Anti-LGBT law in Russia: 'Leaders want to construct a united conservative base'

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the Security Council at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence, outside Moscow, Russia, on Friday, November 25, 2022. © Alexander Shcherbak, AP

Russian MPs this week updated, and expanded, an anti-LGBT law – the latest in a series of measures aiming to highlight "traditional" family values. Against a backdrop of conflict in Ukraine, Russian political and religious leaders are ramping up an internal identity war.

Russian MPs on Thursday voted to extend a law banning all forms of LGBT “propaganda”. When it was first introduced in 2013 the law purported to prevent minors from seeing content that framed LGBT relationships in a positive light. Nine years later it has been expanded to include adults, forbidding “the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations” in all media, books, films and online.