Why Russia has gone to war on ‘childfree propaganda’ and is promoting eight-children families

Published

6 months ago

December 28, 2024

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In Russia, size matters when it comes to family.

Just look at the Asachyovs. Vera and her husband Timofey have eight children – from 18-year-old Sofiya to 18-month-old Marusya – and they’ve just been crowned Moscow Family of the Year.

“It’s a great honour and joy,” Vera Asachyova told Sky News when asked how it felt to win.

“It brings pride to our family, not only my husband and I but for the children and their grandmothers and grandfathers.”

And that’s not their only award.

Having had so many children, they’ve also been honoured with the prestigious Order of Parental Glory, which Vera proudly wears pinned to her chest.

The family’s beaming faces are even on billboards around town.

They’re portrayed as the model family doing their patriotic duty.

That’s because Russia’s birth rate is at a quarter-of-a-century low and the state wants others to follow the Asachyovs’ lead.

Official data shows 599,600 children were born in Russia in the first half of 2024, which is 16,000 fewer than in the same period in 2023 and the lowest since 1999.

The Kremlin called the figure “catastrophic” and is desperate to boost it.

The latest attempt is a ban on “childfree propaganda”, which was passed unanimously by Russia’s lower house of parliament last month.

It’s supposedly the promotion of life without children, and anyone caught spreading it can now be fined.

But does this propaganda really exist? Even if it does, surely there are more pressing reasons why a woman might not want to have children?

For example the costs involved, or perhaps because their partner is away fighting in Ukraine, or worse, has been killed there.

I put that to Tatiana Butskaya, an MP for Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, who sits on the parliamentary committee for Family Protection.

“This is an ideology against life on earth,” she replied, referring to the so-called propaganda.

“If [our parents] had adhered to this ideology, none of us would be at this press conference today. Perhaps it would’ve been other people here, and maybe even robots.”

Vladimir Putin has previously encouraged women to have at least three children, to secure Russia’s future.

In the same vein, Ms Butskaya went on to criticise families with only one child, calling them “strange”.

“If this family has lived together for a long time, you think, ‘Well, maybe they have illnesses? Maybe something is wrong in the family’. Right?

“They’ve lived together for 30 years and only given birth to only one child. There’s something wrong there.”

According to the authorities, childfree propaganda is everywhere – in films, on the internet and throughout the media. But that’s not how it feels walking around Moscow.

Pretty much everywhere you look there are huge billboards promoting family and motherhood. The message on one reads “we have room to grow” in Russian.

Russia insists women still have the right not to have children, but feminist activists like Zalina Marshenkulova believe that’s no longer true.

The prominent blogger left Russia soon after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and was charged in absentia with “justifying terrorism” by a Russian court earlier this year.

“It’s reproductive violence,” she told Sky News, referring to the ban on childfree propaganda. “It’s another repressive law they needed to turn all women into mechanisms for reproducing slaves.

“If you’re smart, if you love freedom, if you respect yourself, you can’t live in Russia. That’s what they try to say to us by this stupid law.”

A low birth rate isn’t Russia’s only demographic problem, of course. It also has a rising mortality rate, made worse by the war in Ukraine.

Stopping the war would help boost the population. But that’s not discussed.

Apparently, childfree propaganda is the bigger issue.

World

Thousands defy ban to join Pride march in Budapest

Published

8 hours ago

June 28, 2025

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Thousands defy ban to join Pride march in Budapest

If Hungary’s authorities thought banning this year’s Pride march would keep people off the streets, they were wrong.

Thousands turned out in Budapest, defying a law which said LGBTQ+ events like this should be cancelled to protect children.

The crowd was determined to fight for their rights.

“This is a special march, not just because it was the 30th, but also because it was banned,” said Orsi, who proudly wore a rainbow headband and waved a rainbow flag.

“I mean that’s all the more reason to go out on the street and show that Budapest and Hungary is a place where everybody is welcome, where love is equal,” she added.

