Vladimir Putin Pushes Women to Have 'Eight or More' Children After Russian Population Drops by 550k During Ukraine War

Vladimir Putin recently called on Russian women to have “eight or more” children after the country’s population dropped by 550,000 due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, RadarOnline.com has learned.

In a surprising development to come as the 71-year-old Russian despot’s war against Ukraine quickly approaches the two-year mark, Putin called on Russian couples to start having “large” families on Tuesday.

His comments came during a surprise video appearance at the World Russian People's Council.

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

According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Russia’s population dropped by 550k last year not only because of the ongoing invasion in Ukraine but also due to several other factors.

The Washington, D.C. think tank noted that the “number of women of childbearing age is falling” in Russia while the “average age at which women are having children is rising steadily in modernized, urban, well-educated populations.”

“This has predictably changed family planning,” the institution 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.”

Still, the ongoing war in Ukraine also reportedly has a significant effect on Russia’s dropping population.

“Nor does the militarization of life in Russia encourage people to add to their families, except for those who consider it their duty to supply the motherland with cannon fodder for future wars,” the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote in a report published earlier this year.

As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Putin’s push for Russian women to have “eight or more” children came just days after the tyrant was accused of sending “children to slaughter” in Ukraine.

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According to Ukrainian intelligence officials, Kyiv found evidence that the Russian leader ordered soldiers aged 18 and younger to the frontlines of Ukraine without adequate equipment and weaponry.

"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," footage leaked by a Russian soldier and shared with Kyiv showed.

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

"And they sent them all to the front line," the Russian cried. "They sent the [children] to the frontline."