The article by Lera Furman examines a draft law announced before the New Year by State Duma member Anton Nemkin. The bill would introduce fines for distributing works that, in the authorities’ view, “discredit traditional Russian spiritual and moral values” or promote their denial.
For owners of online platforms and blogs, the proposed penalties range from 10,000 to 700,000 rubles, while repeat violations could bring fines of up to 3 million rubles. According to Nemkin, the measure will be synchronized with another law banning the distribution of films deemed to undermine such values; both are expected to take effect on March 1.
The article notes that Russian law still contains no precise legal definition of those values. As a reference point, it cites presidential decree No. 809 of November 9, 2022, which lists life, dignity, human rights and freedoms, patriotism, a strong family, humanism, collectivism, historical memory, and the unity of Russia’s peoples. The publication argues that the vagueness of these terms gives Roskomnadzor, the Culture Ministry, and the courts broad discretion.
The piece links the new initiative to an established pattern in cases involving “discreditation” and the alleged “propaganda of non-traditional relations,” where, Novaya Gazeta writes, punishment often follows extremely broad interpretations. It also cites a court ruling that treated Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poem Down With It! as “discrediting the Russian armed forces,” even though it was written long before those forces existed in their current form.
A separate section focuses on remarks made by Vladimir Putin during his televised call-in on December 19, 2025 about the “shared values” of Russia’s peoples, as well as his comments on the closeness of Orthodoxy and Islam. The author also notes that Kirill Kabanov, head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, said on December 10 that Kremlin political strategists were working to incorporate Islamic elements into the country’s system of “national spiritual and moral values.”
Sources cited by Novaya Gazeta Europe suggest that such signals may reflect a course toward a “creeping Islamization” as part of a new state ideology and as a possible response to future anti-migrant sentiment.
The article ends by questioning how the Russian Orthodox Church might respond to such a shift. The author writes that after the church leadership’s support for the war, the room for internal dissent within the ROC has, in practice, narrowed sharply.