage he’s done so that it doesn’t last a hundred years.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          39
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          The entire reason he started this war was for legacy. He wanted to be the dictator that rebuilt the USSR like he always dreamed, and he’s running out of time, so he forced it and dug his heels in.

          He does not want to be remembered as the dictator that killed off a generation with nothing to show for it, and set back Russia 100 years.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        9
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        He’s trying to be the legend who remade the Russian Empire of the late 1800s. It doesn’t matter so much that he’s alive for the Great Payoff™ – he needs to be the biggest name in the history books for centuries to come.

        He knows he’s old and will die, and he knows he’s not going to achieve his big goals soon enough to directly benefit. So now he’s looking at his legacy.

        That’s the stage when dictators *and narcissists become truly dangerous, by the way, because knowing they won’t directly see the fruits of their labour, they have less to lose.

        e: added a word*

  • @[email protected]OP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    1111 year ago

    I wonder if women will start getting medals for babies, like soviet times? Another question, if these women are raising 8 kids, and all the men are dead in a sunflower field south of Avdivika, who the hell is supposed to be working in Russia for the next generation? Just banking on enslaving Ukraine to pay for the cost of enslaving Ukraine?

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          301 year ago

          From Russia’s end: absolutely.

          But also from the NATO end - why in the ever loving fuck aren’t we just giving Ukraine enough to actually restore their borders? All the counterarguments effectively stem from deeply wrongheaded and dated geopolitical strategies that Kissinger would have not only loved, but in fact specifically made efforts to personally support.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            271 year ago

            I think winning is not the goal of the Western military, the goal is to reduce the amount of military equipment in Russia to a historic low. This can’t be accomplished by winning quickly.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              14
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              People need to understand the west aren’t exactly acting in the name of moral good, but pragmatic egoism, instead. Just because helping Ukraine is good in this instance, doesn’t mean governments do it for the same reasons for why most people think they should get help.

              It’s realpolitik, and human lives don’t matter. As much as I despise that thought.

              The west may be better, but it’s still not good.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              111 year ago

              Currently, just like at any other time since they attacked, it’s entirely up to Russia to decide how much equipment they will lose on the war. The speed of Ukraine defense won’t impact the result.

        • Rikudou_Sage
          link
          fedilink
          English
          171 year ago

          Well, don’t forget that this was planned as a few day operation.

          • Uglyhead
            link
            fedilink
            English
            131 year ago

            The ol’ Napoleon strategy.

            I’ll just invade the Cossacks, this should only take a few days

            …Oh Fuck…

              • Uglyhead
                link
                fedilink
                English
                11 year ago

                Napoleon knew that declaring an end to serfdom wouldn’t have worked in Russia. The people of Russia were staunchly behind the Czar, and Napoleon knew it; partly due to the fact that they knew Napoleon had no love for them at all; just the opposite in fact.

      • Chainweasel
        link
        fedilink
        English
        161 year ago

        Absolutely, and they pretty much have to commit to that plan at this point.
        Before their losses started piling up the way they have been, I’d assumed his plan was to install a puppet government and “annex” useful provences into the Soviet Union Russian federation.
        But with the population losses that require women to become livestock for the sake of the country, he’s absolutely going to enslave able bodied workers in every region he’s able to hold onto.

    • DaDragon
      link
      fedilink
      221 year ago

      They actually introduced pretty much that exact thing back in 2008, the Order of Parental Glory. Have more children to fuel the machine, please

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      71 year ago

      I’ve haven’t been following Russian related news, so I may be too late to suggest that Putin plans to cannibalize Belarus sometime soon.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    891 year ago

    Hey Putine, let me help ……

    All you gotta do is excuse people from military service for being a parent. Pretty soon all military aged males will be parents and you’ll greatly reduce the number of deaths in Ukraine. Win-win

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      141 year ago

      That’s actually pretty brilliant. Although it would also grind new recruits to a halt. It’s almost like he should retreat and take the L and try rebuilding

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      111 year ago

      All you gotta do is excuse people from military service for being a parent. Pretty soon all military aged males will be parents and you’ll greatly reduce the number of deaths in Ukraine. Win-win

      Sorta kinda exists, but you need at least 4 children below 18 years. But I don’t think this increases amount of military aged males or any doctors being parents.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            51 year ago

            He meant that you’d have to start fathering children at 14 so that you could have 4 of them under 18 by the time you turn 18, which would be the age for military service.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              3
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Ah. I got it. So you won’t be conscripted after school. Well, there are other ways to delay it like leaving country or getting professional or higher education.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    671 year ago

    That’s one way to deal with an ageing population demographic.

    Another way is to perhaps not throw every able-bodied young man into a militaristic meat grinder because you still yearn for the Soviet Union days.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      41 year ago

      He’s probably yearning for the Russian Empire instead of Soviet Union.

      Russian governmental officials have some really outlandish views for an average Russian person.

      They’re very religious, believe in conspiracies, actively anti-lgbt, don’t support abortions, antisemitic to name a few. None of these qualities are present in the general masses. They are in their own informational bubble.

      As far as I understand it, he believes that the Russian Empire and collective Europe were always at each other’s throats, and that never changed for over 200 years. At the same time, Russia is a successor of the Russian Empire, and USSR is being omitted for some reason. That’s the simplistic explanation of it.

      For you to understand how crazy that is, Russians (in general) have little to no idea of how the Empire worked and what the views those people held. USSR essentially wiped out all of that culture.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    55
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    “…so that I can send your children to be killed in my war…” Putin, probably.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    541 year ago

    Where are these women going to find suitable partners to pick from? The smart ones left or will leave, the others will be growing sunflowers.

  • TheWoozy
    link
    fedilink
    English
    501 year ago

    Putin seems to be in a competition with Trump for the stupidest authoritarian prize.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      291 year ago

      Javier Milei, Matteo Salvini, Boris Johnson, Geert Wilders, Jair Bolsonaro & a frightening whole lot of others have entered the chat.

    • Ekybio
      link
      fedilink
      English
      361 year ago

      Literally Hitler

      (No need to thank me)

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        11
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Not Hitler, not even close. Im not allowing what he did nor defending him, but what Hitler did compared with Putin is major difference. It does not change the fact that both of them deserve a special place in hell

  • @BlackSkinnedJew
    link
    English
    46
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Equal to abortion banning propaganda in the west.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        23
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Lack of abortion access breeds poverty. Poverty breeds the human grist for our military industrial complex mill. +Tie in to for-profit prison slave labor and inability to break the economic cycle of generational poverty and feed a cheap labor economy

        Similar reasons and similar propaganda.

        [edit: typo on prison]

      • @BlackSkinnedJew
        link
        English
        61 year ago

        Equal in the metric of people able to be sent to the war at 18.

  • b00m
    link
    fedilink
    451 year ago

    Imma start up a mail order groom app for those russian ladies

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    411 year ago

    That’s why even if Russia wins the war or got some concessions, it will be a Pyrrhic victory. They’re already experiencing population decline because of massive emigration aside from lower birth rate (which is why Putin is paying lip service to the conservative religious Russians to promote more birth, and in turn endeared him to conservatives across the world). The war will add to the burden of the Russian people on top of corruption and debt after the conflict.