The St. Petersburg International Legal Forum (SPILF) took place in St. Petersburg this week for its 14th annual session, running from June 24 to 26. SPILF was established in 2011 at the initiative of Russia’s Justice Ministry, with the backing of Dmitry Medvedev, a trained lawyer who was serving as Russia’s president at the time. In its early years, the event drew a genuinely distinguished international audience. Here is what it looks like today.

Deputy Justice Minister Vadim Balanin — on unexpected national security threats

Unregistered cohabitation is increasingly common, even as the number of divorces of already-registered marriages remains significant. In our view, such trends can be regarded as a direct threat to national security and to our country’s demographic vitality.

Justice Minister Konstantin Chuichenko — on excessively liberal approaches to rights

Even now we are saying that the Justice Ministry’s mission consists of a triad — namely: protecting the rights and lawful interests of citizens, ensuring the rule of law, and, third, strengthening statehood. And yet we have had certain approaches — these approaches arose, in part, beginning in the early 1990s, when our Constitution was being written and it was said that the rights and freedoms of citizens are the priority. But it seems to me this is not entirely the right approach, because one is impossible without the other.

Businessman Konstantin Malofeyev — on the same subject

We need to revisit the second chapter [of the Constitution] in light of all this… Yes, it sets out the rights and freedoms of the individual and the citizen, but it is liberal ideology through and through. Article 13, under “The Fundamentals of the State Constitutional System,” says we have no state ideology — yet in practice we do, because Chapter 2 supersedes every other chapter… But where are citizens’ duties? There are just two articles — one covering taxes and one covering military service.

The same speaker — on the Banderites Decembrists

They scattered the Decembrists across Siberia, the way they later did with the Banderites across Ukraine. Had there been fewer of them, maybe fewer overexcited young women and schoolboys from Siberia would have fed on these Decembrist ideas.

Presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky — on bloggers taking power

The most helpless and utterly incapable government in our history was the Provisional Government, which could do nothing at all but talk. Bloggers took power, so to speak […]. The Bolsheviks — just look at their first decisions — were also bloggers in power.

Andrei Loginov, rector of the Russian State University for the Humanities — on topics for discussion

Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] and I were discussing it, and he says: “Collectivism needs to be replaced with sobornost.” So, by all means, it’s a topic for discussion.

Father Vasily Losev — on abortion

There is today a systemic contradiction between regulatory statutes and the Constitution. The right of a woman to an abortion on demand conflicts with the Constitution. We must reflect on this in the context of constitutional interpretation and in how we read these provisions.

Mufti Ravil Pancheyev — on a potential source of law for Russia

The Islamic legal tradition, based on the Quran and the Sunnah, offers a rich toolkit for making sense of values, the unity of peoples, and the primacy of the spiritual over the material […]. These principles align naturally with the traditional values of Russia’s peoples and can serve as an important guide for the application of the law in our country.

Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov — on Russia’s new (objective!) history textbook on the Donbas

Everything presented here is objective information — not the lies that filled Ukrainian textbooks.

Deputy Justice Minister Oleg Sviridenko — on instructions for separatism

I am sure many of you in this room have seen the program “Besogon” [the nationalist talk show hosted by filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov] and have seen these instructions on extremism and separatism. It’s easy to find, because no state has sovereignty over the internet’s content. Not a single one, except the Anglo-Saxons and the Americans.

The same speaker — on the dangers of artificial intelligence

A wave of artificial intelligence is bearing down on us. Imagine AI taking over what “foreign agents” were doing. All those online how-to guides for separatism are easy to find on an internet dominated by the Anglo-Saxons. This could be a very big blow to state sovereignty.

Dmitry Medvedev — on the rotten West

A crucial step in defending the interests of the global majority is demanding from Western nations — and there’s actually a way to do it — reparations for the enormous damage inflicted through colonial and neocolonial practices, stretching back to the Age of Discovery.