"Large families should become the norm," Kremlin strongman Vladimir Putin said Tuesday in Moscow, in his famously serious style, as reported by the "Business Insider" website.
Birth rates in Russia are falling amid a war in Ukraine and a deepening economic crisis that has plagued the country in recent years. Russia's president has urged women to have eight or more children as the death toll of Russian soldiers continues to rise as the war in Ukraine rages on, worsening the country's population crisis.
Addressing the World Russian People's Council held in Moscow, Putin stressed in his speech that his country must return to the era when large families were the norm. "Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven, eight or even more children," the Russian president claimed.
"Let us preserve and revive these fine traditions. Large families must become the norm, a way of life for the people of Russia. The family is not only the cornerstone of the state and society, it is a spiritual phenomenon, a source of morality."
"Preserving and increasing the population of Russia is our goal for the next decades, even the next generations. This is the future of the Russian state, the eternal Russia,"added the head of the country.
Since taking power in Russia - 24 years ago - Putin has tried to boost the country's birth rate by adopting a series of incentives for those who have children, including allowances for families who have more children. However, these measures have had little to no effect, with figures from Rosstat, Russia's federal statistics agency, estimating that the country's population did not exceed 146,447,424 on January 1.
According to the French newspaper "Le Monde", in the year 2023, the Russian population will be at the levels of 1999, when Putin first took the reins of the country. "Russia has a shortage of workers," journalist Alexei Raksha, who worked for a... month at "Rosstat," told AFP last February.
"This is an old problem, but it has been exacerbated by the recruitment for the war in Ukraine and the mass uprooting," he said.
A hearing by Russia’s Supreme Court on whether to designate the “international LGBT movement” as an extremist organization was closed to the public, including those representing the defendant, the Russian independent media outlet Mediazona reported on Nov. 30.
A Mediazona correspondent said that only representatives of Russia’s Justice Ministry were allowed in the courtroom, although journalists will be able to view the proceedings when the judge announces the decision.
The ministry announced a motion on Nov. 19 to brand the “international LGBT movement” as an extremist organization and ban its activities.
The ministry accused the movement of causing “social and religious discord.”
The hearing ended and Russia’s Supreme Court designated the “international LGBT movement” as an extremist organization and banned its activities within the country.
The Kremlin’s crackdown on gay rights intensified following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Feb. 2022. The government passed legislation banning the public expression of LGBT identity in Russia on Dec. 5, 2022.
The law criminalized what it calls “propaganda” related to “nontraditional sexual relations” in media.
The Russian State Duma targeted the transgender community the following year, banning gender-affirming care in July 2023.
1 comment:
Just do what the Aussies did when they were told to stay out of the area for a G20 event. Everybody left town for the weekend, streets were deserted, they were left with thousands of police standing around and nobody else. Many businesses lost money or went broke, and the area took years to recover. They will never have a G20 in Brisbane ever again.
Post a Comment