Putin is pushing a bizarre new law that would ban anything that suggests a child-free lifestyle is attractive

Putin has introduced bizarre new laws in Russia that ban anything that suggests life without children is attractive.

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

The Russian president, portraying 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 country’s demographic future.

The law would ban materials on the Internet, in the media and in advertising that portray a child-free lifestyle as attractive and impose fines on authors.

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

Meanwhile, mortality rates are rising and there is no end in sight to the Moscow War in Ukraine, where Russian soldiers, like their Ukrainian counterparts, are being killed and wounded in a grueling war of attrition. The official number of victims is a secret.

Duma deputy speaker Anna Kuznetsova said earlier this month that the law was part of Russia’s “national security strategy.” Its champion is Vyacheslav Volodin, a powerful ally of Putin and chairman of the lower house.

Volodin has accused the movement, dubbed the “Child Freedom Movement” by authorities, of devaluing the institution of the family through an ideology that promotes a “conscious refusal to have children.”

However, he said the law is not about criminalizing women who choose not to become mothers.

Meanwhile, Britain has imposed sanctions on 18 more Russian oil tankers and four liquefied natural gas ships, the largest sanctions measure yet against the country’s so-called “shadow fleet,” the British government said on Thursday.

The 18 oil tankers will be banned from UK ports and will not have access to UK maritime services, bringing the total number of sanctioned Russian oil tankers to 43.

“The UK’s relentless crackdown on the Shadow Fleet is throwing sand into the system and depriving Putin’s war machine of vital revenue,” the government said, adding that the attacked oil tankers cost an estimated 4.9 billion pounds ($6.37 billion) last year. would have transported.