"Russian Officials' Controversial Views on Women's Day and Motherhood"
Russian officials and public figures reacted to International Women’s Day with controversial statements and actions, including Vitaly Milonov suggesting pregnancy as the best gift for women, President Putin emphasizing the importance of family and child-rearing, and RT chief editor Margarita Simonyan highlighting the expectations placed on men. Some officials urged donations to the war effort instead of buying Women’s Day gifts, while others offered unusual tributes to women, such as providing jobs with low salaries or gifting a yogurt maker to a widow. Despite some praise for Putin's support of women, critics point out that Russian law still restricts women from certain careers and decriminalized cases of domestic violence in 2017.