A pair of young women, 19 and 24, were hunted down by Russian police after a video they shot and posted to TikTok and Instagram showed them kissing passionately in a pizzeria just down the road from one of Vladimir Putin’s official residences.
The women were rounded up in the city of Krasnodar in southwest Russia and forced to apologize on camera while being lectured about their “crimes”. They paid fines totaling more than $3000.
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“Did you understand that your video could be watched by minors and that the French kiss that you performed might have harmed their psyche?” an unseen interrogator asks the younger woman, identified as Vika, in video obtained by The U.S. Sun.
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“I was not thinking that it could have influenced anyone,” she replies. “I did not think about it. I did not know.”
The officer then asks: “So you often kiss women in real life?”
“No, no, no! It was just a joke. I’m very remorseful, I’m very sorry…. I am only now starting to realize what we have done. And I understand that we should not have done it.”
The forced apology was then posted to state-sanctioned social media. Instagram is banned in Russia.
The original video posted by Vika’s companion, Vlada Alchaeva, showed her sharing flowers with Vika and then presenting a ring. Then, the two go in for a long and passionate kiss.
Video shot by Russian authorities shows the pair led through a police station to an interrogation room, where they are forced to sign documents and then apologize for running afoul of Putin’s anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda law.
Despite the fact that Alchaeva’s post described the romantic moment as a “joke, just for a bit of a laugh,” police wasted no time hunting the women down.
In her own “confession,” Alchaeva explained remorsefully, “We started filming when we were kissing and I’m proposing to her which we are very sorry about and won’t do it again.”
In an interview with a reporter afterward, Alchaeva toed Putin’s party line.
“I do not support any prohibited movements. For some reason, people thought it was real,” Alchaeva said of the passionate kiss. “I love men.”
The women presumably avoided jail time with their apologies and by denouncing LGBTQ+ affection.
In November, acting on a request from Putin’s Ministry of Justice, the country’s Supreme Court declared the international gay rights movement an “extremist organization,” paving the way for increased persecution of LGBTQ+ people and activists in Russia.
The ruling cited dangerous “signs and manifestations of an extremist nature,” including “incitement of social and religious discord.”
