Millennials and Gen Z are blaming Putin for intensifying Russia’s baby shortfall: ‘It’s pretty bad for us’

Fortune ^ | December 03, 2022 | YVONNE LAU

[MinorityRepublican]

Growing up in St. Petersburg, Dasha, a 29-year-old marketer and artist, dreamed of having a “complete family.” Raised by her mother and grandmother, her father left when she was in elementary school.

”I grew up thinking that I would be married and have a family of my own before I turned 25,” she told Fortune.

But Russia’s political instability and financial uncertainties have recently led her to renounce having kids. In Dasha’s lifetime, Russian President Vladimir Putin has invaded Ukraine twice; the war’s consequences have taken a heavy toll on everyday Russians like her. Life in Russia has become “too complex,” she says, with money worries coupled with fears over an increasingly autocratic government.

Dasha is just one of many young Russians whose stance toward having children is indicative of the economic and political anxieties facing the country today. Fortune chose not to publish the full names of the people interviewed due to concerns of government reprisals.

Since the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, Russia has confronted a continued population slump due to low birth rates coupled with high mortality rates. Throughout his rule, Russian President Vladimir Putin has obsessed over Russia’s shrinking population. Last year, Putin encouraged Russians to build a “strong family [with] two, three, or four children. [This] should be the image of a future Russia.” This August, he revived the Soviet-era “Mother Heroine” award, which pays $16,000 to women who have 10 or more children.

[Robert DeLong]

What is the reality here in America? I don't see an abundance of births in this country either, by American citizens. There's reportedly only 18% of American households that have a husband, wife, & children as their family makeup, here in the U.S.

What I do see is an invasion that makes the Russian invasion of Ukraine pale in comparison, and you don't care about that invasion one bit, that I can discern. It's always about Ukraine. You ignore the deaths & pain that these invasions bring to the citizens of your own country.

What I also don't see in Russia is a celebration of gender dysphoria & sexual grooming of their children.

You make us all so very proud of your posturing to make yourselves appear as being extremely compassionate humans, that you flaunt as proof of your patriotism while, mocking those who are against out involvement it the Ukraine/ Russia conflict.

Are you auditioning for the Lord? Because the Lord knows exactly what you really are, and he is not fooled or impressed one bit by your virtual signaling.

The leftists who want to destroy this nation, celebrate your useful idiot status too.

“So, in recognition for all you don't do, Zelenskyy worshipers! Have a tin foil medal for each of you utterly ignorant souls, for your lack of concern as to what's occurring in your own country & the destruction being wrought upon her.”

[Robert DeLong]

While we are descending into a country that is not of this world. If the rest of the world follows suit, it will become a bizarro world.

I'm way beyond the disgust that this nation is descending into, and so are a lot of other people I know. They want to save this nation before we go trying to save other nations.

You people live in fantasies encapsulated from realities apparently, for you certainly do not see what is going on here in this nation. Either that or you are blissfully ignorant.

[Jewbacca]

Wow, that’s the longest whatsboutism I’ve ever read.

I don’t necessarily disagree with much (or really any) of the facts in your post. The USA is in quite a pickle caused by your leaders.

All the rest of your post is ill-aimed. I am no fan of the Zelensky regime. And it’s obvious the Democrats are taking advantage of a crisis, just like they take advantage of any crisis.

But none of that changes the fact that Putin led his country into a stupid, voluntary, war of aggression, whereby men of birthing age are being led to the slaughter. The women of Russia, quite logically, don’t want to have kids in that situation. That’s it. Full stop.

[popdonnelly]

They should emigrate before Putin gets them killed.

[MinorityRepublican]

Putin led his country into a stupid, voluntary, war of aggression, whereby men of birthing age are being led to the slaughter. The women of Russia, quite logically, don’t want to have kids in that situation.

If you notice, the demographics were improving in Russia in the early 2010s, before Russia seized Crimea. After that, the sanctions led to Russia becoming further isolated and that caused the birth rate to drop once again.

