For Kremlin, divide with West isn’t just geopolitical. It’s moral.

For over a decade, experts have noted that Russian political culture has been drifting away from the pragmatic, technocratic authoritarianism that characterized the first stage of the Vladimir Putin era, which was open to all sorts of cooperation with the West.

Now, it is taking a more ideological stance that sees the West as not merely a geopolitical foe but also the source of destructive moral and cultural contagion.

Russia is considering a law that will require any foreigners entering the country to sign a “loyalty agreement,” pledging not to defame Russia’s history or state institutions, nor to advocate for any “nontraditional” sexual ideas while visiting the country. Under the proposed legislation, which is being prepared by the Kremlin, there will be legal consequences for violators.

Another bill presently before the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, would target foreigners and Russians living abroad for statements and actions deemed “Russophobic” – expressing hatred or contempt toward Russia or things Russian. Punishments could include confiscation of property within Russia or a ban on entering the country.

In Soviet times, there was a coherent state ideology strictly curated by the Communist Party. But Russia’s emerging order seems a mix of tough but often vaguely worded laws designed to limit critical speech and public protest, strengthen military preparedness, and ban “deleterious” Western influences such as gender-affirming care and public homosexuality. At the same time, the government is pushing an ill-defined campaign to celebrate Russia’s distinctly conservative civilizational qualities, historical greatness, and adherence to “traditional” moral values.

“This is a way of consolidating the ‘good Russians,’ the patriotic ones, around [President] Putin and the Kremlin,” says Maria Lipman, co-editor of the Russia Post, a journal of Russian affairs published by George Washington University. “The government is the main trendsetter, but there are many public actors who put forward their own initiatives, sometimes a bit too much. But in the present atmosphere, it’s unacceptable to come up with any progressive proposal, but perfectly OK to float any socially conservative idea.”

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LGBTQ+ activists hold their flag at a rally in Pushkin Square in Moscow, July 15, 2020. Russia's Supreme Court branded the LGBTQ+ “international public movement” as extremist last year, a decision Boris Vishnevsky, a liberal deputy of the St. Petersburg city council, says “would be funny if it weren’t so sad.”

An anti-progressive atmosphere

The Duma has erected a legislative fortress aimed at blocking the penetration of Western influence, beginning in 2012 with laws against foreign-connected civil society groups. Those laws have since led to the banning of most big, internationally connected organizations and the extension of the “foreign agent” label to hundreds of groups and individuals that are critical of authority.

The pace of anti-Western measures has intensified amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, which the Kremlin has convinced most Russians is a struggle for survival against a West united in its hostility.

While the Kremlin’s legal campaign is sweeping, lower-level officials are often eager to push further with their own socially conservative proposals, says Ms. Lipman. Some regional officials have suggested measures to prohibit young women from wearing pants, while a leading Duma deputy recently suggested the restoration of traditional shop classes in which girls learn to make borscht and boys learn to use tools.

“Some of these ideas are too much, and not likely to get official support,” she says. “But they have the effect of changing the atmosphere, and driving public moods further in the same direction.”

For example, growing calls to ban abortion, despite having support of the Russian Orthodox Church, will probably not go far in a society in which women tend to be better educated than men and have been part of the workforce, with full rights to control their private choices, for about a century.

But the mounting campaign against the “propaganda of nontraditional sexual identity” is another matter. Experts say that LGBTQ+ people enjoy very little public support in Russia, and hence the intensifying measures against them have received no pushback over the past decade. Any open expression of gay identity has been criminalized, gender transition has been legally prohibited, and depictions of any “nontraditional” behaviors have been banned from social media as well as from movies and TV.

Late last year, Russia’s Supreme Court branded the “international LGBT movement” as an “extremist organization,” a move that suggests authorities believe gay identity isn’t a native trait but must be a destructive import from abroad.

“This would be funny if it weren’t so sad,” says Boris Vishnevsky, a liberal deputy of the St. Petersburg city council. “They banned an organization that doesn’t exist, so no representatives were able to come forward and speak on its behalf. The effect of this absurd decision will just be to further silence the voices of anyone who has what they call a nontraditional orientation. Now they will be associated with that nonexisting extremist organization, and face criminal prosecution.”

Winning converts

Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, which tracks extremist trends, in Moscow, says that much of the official worry over “woke” ideas is, ironically, inspired by Western right-wingers whom the Kremlin sees as a simpatico force.

“There are a lot of connections between Russian conservatives and especially those in the U.S.,” he says. “It seems they adopt some of their issues, such as opposing abortion and [gender-affirming care], even though these do not have very much relevance for Russian society. But it becomes part of the toolbox for propaganda and indoctrination.”

Opinion polls show that the Kremlin has been steadily winning its argument that the West is an implacable enemy whose malign influence needs to be resisted by means of strong laws, tougher social control, and vigorous propaganda.

“There is no longer a disbelief among the public when the government says the West is an enemy, as there used to be in the past,” says Ms. Lipman. “Most pro-Western liberals have left Russia since the war began and are no longer part of the internal discussion. Meanwhile Western leaders are sanctioning Russia, helping Ukraine, and openly saying their goal is to weaken Russia. Not surprisingly, Putin’s anti-Western stance has never been so convincing to the broad Russian public as it is today.”