Against the backdrop of a long-standing Russian demographic crisis, where the population is shrinking and aging, Vladimir Putin's solution is to push for the return to what the Kremlin calls "traditional Russian values" - encouraging women to have large families.

Russia's lower house of parliament voted unanimously on Tuesday to ban what authorities cast as pernicious propaganda for a child-free way of life, hoping to boost a faltering birth rate. Official data released in September put the birth rate at its lowest in a quarter of a century while mortality rates are up as Moscow's war in Ukraine rages on.

Russian MPs on Tuesday passed in the final third reading controversial legislation banning "propaganda" of choosing not to have children, the latest measure targeting what Moscow depicts as Western liberal ideas.