Russian MPs this week updated, and expanded, an anti-LGBT law – the latest in a series of measures aiming to highlight “traditional” family values. Against a backdrop of conflict in Ukraine, Russian political and religious leaders are ramping up an internal identity war. Russian MPs on Thursday voted to extend a law banning all forms of LGBT “propaganda”. When it was first introduced in 2013 the law purported to prevent minors from seeing content that framed LGBT relationships in a positive light. Nine years later it has been expanded to include adults, forbidding “the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations” in all media, books, films and online. This is the latest move in a shift towards conservatism from Russian authorities that dates back to the early 2000s. At the heart of messaging from the Kremlin is the defence of so-called traditional Russian values against “harmful” Western influence.