Putin calls for a project to promote ‘traditional Russian values’ overseas

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin is calling for the government to develop a program for overseas promotion of “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.” It’s a theme that the Kremlin has increasingly sounded in recent years. Putin has instructed officials responsible for national projects to allot an unspecified amount of money for a program called “Russia in the World.” His order does not specify the values that would be promoted. But Russia has shown rising animosity toward Western social liberalism, particularly toward legitimizing nontraditional sexual relations and gender identity. The Russian Supreme Court last year outlawed the so-called “international LGBT movement” as extremist.