You are optimistic.
Separately, authorities opened multiple cases against people accused of “participating in” or “running” the “LGBT movement.” In February, the state news agency RIA Novosti reported that, according to the Federal Security Service, a person already serving a prison sentence in Kemerovo region received an additional six-year prison sentence for participating in the “LGBT movement” and “involving” other prisoners in its activities.
In March, a doctor in Ulyanovsk region who faced a maximum punishment of one year in prison for alleged sexual coercion, was also prosecuted for “involving” the other man in the “LGBT movement,” and received a three-year sentence.
In December 2024, Andrei Kotov died by suicide in a pretrial detention center where he was held on charges of running an “extremist organization.” The authorities claimed Kotov’s company Men Travel, which sought to market tourist travel to gay men, was a “branch” of the LGBT movement.