This October, the Duma passed a bill banning the promotion of a “child-free lifestyle,” which they consider pernicious influence from the West. Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin cited urinals as evidence of the onslaught of immorality that Russia aspires to resist.

“Look at Europe, they no longer have urinals in men’s restrooms, they have torn them out. What will be next? Sodom and Gomorrah,” the RBC daily quoted Volodin as saying.

Volodin also proposed banning citizens of countries where gender transition is legal from adopting children in Russia, as reported by the Interfax news agency. Volodin wrote in his Telegram channel, “The policies of Western states regarding children are leading to a great tragedy,” alluding to the possibility of early gender transitions. For over a decade now, US citizens have been prohibited from adopting Russian children under the so-called Dima Yakovlev law, passed in 2012 supposedly in response to the 2008 case of a Russian toddler who died because of the negligence of his American adoptive family. Volodin now wants to extend this law to other countries.

Gender issues are a sensitive topic in Russia, and any suggestion that people can identify as anything other than male or female is unacceptable. Back in 2019, Vladimir Putin, during a press conference at the G20 summit in Japan, defended the Russian law prohibiting LGBTQ+ propaganda, confusing transgender people with Transformers.

“We have a law that everyone criticizes us for – it’s the law banning propaganda of homosexual among minors. Listen, let’s allow a person to grow up, become an adult and then decide who they are. Leave the children alone. Nowadays, there’s everything imaginable – they have come up with five or six genders. Transformers, trans... I do not even know what any of this is,” Putin said.

All-gender restrooms have even been cited as one of the reasons for the war in Ukraine, as they represent Western values and, as such, clash with those that Russia is fighting for.

“[The soldiers] who have seen the Ukrainized version of the Donbas understand well what we are fighting for. These guys, who saw schools with restrooms not just for girls and boys but three restrooms – for girls, boys and gender-neutrals – do no need an explanation about what values we are defending,” wrote St Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov on his Telegram channel after a January meeting with wounded soldiers.

Russian politicians increasingly argue that Russia is fighting not just Ukraine but also the whole West. In an interview with the state-backed paper Argumenty i Fakty this month, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov compared Volodymyr Zelensky with Hitler.

“It seems that just as Hitler brought most of Europe under the Nazi banner, including the French, Spaniards and Scandinavians, so too is the US now rallying Europe to bear the main burden of the war against Russia. For now, it’s a hybrid war, but it’s increasingly turning into a real, open war against us. And again under the Nazi banner. But this time, the standard-bearer is not Hitler, but Volodymyr Zelensky,” Lavrov said.

During a BRICS meeting on October 18, Putin stated, “NATO is fighting us, but with Ukrainian soldiers.” He stressed that Russia is prepared to continue fighting the West.

“Talking about time frames – that’s a very complicated and counterproductive thing. When NATO gets tired of fighting us – you can ask them about that. We are ready to continue this fight and to win it,” Putin declared.

The hard confrontation with the West notwithstanding, Russian politicians occasionally still cite the West as a positive example. During the recent Moscow Financial Forum, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin encouraged people to look to Italy and Germany for how to improve productivity, which he believes is higher there because of high levels of urban concentration.

“Look at our hard workers, who work from morning until night, on Saturdays, Sundays and so on, and the Italians – lunch, a siesta, a beer, a nap, a short workday on Friday, and no one works on weekends. But their productivity is higher,” Sobyanin said. “In Germany, do you think anyone overworks there? Not at all. Try to make someone work overtime there and the unions will immediately take to the streets and shut down the firm.”

In addition, the Russian elite still prefers to vacation and hold assets in Europe, particularly in France, as revealed in an April investigation by the Russian independent media outlet The Insider. One example is oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov, who owns companies that supply navigation systems to the Russian Ministry of Defense and, according to The Insider, used to own a company that developed military drones at least until 2023. In 2022, he transferred shares in French companies to his wife. The couple owns three villas in Nice, estimated to be worth about EUR 30 million combined.

Svetlana Ivanova, the wife of former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, was featured in an investigation by Alexei Navalny’s team in late 2022. In March of that year, at the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she was traveling around Europe. In the spring of 2023, journalists from the Ukrainian online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda spotted her at a resort in the Alps. In April 2024, her husband was caught up in the purge of the Ministry of Defense and arrested on suspicion of corruption. There have been no further reports about Ivanova’s travels.

Meanwhile, Putin has remarked that European countries are losing “income, [their] reputation and the trust of their partners” because of restrictions on travel and bank transfers by Russians.

The Russian state news agency TASS quoted Putin as saying: “I have mentioned before that domestic tourism has been actively developing in recent years. The growth is quite strong. Of course, external factors have played a role – various sanctions and restrictions imposed by the governments of certain countries, as well as the Russophobia they encourage. In effect, they have removed themselves from the list of attractive tourist destinations for Russians...”