[ScottinVA]

“What the Soviets did to the land over there is monstrous. You don’t believe it until you see it firsthand...”

Is that ever true.. ditto to what they did to the environment in the Warsaw Pact satellite countries as well. I passed a former Soviet military base in Gräfenau in then-East Germany in 1990 and small river nearby looked like bubbling anti-freeze with its weird green color. God only knows what they dumped in that water.

[Robert DeLong]

You people are obviously leftists, for like leftists you all follow a script. You are the second person that has used the term whatsboutism .

From Wikipedia:

Whataboutism or whataboutery denotes in a pejorative sense a procedure in which a critical question or argument is not answered or discussed, but retorted with a critical counter-question which expresses a counter-accusation.

I readily acknowledge that Russia invaded Ukraine. I'm not a part of the propaganda machine that you genuflect to without asking any questions whatsoever. However, like the zombies that you all are, in toto you also refuse to recognize that there were reasons why Russia finally invaded Ukraine after 8 years of hostilities in eastern Ukraine region of the Donbas. All any of you ever point to is Russia invaded Ukraine, because I honestly believe you don't have a brain. Ffor a thinking brain realizes that there are circumstances which provoke responses, either good or bad, which also need to be considered when engaging in decision making. Lacking that, all you are doing is blindly following others.

You are correct about one thing, the problems here at home, including the invasion are not discussed by you foolish idiots. For your single argument is focused entirely upon the invasion of Ukraine. The invasion of this nation is in no way off topic, when the topic is invasion.

It's just that you only allow yourselves to only talk about Russia's invasion into Ukraine, because talking about our invasion is considered to be nothing more than a distraction. Are you afraid to face the reality happening in your own country, or its it that the whole lot of you cheerleaders is nothing more than a virtue signaling exercise to show how wonderful humans you are?

You never stop to examine what the real consequences are for supporting the proxy war that brings death & destruction upon the citizens of Ukraine and destruction of their homes & country.

I, on the other hand, want to inform you useful idiots that there is a much larger invasion ongoing in your own country that you simply choose to ignore, along with the fact that this nation is 31 trillion dollars in debt and that figure is rapidly reaching exponential acceleration speed.

If the U.S. stops supporting the conflict, it will force Ukraine & Russia to come to some kind of solution. That is what is needed, not cheerleaders to further the conflict which has a real possibility of spiraling into a much wider conflict. Just what the world needs huh. That will certainly help in the depopulation plan, won't it.

Your insistence that the U.S. become the savior of another nation while ignoring what is going on in our nation, is irritating for sure.

However, the constant references to those of us who are against U.S. involvement in the Ukraine/Russia conflict, by you & all of the Zelenskyy cheerleaders will neither be meekly tolerated, nor go unchallenged.

You think you are such a clever soul, but in reality you are nothing of the sort. You are either an ignorant useful idiot, or you are a domestic or foreign operative trying to destroy this nation.

[Jewbacca]

Sure, comrade.

[Robert DeLong]

I didn't read much of the rest of your post, for I was in a rush to go feed the animals. Now that I have learned that you are an Israeli, I can understand why you want the U.S. to engage against Russia. It's no skin off of your nose, so it doesn't matter to you if you encourage other Americans to support a proxy war, while ignoring the realities of the invasion to their own country.

I think your country has many ills of its own, like the over vaccination campaign that may destroy your nation as time goes on. I didn't intervene and push for more of your citizens to take the vaccine. Instead I tried to encourage anyone here on the board to stay away from the vaccines.

