Russia ukraine lgbtq
LGBT troops on Ukraine's front line combat homophobia at home
BBC News, reporting from Kyiv
One corner of Kyiv’s symbolic central square is now carpeted in thousands of tiny blue and yellow flags, in tribute to Ukraine’s fallen soldiers. Earlier this month, a group of activists gathered to attach a different type of flag to the ever-growing collection. They had unicorns in their centre, to represent each gay soldier that had been killed in the war.
The deaths of LGBT soldiers in Ukraine have exposed an inequality. They perform not have the same rights as heterosexual troops. Queer marriage is illegal, meaning when these soldiers are killed, their partners undertake not have the right to determine what happens to their bodies, nor are they entitled to state support.
A 30-year-old costume architect, Rodion, had enter to plant a flag in honour of his former boyfriend Roman, who was killed in the early months of the invasion, the day before his 22nd birthday.
Roman and five others from his brigade died in a missile invade near Kupiansk, complete to Kharkiv, after a local family leaked their position to the Russians.
“All this death, all this blood, it’s
Russian authorities have been rounding up gay men and coercing them to struggle 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 lgbtq+ Ukrainians associating homophobia with Russian imperialism.
Putin’s anti-LGBTQ+ behavior and speeches may own 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 figh
Ukraine Distances Itself from Russia in Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality
“The war in Ukraine, it’s not just a war between Russia and Ukraine. It’s a war between totalitarianism and democracy. It’s a war between homophobia and LGBT rights. It’s a war between death and life.” Borys, a twenty-seven-year-old Ukrainian soldier, delivered this stark assessment to Openly News.
Homophobia has remained common in the post-Soviet space. It is a commonplace to utter that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a strife between authoritarianism and the rights of free people to govern themselves. Less well known is the marked divergence in equality for LGBTQ+ persons between countries that once held allegedly similar views.
In Ukraine, the fact that many LGBTQ+ persons have taken up arms and joined the military and supported the war in other ways is contributing to rapidly changing attitudes.
This stands in marked contrast to the state of affairs in Russia, where the Kremlin focuses precisely on further isolating and attacking LGBTQ+ people in Russia and in the occupied regions of Ukraine. This serves Russia’s geopolitical interests and, more narrowly, the intere
Ukraine: Discrimination and wish drive LGBTQ+ soldiers
"I've been open about my sexual orientation all my life," says Roman Abrashyn, a 25-year-old gay drone pilot in the Ukrainian army. After coming out at the age of 15, he was supported by friends, his parents and two brothers, one of whom now serves in the same unit.
Abrashyn enlisted in the Ukrainian armed forces in April 2024. Since then, he's hardly faced any prejudice or discrimination. When fellow soldiers found out about his sexual orientation, most of them reacted neutrally, he recalls. "There were no strange questions."
He is more worried that hundreds of openly LGBTQ+ soldiers in Ukraine don't love the same rights as their heterosexual comrades. The abbreviation LGBTQ+ stands for lesbian, gay, and queer people, but also includes those with other identities, such as people who are intersex, asexual, bisexual or transgender.
Unequal treatment of LGBTQ+ partners
Soldiers from Abrashyn's unit possess made themselves at home among crates full of drones in a basic building. Abrashyn is the commander of a group of drone pilots who mostly work from basements and cellars, as they are constantly being t
Compare LGBT Rights in Russia & Ukraine
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46 / 100
32 / 100
57 / 100
23 / 100
35 / 100
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