Lugansk. Pedro Vizcaino Pina.

Before the war, the gay community in
Donbas enjoyed a well-developed infrastructure that included
organized social groups, HIV Service Centres and themed clubs.

Contrary to common perceptions of
Donbas as an uncompromising region with conservative customs and
strong vestiges of Soviet morality, this area of Ukraine used to be
in the forefront as regards tolerance towards sexual minorities.


In 2000, research by the LGBT rights
organization Nash mir (“Our world”) on the position
of gays and lesbians in Ukraine indicated that the proportion of
openly gay people was greater in eastern areas. The figure came to
14.9 per cent of the minority representatives polled (a higher
percentage was recorded only in the south of the country). 
Researchers noted that Donbas is characterized by a high degree of
urbanization, population mobility, and indifference towards religious
issues — in contrast to western Ukraine, which is distinguished by
traditional rural morality and the strong influence of the church on
the lives of local communities. Annual reports on cases of homophobic
violence, produced by the “Our world” Centre, also
highlight this difference — most cases of hate crime are
geographically linked to western Ukraine.


However, eastern Ukraine, which lies
in the field of Russian cultural influence, has always been sensitive
to trends emerging from its erstwhile metropolitan centre. 
The
homophobic campaign in the Russian Federation, and in particular the
passing of a law forbidding “homosexual propaganda”, has
led to a surge of hate towards sexual minorities in Donbas. In 2013, an “Anti-Gay”
parade organised by Cossacks and Orthodox activists was held in
Lugansk. 
Equally, a branch of the “Occupy Paedophilia”
movement founded by the Neo-Nazi Maxim (“Tesak”)
Martsinkevich was established in Donbas. “Tesak” himself
toured Lugansk to film yet another movie about the ignominious
behaviour of supposed “paedophiles”. His targets were
students of Arab origin. Martsinkevich’s adolescent followers were
even shown on local television news programmes, which publicized and
commended their “activism”.


In 2014, the rhetoric of separatist
rebels was littered with references to Gayropa, while
homosexuals were branded as the “fifth column” of the West.

One separatist ideologue, Gleb Bobrov
– a PR man from Lugansk – wrote: “Becoming a homophobe should
now be everybody’s business. If there is a homosexual lobby there
must also be a homophobic lobby.” This idea was widely exploited
in [homophobic] propaganda. In Lugansk the homes of local supporters
of the Maidan [anti-government protest movement] were pasted with
offensive posters declaring the occupants to be “drug addicts”
and as “belonging to sexual minorities”.


When the separatists took power, they
became a genuine threat to LGBT people and members of sexual
minorities were forced to flee their homes.

Igor, aged 25, from Donetsk says:
“Once armed people appeared in the streets I got really scared.
I knew that during demonstrations they were always yelling that
people like me should be killed, that we were running a gay
propaganda campaign, and rubbish of that kind. I used to joke about
it until these people took over the city. That was when I left for
Kyiv and I’ve no plans to return home.”


Konstantin, a gay activist from
Donetsk notes: “Out of my circle of friends, 80 per cent have
gone away. The rest sit around at home, or if there’s shooting they
may be down in the cellars.”

On the night if 7-8 June 2014, the
Vavilon (“Babylon”) gay club in Donetsk was
attacked. 
This was how the manager of the club described the
incident: “A group of up to ten people burst into the club. To
begin with, all guests had their documents, telephones and money
removed. Everything was later returned, except the money. Two people
were badly beaten. The rest were left slightly hurt and suffering
from shock. I don’t think any of the girls were touched, I didn’t see
anything myself. Only the guys were victimized. The whole thing
lasted about an hour, no longer than that. Then everyone was
released. And obviously the kids were also verbally abused…”
Since then, the club has ceased to exist.


Andrei Kravchuk, a specialist from the
“Our world” Centre, says: “In the Donbass, homosexuals
are experiencing the return of the Soviet era. People are trying to
minimize all contact with each other.”

By way of example, he recalls events
in Lugansk in January 2015, when Yuri, a 38-year-old gay man was
murdered (probably by someone he had met on social media). 
The
separatist “people’s militia” took advantage of the
incident and set about creating a “file” on gays in Lugansk
by copying the telephone numbers of the murdered man’s contacts.

The director of the Interregional
Centre for LGBT Studies, Donbass Sotsporekt (“The Donbass
social project”), Maxim Kas’yanchuk confirms Kravchuk’s view:
“Gays are hiding away in corners and staying put. They are
trying to ensure that they offer no excuse for intimidation.”


Konstantin, a gay activist from
Donetsk, describes the hidden dangers that gays face: “It’s a
standard set-up. Getting to know someone on social media, meeting up
with an undercover cop, arriving at a flat in which hidden webcams
have already been installed… And then the pigs break in and what
follows ranges from allegations of paedophilia to straightforward
blackmail: ‘show us the money and we won’t tell anyone’.”
Konstantin also notes that traps of this kind were set by Donetsk law
enforcement agencies in peacetime as well. As far as many gays are
concerned “nothing has changed”.


The authorities of the separatist
republics are aiming to consolidate discrimination against LGBT
people at a statutory level. The “Constitution of the Donetsk
People’s Republic [DPR]” includes the clause: “No form of
perverted union between people of the same sex is recognized or
permitted in the Donetsk People’s Republic, and [any such union] is
subject to penalty by law.”Further,the document notes that the
“dominant faith” of the “DPR” is Orthodox
Christianity.


Ukrainian media have also reported
that the “LPR” [Lugansk People’s Republic] has introduced a
criminal penalty “for homosexuality”. According to blogger
Vsevolod Filimonenko, the parliament of the self-proclaimed republic
has taken a decision to penalize single-sex relationships with
between three and five years imprisonment. 
If violence has been
involved, or if one partner was underage, then the offender faces the
death penalty. 
An advisor to the Ukrainian Minister of Defence,
Aleksandr Danilyuk, reported that — in one case — the death penalty
for homosexuality has already been enforced in the “LPR”:
“In the region under [Aleksey] Mozgovoy’s command, they have
introduced a penalty for homosexuality. The first defendant was shot
today.”


LPR rebels refute this. Their late
commander, Aleksey Mozgovoy said: “We have done nothing of the
sort. No death penalty has been introduced. No one has been shot.
Nothing like this has taken place here.”

He admitted that he supported the
prohibition of single sex relationships, of course: “but bearing
in mind the stink that has been kicked up [over this] all around the
world, no one is likely to go in for it directly.” 
LPR people’s
deputy Yury Khokhlov also said that the report on the introduction of
criminal liability for homosexuality was part of a Ukrainian
propaganda plot.

Gays sense their lack of civil rights
and their vulnerability. 
In conditions such as these “the man
with the gun” can become a sexual fetish. 

The date.bluesystem
dating site features personal ads of the following kind: “Looking
to meet a DPR fighter.” In fact, this reflects a classic
situation, characteristic of wartime occupation, when the victim
comes to experience empathy for his oppressors. 
The French dramatist
Jean Genet recalled that during the years of the Nazi occupation,
Parisian homosexuals fell in love with SS men.

The sharp deterioration of conditions
for gays in Donbas is symptomatic of the breakdown of the local
community in wartime, the simplification of its structure, and the
eradication of its diversity. Once again, as in Soviet times,
homosexuals have been relegated to the underground.