Your interference is not the same as I would do if you invaded a nation, because I would fully examine all of the facts before coming to a determination. I prefer making informed decisions based upon facts, rather than follow where the crowd may be heading. However, without any evidence you condemn the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, even when people try to point out the reason for them doing so. Russia allowed for the attacks upon Russian citizens for 8 long years in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine. He tried to get the international community to put pressure on Ukraine to implement the Minsk accords/agreements (2 of them) that Ukraine had signed in 2014 & 2015. Ukraine even finally admitted that they had no intention of implementing the accords they had signed. Much of that refusal was because the U.S. & U.K. were telling Zelenskyy to not negotiate with Russia, that they would have Ukraine's back. Well, that back they promised was to engage in a proxy war that made the Ukraine citizens fodder & combatants & their homeland the battlefield.

So, your support of this conflict is plain stupidity. Buying the propaganda that Ukraine is winning this conflict, is even greater stupidity. Stop promoting stupidity and start demanding and end to the conflict.

Only then will you be helping the people instead of furthering the death & destruction which your support for the hostility to continue is doing.

Had Zalenskyy come to an agreement, the invasion most likely would have never happened. Furthermore, he most likely would have not lost any land mass to Russia. Russia went in very softly because he did not want to destroy Ukraine's infrastructure. But once Russia was forced to go in full bore, that option is lost now for sure. I don't believe Putin or Russia want anything to do with western Ukraine, unless the conflict keeps going.

[DesertRhino]

“Whataboutism”

A term popularized by the US Government. Used as a lame defense attempt when confronted with their own massive hypocrisy while they attacks others for doing the exact thing they also do ... in spades.

A nonsense concept of magical thinking.

[Jewbacca]

Actually, all sorts of scum who try to fake moral equivalency do it.

Mainly liberals.

Iran commits crimes and then screams about supposed persecution of blacks in the USA.

Russia is pathetic and corrupt and whines about similar garbage in the Ukraine.

It can all be true (or fake), but has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

It’s very common distractive argument to those who try to defend the indefensible.

Again, I am no fan of the Ukraine. Clearly rotten to the core.

But Russia invaded for no reason.

The fact that Democrats take advantage of the wrongful attack is no different than them taking advantage of anything.

It was still unprovoked aggression.

[kearnyirish2]

The US is having the same problem as Russia (and all of western Europe as well); very few want to deal with the uncertainty and risks associated with having children.

The US has been declining for decades because of this problem; this is not a Russian story, but a problem every modern, developed Western country faces.

[Jewbacca]

You should read the wiki on “whatsboutism”

FTA:

Edward Lucas’s 2008 Economist article states that “Soviet propagandists during the cold war were trained in a tactic that their western interlocutors nicknamed ‘whataboutism’. Any criticism of the Soviet Union (Afghanistan, martial law in Poland, imprisonment of dissidents, censorship) was met with a ‘What about...’ (apartheid South Africa, jailed trade-unionists, the Contras in Nicaragua, and so forth).” Lucas recommended two methods of properly countering whataboutism: to “use points made by Russian leaders themselves” so that they cannot be applied to the West, and for Western nations to engage in more self-criticism of their own media and government.

You guys really need to get a new handbook.

[Robert DeLong]

You keep showing that you have no real argument, and that you are just another ignorant person who refuses to face reality, douche-canoe.

[Jewbacca]

Come on, they have to give you guys new scripts.

Complain, but don’t complain so much you end up on the front.

[Robert DeLong]

Oh, so now you are talking my talking point and trying, unsuccessfully, to turn it on me. I must be over the target if you cannot at least be more creative then using yet another leftist tactic of turning your nemesis's statements around on the person who is far more adept at debate than you.

Tsk, tsk, keep trying douche-canoe.

[Jewbacca]

Comrade patriot, you’ve never debated. In fact, you’ve never given a response to the original comment, at all.

All you’ve done is whatsboutism and name calling.

There has to be a better script to explain why Russian women refuse to have babies (with Russian men, anyway), beside the fact Putin destroyed your economy and is sending all the eligible fathers to go die in a pointless war.

Blame western hormones or something. Or tik tok.

[Robert DeLong]

You are not only a liar, but an incompetent one just like your idol Biden.

I have pointed out to you that there have been actions taken by Ukrainian leaders that have precipitated the situation that Ukraine now finds itself facing.

