Russia Opens Its Doors To Foreigners And Bans Adoption of Russian Children: What’s Fuelling These Policy Shifts?

While U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and his new boarder Czar, Tim Homan, are planning the “largest deportation in American history”, of illegal aliens, Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree that allows foreign citizens and stateless persons to apply for temporary residency in Russia if they share “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.“

Russia is trying to attract conservative Westerners who oppose what Russia sees as a “destructive neoliberal ideological agenda” in their home countries.

The decree allows applicants to seek “humanitarian support” from the Russian authorities without needing to prove their Russian language skills or knowledge of the country’s history and laws.

The Foreign Ministry has listed countries that Moscow considers to be pursuing a destructive neoliberal agenda to include the United States, Great Britain, most European countries, Ukraine, and even Japan, among others.

The development is part of a growing trend of Russia promoting its conservative values on the global stage.

In May 2023, authorities announced plans to create a “migrant village” outside Moscow for conservative American expats, with around 200 families reportedly interested in moving to Russia for “ideological reasons.”

Adoption of Children Restricted

Similarly, last week, the Russian Federation Council passed a law banning the adoption of Russian children by citizens of countries that permit gender transition, which are mostly categorized in the list above.

The law is expected to be signed into law by President Putin soon.

Critics view this particular law as evidence of Russia’s anti-LGBTQ+ stance. In recent years, laws have been enacted banning public advocacy for non-traditional relationships and gender-affirming care. The Kremlin insists on societal values that align with what it considers Russia’s traditional and ideological framework.

The ban on adoption has implications for potential adoptive families from several Western countries already in line to adopt.

Human rights groups have also expressed concerns about the impact of the ban on orphaned Russian children in desperate need for new homes.

However, Russia’s declining and aging demographic could be a major factor fueling these official policies rather than purely ideological considerations.

This is especially true as Russia struggles with a costly war in Ukraine, with estimates of casualties in the hundreds of thousands of Russian lives, further dipping the population, even as it prepares itself for a possible escalation of conflict with the West.

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