Anti-LGBTQ+ persecution has intensified in Russia since the government strengthened its anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda law and outlawed the so-called “international LGBT movement.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has instituted successively broader anti-LGBTQ+ “propaganda laws” since 2013, and raids and arrests at LGBTQ+ clubs have become commonplace across the country.
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In October, for example, Police in Moscow raided two gay clubs, detaining over 50 people. Photos and video from the raids was posted on pro-Russia Telegram channels MSK1 and SHOT on October 12 showing masked police storming into downtown Moscow club Central Station, forcing shouting at patrons and forcing them to lie on the ground. One clip shows officers searching people, with one cop violently kicking a detainee’s leg.
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In December, as many as a dozen individuals rounded up at gay clubs in Moscow were found guilty of “hooliganism” by a Russian court and sentenced to administrative detention.
A report from Voice of America found that 12 criminal cases were brought against LGBTQ+ Russians in 2024 based on the newest propaganda laws, in addition to the first arrests and fines for “extremist symbols” and “LGBT propaganda.” Eleven of the 12 criminal defendants were employees of raided clubs or other LGBTQ+ service providers. “
“That is, these are not directly activists who, for example, post some information on social networks and, in the opinion of the authorities, are engaged in ‘propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations,’” explained Dmitry Anisimov, press secretary of the OVD-Info project, which released a year-end review of Russian repression in December. None of the cases have yet begun trial, but the defendants could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.
2024 also saw a myriad of Russian citizens arrested and fined for online posts that included rainbow flags, some of which were posted years earlier.
And unsurprisingly, the LGBTQ+ community is terrified as experts predict the arrests and raids will only worsen in 2025.
“People are closing themselves off more and more,” LGBT rights lawyer Max Olenichev told Voice of America. “They don’t go to such places. But I always say that it is important to maintain social connections on a horizontal level. No law can prohibit people from going to the cinema together, having parties at home, and somehow communicating with each other on any topic.”
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