Russia has slapped the international travel site Booking.com with an approximately $70,000 fine (6 million rubles) for violating the country’s so-called LGBT propaganda laws.
The Tagansky district court of Moscow reportedly handed down two three-million-ruble fines to the company in response to a newsletter sent to foreign partner hotels that contained information on housing LGBTQ+ tourists for Pride Month events.
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According to Ukrainian news site United 24 Media, which obtained information from Russian Telegram channels, one fine punished Booking.com for violating LGBT propaganda laws, and the second stemmed from the company’s alleged failure to take down the newsletter, despite its claim that it had deleted it on March 11.
Russia initially passed its propaganda law in 2013, banning “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” directed at children. In 2022, Russia’s Duma expanded the law to include all ages, criminalizing “any action or the spreading of any information that is considered an attempt to promote homosexuality in public, online, or in films, books, or advertising.”
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Then, in 2023, the country took it a step further, with the Supreme Court deeming the “international LGBT movement” an “extremist organization.”
In 2026 alone, Russia has charged streamers for illegally distributing the gay hockey drama Heated Rivalry, raided an LGBTQ+ book imprint, fined a man for posting a photo of drag queen, banned a scientific from writing about same-sex animal behavior, and designated multiple LGBTQ+ rights groups as “extremist organizations.”
And in August, the Russian LGBT Network, the country’s largest LGBTQ+ rights group, announced it was shutting down, citing risk to both clients and staff.
Founded in 2006, Russian LGBT Network united over a dozen LGBTQ+ organizations from different regions of the country and became Russia’s largest group dedicated to combating discrimination and rights abuses. It’s best known for successfully rescuing gay people from Chechnya amid the semi-autonomous region’s years-long campaign of arrest, imprisonment, torture, and “honor killings,” all conducted with Russia’s tacit approval.
“For many years, Russian LGBT Network brought together initiatives and activists and supported queer people across the country,” the advocacy group shared. “However, its ‘extremist’ status has made the previous public format of its work impossible: any connection to the organization may create additional risks for the people we seek to support and protect.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has also cited anti-LGBTQ+ animus as a justification for his country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which is now well into its fourth year.
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