VLADIMIR Putin has revealed his dream of a Handmaid's Tale-style dystopia as he demands women serve Russia by having "eight or more" kids.
"Large families must become the norm," the desperate despot ordered after sending hundreds of thousands of young men fleeing or to their deaths on Ukraine's frozen battlefields.
His baby-making campaign seems to be a reaction to a startling slump in the population in the wake of his brutal war in Ukraine, the draft and a stagnating economy.
The leader is now scrambling to reverse a plummeting birth rate and mass exodus - even plotting to trade prison sentences for pregnancies.
In a recent speech, Putin demanded Russians go back to the tsarist era when large families were common.
The paranoid and private 71-year-old is believed to have at least six children himself, with three partners, although he only publicly claims to have two daughters.
In the bizarre TV address, the dictator instructed Russians have far more babies, and promised they would get state support for “motherhood”.
“Thank God many of our people have a tradition of a strong multi-generational family, raising four, five and more children,” he said.
The average number of babies per woman in Russia is actually 1.42 and fast falling.
Hellbent on returning the motherland to its former glory, he said: “Let us remember how in Russian families many of our grandmothers and great grandmothers had seven, eight, or even more children.
“Let's preserve and revive these wonderful traditions.
“Having many children, a large family, should become a norm, a way of life for all the peoples of Russia."
“A family is not just the foundation for state and society, it is a spiritual phenomenon, the source of morality.”
The Russian ruler's backwards demands are now being rolled out through various state policies and babbled about loudly by Kremlin mouthpieces.
One official remarked: "The reluctance to have a child is now completely contrary to state policy".
Simultaneously, Russia is actively making abortions harder to get, with several regions banning them in private clinics.
Russian MP Sultan Khamzaev even proposed buying children from women by offering them money in exchange for them not having an abortion.
Last week, a twisted plot of Putin's to turn 45,000 female convicts into baby-making machines to feed his meat-grinder war, was revealed.
The disturbing scheme - once again echoing the Handmaid's Tale - would see prisoners in Russian jails freed for several weeks so they can get pregnant.
Under the sinister plot, women who were successful would have their rest of the jail sentence pardoned by Putin.
Yet, those that fail would be hauled back to their cells in grim penal colonies.
His plea follows a 555,000 fall in the Russian population in the first year of Putin’s war, with many families admitting they are too nervous to start or increase their families with men sent to the front facing mass slaughter.
UK military intelligence estimates that Russia has at least suffered 302,000 casualties throughout the 21 month's of its grinding war with Ukraine.
Russia's crashing economy will also discourage families from having children, say demographers.
Putin is well known to have two high-flying daughters with his first wife Lyudmila Putina, 65, Russia’s former first lady.
The first known child is Maria Vorontsova, 38, a geneticist and leading researcher on dwarfism at a renowned state-run medical facility.
Her sister is Katerina Tikhonova, 37, a high kicking ‘rock’n’roll’ dancer-turned-mathematician, who is director-general of the National Intellectual Development Foundation in Russia.
Though the Russian leader strongly denies claims he has further children, Putin is alleged to have a collection of secret kids.
Luiza Rozova, 20, also known as Elizaveta Krivonogikh, believed to be a student in Paris.
Russian investigative journalists claim she has been in a long-term relationship with cleaner-turned-multimillionaire Svetlana Krivonogikh, 48.
He is separately understood to have two young children with Russia's so-called "First Mistress" and current partner, Alina Kabaeva.
His secret gymnast-turned-politician lover, 40, is believed to be the mother of at least two of his youngest kids. that are hidden in his heavily-guarded and gold-encrusted Valdai palace.
There is also unconfirmed speculation that he fathered a son while stationed in East Germany as a Soviet KGB spy.
The intensely private man refuses to divulge details of his life to the public - despite instructing people on how many babies they should have.
"I have a private life in which I do not permit interference. It must be respected.”
In response to questions over his relationship with Kabaeva, he once spat back: "those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others' lives”.
