MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin called on the government on Tuesday to develop a program for the overseas promotion of “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values,” a theme the Kremlin has increasingly raised in recent years.
In an order posted on the Kremlin’s website, Putin ordered officials responsible for national projects to allocate an undisclosed amount of money to a program called “Russia in the World.”
The program would be aimed at “developing international youth cooperation and promoting traditional Russian spiritual and moral values abroad,” the regulation said.
The decision did not specify which values would be promoted, but Russia has shown increasing hostility to Western social liberalism, particularly in its legitimization of non-traditional sexual relations and gender identity.
Russia’s Supreme Court last year banned the so-called “international LGBT movement” on grounds of extremism. Some Russians since then have been imprisoned for short periods or fined for displaying rainbow material.
Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine in 2022, Putin has publicly branded the West as “satanic” and accused it of seeking to undermine Russia by exporting liberal ideologies.
