Legal Absurdity, russian Style: Liability for Something that Is Not in the Law

The rf state duma committee on family protection has recommended adopting amendments to the “code of administrative offenses” regarding fines for “discrimination against traditional russian spiritual and moral values”. The fines will range from 5,000 to 10,000 rubles for citizens, up to 100,000 for officials, and up to 700,000 for legal entities, respectively. For repeat offenses, the fines will be up to 150,000 for individuals and up to 3 million rubles for legal entities.

However, none of the russian leaders have been able to define these “values” at the legislative level. A legal conflict has arisen where there are people, there are fines, but it is unclear what to punish them for.

The state duma committee chair nina ostanina has acknowledged that there is no law on traditional russian values, only putin’s 2022 decree “on the approval of the fundamentals of state policy on the preservation and strengthening of traditional russian spiritual and moral values”,  but even there there is no specific definition and, most importantly, no mechanism for how these “values” can be offended and discriminated against. The ministry of culture of the rf, which supported the amendments to the code, does not know what this term means either.

russian officials’ uncontrollable desire to please the kremlin and be “even more patriotic” completely confuses ordinary russian citizens. People are afraid of being punished for some obscure violation that some officials decide to interpret in their own way. It is no coincidence that in 2025, demand for magical amulets among russians increased 2.2 times. All in all, sales of magical products in russia increased by 50%, while sales of glass balls and wormwood doubled. The leaders of last year’s magical trade were wooden stakes, which were purchased four times more often than in the previous year.