Speaking at his annual press-conference marathon, held December 23, 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin focused on traditional values, among other things.

A journalist’s question was about the President’s attitude to the modernist ethical values spreading over Western countries, involving gender identity and family issues. He also asked the President how big the chances are that these new fads would come to Russia. “The modernist ethics, like an infection, like the new virus, is bound to come to Russia,” Vladimir Putin observed. “What we can do is to use an antidote that would work.”

“As for me, I am an adherent of a traditional approach: a woman is a woman, and a man is a man. A mother is a mother, and a father is a father,” the Russian President said. “I hope that our society has a strong inner moral protection, rooted in the traditional religions which are in the Russian Federation. A special point, and a strength, of the thousand-year-old Russian society, is that over many centuries Russia has emerged as a multi-faith and multinational state. We have learned to treat each other with respect, including the respect for our basic traditional values.”

“I do hope that the peoples in Russia possess a strong built-in core immunity, sufficient to protect them against this sort of insanity,” said the Russian President. “And to ward it off, we need to uphold our traditional values. Prohibitions or repressive measures just will not work.”