Since the start of Vladimir Putin’s third term in 2012, the Russian government’s increased attention for traditional, conservative norms and values has been instrumentalised for foreign policy purposes, thus contributing to the strong normative East-West polarisation in its relations with the European Union. Within this Russian discourse critical of ‘Europe’s aggressive promotion of neoliberal values’, we will single out the strong focus on LGBT rights as a means of geopolitical othering. In 2013-14 for example, the rhetoric surrounding the law against ‘gay propaganda’ was met with strong disapproval in the West, yet led to similar legislative initiatives in other CIS countries. Interestingly, one can also detect repeated references to LGBTs in the Russian rhetoric on Ukraine’s ‘Vybor za Evropu’ after Euromaidan. Whereas Ukraine’s European choice seems to lead the country in a very different political direction, the EU norms and values discourse does seem to evoke strong reactions. Will Ukraine’s ‘normative isomorphism’ come under pressure because of EU demands in its Eastern Partnership policy? The Rada’s repeated objections to include LGBT rights in the Ukrainian Labour code (as required in the framework of the Eastern partnership Visa Liberalisation Dialogue), might indicate the limits of Ukraine’s openness to ‘shared values’ deemed important by the EU. The limited support for issues like LGBT rights and divergent values perceptions in Russia and Ukraine will be studied by means of Holzhacker’s theory on the ricochet process of transborder circulation of information as triggers for domestic and foreign policy change.
