On Nov. 19, Russia's Federation Council approved a law banning “childfree propaganda.” Putin's regime makes a point of advertising “traditional” values, but the mainstream ideology stands in stark contrast to the country's record-low birth rate, rampant divorce statistics, and soaring death rates. In reality, the government is pursuing completely different goals while peddling these values, argues Orthodox archpriest Andrei Kordochkin. In the third year of a grinding war, public frustration needs to be redirected against an internal enemy, and the regime increasingly needs to sanctify and legitimize its grip on power. Paradoxically, the most sincere motivation for the push to have more children has been supplied by the Orthodox Christian church: these children are not supposed to live; they are supposed to die defending the “Russian world.”
Andrei Kordochkin
One does not need a degree in psychology to see through a manipulator. A manipulative demand always contains a component you cannot disagree with — compelling agreement with the disingenuous rest. “Do you love me? If you do, you will do X and Y.” What could be wrong with family values and wanting to see more children born — and to push birth rates above death rates?
First of all, it is important to understand not only the message, but also its author and, just as importantly, their agenda.
Over Putin's two decades in power, the share of single parents in Russia has almost doubled, from 21% in 2002 to 38.5% in 2021, and one child in three lives in what Father Andrey Kuraev aptly called a “same-sex family” — consisting of their mother and grandmother. A priest from Moscow explains why he has trouble conveying the meaning of the prodigal son parable to modern children: “As I enter the classroom, I understand that almost everyone in it does not live with their dad — they have no idea what a normal father is.”