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Author: Nick Mayhew, Lecturer in Russian, University of Glasgow
Original article: https://theconversation.com/ukraines-lgbtq-soldiers-call-for-more-rights-as-russia-forces-minorities-into-active-service-239973
Russian authorities have been rounding up gay men and coercing them to fight in Ukraine, according to some recent reports.
The Russian leader has long vilified the gay community in Russia and introduced a raft of new anti-LGBTQ+ laws while promoting supposedly “traditional” masculinity as part of his narrative of creating support for the war. He regularly uses conservative values and the idea of a “traditional” family as part of his anti-west – and anti-Ukraine – rhetoric.
In 2022, when Putin first announced his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he described it as a defence against the west’s “destruction of our traditional values”. A year later, the Russian parliament outlawed what it calls the “global LGBT movement” as “extremism”.
Meanwhile in Ukraine, support for LGBTQ+ rights has risen significantly, with some queer Ukrainians associating homophobia with Russian imperialism.
Putin’s anti-LGBTQ+ actions and speeches may have shored up support for the Ukrainian cause among liberally minded western allies. But Ukraine’s treatment of its gay soldiers is not always as positive a picture of acceptance as has been painted.
“Being an LGBT soldier in Ukraine means not just fighting Russian aggression, but Ukrainian homophobia as well,” according to Maksim Potapovich, a Ukrainian LGBTQ+ activist.
Gay Ukrainian soldiers still face systemic homophobic discrimination and violence from within the Ukrainian military. Same-sex partners lack legal rights in cases of injury and death and, on the frontlines gay soldiers can face assault, verbal abuse and intimidation, along with forced transfer to other regiments.
In June 2024, queer Ukrainians organised a Pride march in Kyiv to rally for better conditions for LGBTQ+ soldiers, including for legally recognised same-sex partnerships. But in a counter protest right-wing nationalists tried to stop the event, with some carrying banners claiming that “LGBT is the arm of the Kremlin”, reiterating claims that Moscow fabricated stories about LGBTQ+ Ukrainian military divisions to discredit the country’s armed forces.
While support for LGBTQ+ rights is on the rise in Ukraine, there is a long way to go. One 2024 poll shows only minority support for same-sex partnerships, with 32% of respondents still having a generally negative view of LGBT people.
Read more:
Ukraine war: how Putin’s anti-LGBTQ+ agenda is an attempt to build support for the invasion
Meanwhile, Russia is using Ukraine’s queer soldiers as a propaganda tool for its war machine.
After reports that LGBTQ+ Ukrainians could make up as many as 7% of the country’s armed forces, some Russian media outlets used this to slander the Ukrainian military by insinuating that its gay soldiers had raped Russian prisoners-of-war.
While these allegations lack verifiable evidence, hundreds of Ukrainians have made rape allegations against the Russian army, and many of these have been from LGBTQ+ people.
Gay Russians forced into military
Before the war, gay men in Russia could be prevented from joining the army, and received diagnoses of “histrionic personality disorder”. But recent reports suggest that some gay Russians are being specifically targeted and sent to the frontlines by force.
The reports come from Chechnya, a republic in the North Caucasus region of Russia, where authorities began a brutal purge of the local LGBTQ+ population in 2017. According to one Russian LGBTQ+ organisation, the Chechen authorities are now using social media to entrap gay men and force them to choose between prison, a US$16,500 (£12,300) bail, or joining the war in Ukraine. At least one of these gay men has already been confirmed dead.
Forcing sexual minorities into the military is part of a broader use of active service as a form of punishment. Obligatory military service has been proposed for men who fail to pay child support, and earlier this year Russian rapper Vacío was conscripted after being found guilty of “propagating non-traditional sexual relations” for attending a private party in sexually provocative attire.
LGBTQ+ soldiers are fighting on both sides of the war. On the Ukrainian side, reports of systemic homophobia have sometimes been brushed aside to paint Ukraine as straightforwardly progressive. On the Russian side, the plight of gay soldiers forcibly sent to their death has received little media attention.
Perhaps that is why western support for LGBTQ+ Russians has almost disappeared despite pleas for help from queer Russian activists. In the words of one: “The Russian LGBT community needs global help today more than ever. Please don’t turn your backs on us.” In over-simplified narratives about a progressive Ukraine and a homophobic Russia, the suffering of LGBTQ+ people in both countries can get lost.