Putin brings back award created by Stalin that rewards mothers with 10 kids

Vladimir Putin is encouraging Russians to have more children and halt falling birth rates by bringing back an award created by Joseph Stalin that rewards mothers with 10 kids.

The country’s president is reinstating the prize, which was first scrapped after the fall of the Soviet Union, amid the ongoing barbaric invasion of Ukraine.

The title ‘Mother Heroine’ will now be bestowed on mothers of 10 and above.

There’s also a cash incentive, with recipients receiving a one-off payment of £13,000 as soon as their 10th child turns a year old.

Mothers will only receive the cash if the other nine children are still alive, with the exception of children who died in armed conflict.

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Russia has been hit with a decline in birth rate over recent years, with the 2022 numbers down by 400,000 to 145.1 million.

The measure was initially scrapped following the disillusion of the Soviet UnionValery Sharifulin/Sputnik/AFP via Getty

It comes after Putin accused the US of turning Ukrainians into “cannon fodder” to extend hostilities with Russia in an effort to retain its “hegemony”.

Speaking six months after invading Ukraine at a security conference that was attended by military officials from Africa, Asia and Latin America, the Russian president reiterated that he sent troops into Ukraine in response to the US turning the country into an “anti-Russia” bulwark.

“They [the US] need conflicts to retain their hegemony,” Mr Putin alleged. “That’s why they have turned the Ukrainian people into cannon fodder.”

“The situation in Ukraine shows that the US [wanted] to drag the conflict out, and it acts in exactly the same way trying to fuel conflicts in Asia, Africa and Latin America,” he added.