A video ad released this week urges Russians to go out and vote in the upcoming presidential election or face the consequences of a dystopian future in which traditional family values have been outlawed.
The 6-minute video, published on YouTube Wednesday, employs a number of homophobic tropes to paint a hypothetical Russia of the year 2036, one that is ruled by a “rainbow tribunal” and a “tolerance patrol,” which forces dissenters to undergo “gender harmony” re-education courses.
In the ad, a young family that lives on a street called “69 Gay Liberators” is forced to live a double life in which they teach their son Barack to call them “parents No. 1 and No. 2” instead of “mother and father” when in public.
The husband works at the “Ministry of Justice and Anal Punishment,” and he is forced to cross-dress to execute his father, an accused “fundamentalist sexist,” with a sex toy.
“I told you in March 2024: be a man, go and vote!” the father tells his son after the latter experiences a revelation and releases him from fuzzy handcuffs.
Similar fearmongering ad campaigns have been launched ahead of the 2018 presidential election, regional elections later that year and constitutional changes in 2020 that cleared the way for President Vladimir Putin to seek his fifth term in the March 15-17 election.
The latest ad was published on a YouTube channel under the name of Russia’s Communist Party presidential candidate Nikolai Kharitonov, however, the party denied any affiliation with the video or the channel.
The ad’s authorship could not immediately be established.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) Russian-language service reported that the father was played by the same actor who appeared in a 2022 ad released by the Kremlin-funded broadcaster RT that predicted a “freezing Europe” without Russian gas imports.
The same actor, Valentin Vorobyov, was featured in yet another ad depicting a dystopian future where Germans are forced to give up their last possessions for Ukraine and greet each other with the phrase “Heil [Volodymyr] Zelensky,” referring to the Ukrainian president.
According to RFE/RL, the YouTube channel that published the latest homophobic ad has links to a website with a “DUB Media” production studio logo, which is reported to have produced videos for the Moscow Mayor’s Office.
The news outlet said DUB Media denied its affiliation with the ad.
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