I think that war with Russia is approaching and they know that Putin will do something; thus while it's done under the oretense of saving the children, it's for wartime...
They're 2 weeks away from having ~~nuclear weapons~~ invading Europe! Sorry, we need to scan all of your communications to prepare for this looming threat.
Russia is equally a genuine threat to the west. A threat we can easily fix by helping Ukraine bomb them into economic collapse.
Russia can't even take Ukraine, they're experiencing their own version of the U.S. Vietnam catastrophe.
Of course, this is all irrelevant to the discussion around chat control: authoritarians want authority.