The fomenting of a color revolution that has the fingerprints of the CIA all over it was the catalyst that started the unraveling of Ukraine, and led Russian to retake the Crimea and annex it back to Russia.

The edict that the Russian language is forbidden to be taught in schools, and cannot be uttered in the public square, compounded the problem exponentially.

It was followed up by allowing the neo-Nazi faction in Ukraine to wage a terror campaign, just like Hitler did with the Jewish people who were citizens of Germany. It wasn't just the Jewish people, Hitler targeted. It included Roma gypsies, the physical & mentally disabled, as well as, those who engaged in homosexual activities.

This terror campaign carried on with no intervention whatsoever to cease the hostilities being carried out against the Russian citizens by neo-Nazis. Perhaps you think these Russian citizens arrived during the invasion that reclaimed and annexed the Crimea back to Russian control, but these are people who have lived in Ukraine for generations. In fact, they sanctioned the neo-Nazis by recognizing the neo-Nazis formally by making them a regiment within the National Guard of Ukraine, the Azov regiment, in 2014.

For 8 long years they have carried out a campaign of terror against these Russian speaking Ukrainians. Putin has tried in vain to get the international community to intervene to stop the terror campaign. Two Minsk agreements were created and were signed by Ukraine in 2014 & 2015 that called for the halt of the terror campaign.. After that Putin as worked to try and get the international community to force Ukraine to implement these Minsk agreements, again with no success, and only the sound of crickets.

Furthermore, you insist that Ukraine is a democratic nation. That may be true if you take the true meaning of democratic which could also be called mob rule. For whatever the mob decides becomes the law of the land, written laws be damned. That's the same kind of rule that the U.S. is currently experiencing, and the destruction of written laws are being ignored, no make that disregarded completely. That is the first step to totalitarianism. When the U.S. falls, and that is the desire of the current communist Democrat Party, and sadly enough, too many in the Republican Party, then the world falls, and Israel falls as well.

One would think that a Jewish person would see the parallels to what the Jewish people faced in Germany. I am no fan of Putin, but I certainly cannot blame Putin for the decision to finally invade Ukraine to stop the terror campaign.

The only argument you have brought forth is Russia invaded Ukraine. It's an ignorant statement because there are other factors you refuse to consider.

What does concern me is the death & destruction Ukraine is experiencing, and I want it to stop. Your foolishness only keeps it going, and you are too stupid to recognize that fact. Otherwise, you would join in the crusade to stop the violence & destruction, not keep perpetuating it.

I feel like I am speaking to a bunch of children who stick their fingers in their ears and make noises so that they are unable to hear anything the adults have to share with them to give them a more complete picture of how the current situation became the reality. Because you prefer to listen to propaganda.

One last thing douche-canoe, it was you who started the name calling. You continually call us who are against our involvement in this conflict, comrade. A pejorative that all you cheerleaders think it such a clever way to shame us. Then you further offer up a tin badge for all our efforts.

So, don't cry about what it is then thrown back at you, because you deserve every bit of it. People try to educate you ignorant people who are supporting this conflict, just like Mitch "Da Bitch" McConnell, another of your idols no doubt. All any of you can say is Russia invaded Ukraine. Perhaps in time we can train you to say; Polly wants a cracker, also. But it's highly doubtful.

[bert]

History will record that Ukraine triumphed over the Russian Republic

All your archaic balderdash no longer matters

[Monterrosa-24]

Putin started the “terror campaign” that you insanely attempt to use to justify Russia’s criminal invasion. The Russian atrocities were happening in the 2014 invasion as well. My family and friends in the Donbas saw the fake separatist movement started with threats, bribes, mafia-style tactics, agents, disappearances, and finally troops. Your long harangue filled with Moscow talking points is a work of total fiction.

The Republic of Georgia and Ukraine were guilty of nothing that justified the brutal invasions by your Hammer and Sickle waving friends.