Kremlin plans to rank Russia’s ‘traditional values,’ placing patriotism above life and mercy
The Kremlin is drafting legislation that will establish a hierarchy of “traditional values,” said Alexander Kharichev, head of the Russian Presidential Administration’s department for monitoring and analyzing social processes.
Kharichev said the hierarchy will appear in a bill on patriotic upbringing and civic education. He made the remarks at a session titled “Values of the Future: From Definition to Actualization” during the “Creating the Future” symposium.
“Sovereignty values are recognized as the core — patriotism, the continuity of generations, and, in fact, responsibility for the fate of one’s homeland, and so on,” he said, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.
“That bloc of values relating to patriotism is recognized as fundamental in this hierarchy of values,” Kharichev stressed.
Kharichev said the bill is “almost ready” and will be submitted to the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, soon.
The list of “traditional values” is set out in a presidential decree from November 2022. The document lists “traditional values” in the following order:
Life, dignity, human rights and freedoms, patriotism, civic consciousness, service to the Fatherland and responsibility for its fate, high moral ideals, a strong family, creative labor, the priority of the spiritual over the material, humanism, mercy, justice, collectivism, mutual assistance and mutual respect, historical memory and the continuity of generations, the unity of the peoples of Russia.
In November 2026, a relevant committee of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, approved a bill imposing fines “for discrediting traditional values.” The bill introduces administrative penalties for violating existing bans on distributing materials that “discredit traditional spiritual and moral values or promote their rejection.” The fines would also apply to citizens, among other things, but, as the bill’s authors stress, only to “social network owners, not users.”
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