Russia laws against “gay propaganda” make it a crime to promote homosexuality, or perhaps even gay rights, but they stop short of outlawing being gay. The explanation given by the government is that promoting homosexuality is an attack on children. Many have also worked to conflate homosexuality with pedophilia, despite the fact that social scientists […]
In September Russia supported a UN initiative “promoting human rights through sport and the Olympic ideal.” The measure granted no new rights, but was simply pledging to initiative a “review” of current policies. Below, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations praises the efforts, but the initiative was received with skepticism immediately upon its release. Human […]
As a former official of the Russian Foreign Ministry, I cannot pass by a turn in our foreign policy without comment. When I worked in the ministry, it was exclusively pragmatic: no ideology, only national interests, expressed primarily in cash. Visited by the young Putin in 2001, the Greeks laughed at him in their newspapers; […]
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) associated legalization of same-sex marriage to the coming apocalypse. According to the Western media, such statements aim to divert people’s attention from the problems Russia faces. Those who spoke to “Kommersant FM” are puzzled by the Patriarch’s position. A campaign against gays launched in Russia is kind […]
Here are some of the biggest Russia-focused stories from the past week: – In the wake of the Ryan Fogle spy debacle, and the endless debate on Syria, Obama and Putin have reverted to the 19th-century method of writing courier-delivered letters to each other instead of picking up a phone to discuss bilateral relations. According […]
[The recent brutal murder of Vladislav Tornovoy, a 23 year-old gay man, in the Moscow suburbs has once again brought the subject of homophobia in Russia to the fore. Below is a blog post by Pavel Svyatenkov examining cultural definitions of homosexuality, and how Soviet-era propaganda has been carried into the post-Soviet era. — Ed.] The […]
