Video says Russians will be forced to live with gay people if they don’t vote in the presidential election
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A Russian video aimed at encouraging people to vote for President has warned that people could be forced to take gay people into their homes if they don’t vote.
The advert, uploaded to YouTube ahead of the presidential election next month was posted with the caption: “What will happen after March 18, 2018?”
The video opens with footage of a man dismissing his wife’s concern about remembering to wake up to vote the next day, saying: “As if they won’t elect someone without you.”
(Photo: YouTube)
In his dream, he is then woken up by three military officers, who inform him that compulsory military service has been expanded from the age of 27 to now include 60-year-olds.
Dismissing the army officers at the door, the man then goes into his kitchen to discover a stereotypically gay man filing his nails with a rainbow coloured emery board.
(Photo: YouTube)
The man questions the man and asks his wife why he is in his house, to which the gay man replies: “I’m a gay on a homestay.”
His wife then informs him that under a new law, Russian families are forced to take in gay people who have been abandoned by their partners or families.
She adds: “If he can’t find anyone, you will have to be his partner.”
The tattooed gay man then provocatively eats a banana, adding to the man’s shock and horror.
(Photo: YouTube)
The video continues to say that by not voting, Russians are at risk of incredibly high risks of inflation, as a young schoolboy asks his father for an allowance of four million rubles (approximately £50,000).
Bizarrely, the video also shows that the man’s nightmare includes heavily restricted time in the toilet.
Related: 83 percent of Russians think gay people are ‘reprehensible’
He then ‘wakes up’ to find himself in bed with the gay man, before actually waking up next to his wife.
The man then rushes out of the room to go and vote, dragging his wife with him.
(Photo: YouTube)
The video, which reportedly features professional actors, does not appear to have been uploaded by any official Russian body or campaign.
Outspoken critic and journalist Ksenia Sobchak criticised the video, calling it an ‘incitement to hatred.’
Speaking to The Guardian, she said that: “to expose LGBT people to a threat in a homophobic country, this is no joke.”
Russia’s election committee said to The Guardian that it had no involvement with the video.
Many of the opposition in Russia have called for a boycott of next month’s election.
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was arrested last month after urging voters to boycott the March 18 election, which he said would likely be rigged.
Alexei Navalny after his arrest (Photo: DMITRY SEREBRYAKOV/AFP/Getty Images)
In 2013, Navalny stood for the Mayor of Moscow and vowed to allow gay pride marches in the capital if elected.
President Vladimir Putin announced his intention to stand in the Russian presidential elections in December of last year.
Putin has been in power either as prime minister or president of Russia since 2000.
If he wins the March 2018 election he will be eligible to serve until 2024.
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Opinion polls suggest he will win the election easily.
Putin has backed many deeply homophobic laws during his time in charge of Russia.
Researchers found that hate crimes against the LGBT community have doubled since the introduction of an “anti-gay propaganda” law in Russia by Putin.
Watch the Russian language campaign advert below