Attendees had been warned that just being there could mean a 500 euro fine or prison time for the organisers.

They were told police would use facial recognition cameras to identify them, but they didn’t care.

Orsi said it was worth a fine.

Leonas had travelled from Poland to show his support and was also happy to take the risk.

“LGBT rights are attacked across the whole world, and we need to defend each other and work with each other,” he said.

Viktor Orban’s government has repeatedly pitched family values against LGBTQ+ rights.

“The mother is a woman, the father is a man and leave our kids alone,” he told conservative audiences in the past.

He says he is protecting Hungary’s Christian values, but critics say this is just part of a wider attack on democracy which has happened during his 15 years in control.

The Pride ban is just the latest targeting of LGBTQ+ communities.

In 2020, the country abolished its legal recognition of transgender people, and in 2021, politicians passed a law banning the depiction of homosexuality to under-18s.

While many were outraged by the attempt to cancel the Pride march, a small number of far-right activists organised demonstrations to show their support:

“Hungary and the Hungarian nation don’t want the aggressive LGBTQ+ propaganda. They are dangerous for our families, they are dangerous for our kids,” said Gabor Kelemen, a member of the 64 Counties Youth Movement.

However, the packed streets showed many disagree.

At one point, as far as the eye could see, the march snaked through streets and across the city’s bridges. The sound of drums and whistles mixing with gay anthems blaring out of speakers.

The organisers said they believed this will be the largest Pride march ever in Budapest.

The crowd was eclectic, with Hungarians from different communities joining a demonstration which many believe is now part of a fight for Hungary’s future.

“This is not only about the complexity of Pride, not only about love or equality… for Hungarians, it’s about sticking together, supporting each other, showing the government that we believe in a different kind of Hungary. We believe in freedom, we believe in democracy,” said activist Adam Kanicsar.

Despite the ban, today Pride attendees were celebrating a victory. But make no mistake, many in Hungary do not support the parade or what they see as an attack on traditional values.

Next year, the country will hold a general election, a vote which will expose how divided Hungary really is.

World

Chants of ‘death to America’ at funeral for Iranian military commanders and scientists

Published

8 hours ago

June 28, 2025

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Chants of 'death to America' at funeral for Iranian military commanders and scientists

Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Tehran to mourn top military commanders, nuclear scientists and others killed in Iran’s 12-day war with Israel.

State-run Press TV said the event – dubbed the “funeral procession of the Martyrs of Power” – was held for 60 people, including four women and four children.

It said at least 16 scientists and 10 senior commanders were among the dead, including head of the Revolutionary Guard General Hossein Salami and the head of the guard’s ballistic missile programme, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh.

Their coffins were driven to Azadi Square on trucks adorned with their pictures as well as rose petals and flowers, as crowds waved Iranian flags.

Chants of “death to America” and “death to Israel” could be heard.

Attending the funeral were Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior figures, including Ali Shamkhani who was seriously wounded during the fighting and is an adviser to Iran‘s supreme leader.

There was no immediate sign of the supreme leader in the state broadcast of the funeral.

Iran’s president later thanked people for turning out.

“From the bottom of my heart, I thank you dear people,” Mr Pezeshkian wrote on social media.

“With love, you bid farewell to the martyrs of our homeland, and our voice of unity reached the ears of the world.”

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi called the deaths “hard and painful”.

Seemingly referencing the recent airstrikes, he added: “Institutions and structures, however important and valuable, return with new glory and greater strength over time, even if it takes years.”

Israel, the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said its attacks on Iran aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.

The US joined in by launching strikes on three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran, which Donald Trump said left them “obliterated”, however the exact extent of the damage remains unclear.

Iran denies having a nuclear weapons programme and the UN nuclear watchdog, which carries out inspections in Iran, has said it has “no credible indication” of an active, coordinated weapons project.

Over almost two weeks of fighting, Israel claimed it killed around 30 Iranian commanders and 11 nuclear scientists, before a ceasefire began on Tuesday.