Putin introduces bizarre new law to tackle Russia’s declining birth rate

Russia’s birth rate had slid to its lowest in a quarter of a century

Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, surrounded by children, lights a candle during Russian Orthodox Christmas celebrations in a cathedral in the Siberian city of Yakutsk (Sputnik)

Putin has introduced bizarre new laws in Russia that will ban anything suggesting a child-free life is attractive.

Laws that would outlaw “propaganda” discouraging Russians from having children were overwhelmingly approved on Thursday in the first of three readings in the lower house of parliament.

The Russian president who portrays Russia as a bastion of “traditional values” locked in an existential struggle with a decadent West, has encouraged women to have at least three children to secure the demographic future of the country.

The legislation would ban materials on the internet, in the media and in advertising that are deemed to portray a child-free lifestyle as attractive, and subject the authors to fines.

The issue has taken on greater urgency for the authorities after official data released last month showed that Russia’s birth rate had slid to its lowest in a quarter of a century.

Meanwhile mortality rates are up, with no end in sight to Moscow’s war in Ukraine where Russian soldiers, like their Ukrainian counterparts, are being killed and wounded in a grinding war of attrition. Official casualty numbers are a secret.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, left, listens to speaker of the State Duma, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament Vyacheslav Volodin during a meeting in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 2, 2024 (AP)

Deputy Duma speaker Anna Kuznetsova said earlier this month that the law was part of Russia’s “national security strategy”. It is being championed by Vyacheslav Volodin, a powerful Putin ally who is chairman of the lower house.

Volodin has accused what authorities have described as the “child-free movement” of devaluing the institution of family with an ideology that encourages a “conscious refusal to have children”.

He has said, however, that the law is not about criminalising women who decide not to become mothers.

Meanwhile, Britain has imposed sanctions on 18 further Russian oil tankers and four liquified natural gas vessels, the largest batch of sanctions action to date against the country’s so-called “shadow fleet”, the UK government said on Thursday.

The 18 oil tankers will be barred from UK ports and unable to access British maritime services, bringing the total number of sanctioned Russian oil tankers to 43.

“The UK’s relentless action against the shadow fleet is putting grit into the system and starving Putin’s war machine of crucial revenues,” the government said, adding the targeted oil tankers have transported an estimated 4.9 billion pounds ($6.37 billion) last year.