Retiree who backed Russia’s LGBT ban fined 1,500 rubles over old rainbow-flag reposts
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia (Getty Images)
Russia’s anti-LGBT “extremism” crackdown is now punishing people posting homophobic content where a rainbow appears, after Mediazona compiled five cases in which authorities did not consider the context around rainbow imagery.
Mediazona is a Russian independent news outlet known for court reporting, prison and law-enforcement coverage, and documenting political repression.
In one of the clearest examples, Vera Makeyeva, a retiree from Kurgan who welcomed Russia’s ban on the “LGBT movement”, was fined 1,500 rubles six months later for old reposts of homophobic content featuring a rainbow flag. “It’s my own fault. I hadn’t cleaned up my photo albums in 13 years. Some people were interested enough to go through them,” Makeyeva said.
Pyatigorsk local Pyotr Voronin received a one-day jail term over an image that placed the presidents of Ukraine and France next to a swastika and a rainbow flag, both of which are treated as extremist symbols in Russia. Voronin said he intended the image to mock Ukraine and France, but was outraged that “the FSB’s AI decided I was spreading propaganda.”
How Russia’s anti-LGBT enforcement expanded
Nearly three years ago, Russia’s Supreme Court banned the so-called “international LGBT movement” as extremist. From that point, “LGBT extremism” has been used as the basis for at least 14 criminal investigations, as well as an estimated hundreds of citations for administrative offences.
The Supreme Court’s November 2023 designation was widely condemned as another step in a broader crackdown that could put LGBTQ+ people and anyone discussing queer lives at risk of prosecution, as set out when Russia declared the ‘international public LGBT movement’ an extremist group.
Five cases where rainbow flags triggered fines
In the Kemerovo region, retiree Vladimir Sugakov was fined 100,000 rubles for “LGBT propaganda” in homophobic posts, including a slideshow of Pride photographs set to Sergei Trofimov’s song “Petushki” (“Little Roosters”, Russian prison slang for gay men).
In Moscow, a video titled “Nazi Initiation” led to a 100,000-ruble fine. The person who posted it said he had done so “as a joke.” The court treated it as “LGBT propaganda”.
Another case had consequences beyond a fine. Father Grigory (Grzegorz Zwoliński), a Polish Catholic priest who lived in Kirov, was fined 1,000 rubles after adding a rainbow flag to a post about Archbishop Paolo Pezzi “to draw attention.” Afterwards, his Russian residence permit was revoked and he was barred from re-entering. After 24 years living in Russia, the priest returned to Poland.
