Tuesday, February 24, is the fourth anniversary of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
A lot will be written about the state of the fighting this week, and rightly so. But there’s another event happening this February 24 that will attract far less international attention. A court in Moscow is expected to ban the St. Petersburg LGBTQ+ organization Coming Out as an “extremist organization.” This could subject its leaders to prosecution under the country’s terrorism laws. Coming Out's lawyers told me it’s likely a coincidence that this hearing is being held on the war anniversary. But Russia’s war on Ukraine and its war on its own LGBTQ+ citizens are connected: Putin discovered that homophobia was a powerful tool to crush democracy within and undermine international norms....
