No joke: Russian man fined for claiming to have founded ‘extremist LGBT movement’

A Russian man who jokingly claimed online to have founded the non-existent “international LGBT movement”, which in 2023 was banned by Russia’s Supreme Court for being “extremist”, has been fined 100,000 rubles (€927), independent news outlet Mediazona reported on Wednesday.

In a verdict handed down by a Moscow court in November but only made public on Tuesday, Anton Yevdokimov was found guilty of spreading the “propaganda of non-traditional relations” over two posts he made on Russian social media platform VK in December 2023, shortly after the court ruling. 

In his posts, one of which included a picture of the rainbow flag, Yevdokimov wrote: “Now that they’ve banned LGBT, it’s time to confess: I am the founder and main organiser of the LGBTQ+ extremist organisation!” 

“I went to Rainbow High School, was recruited there, and now irradiate all homophobes with rainbows! Every time a homophobe looks at a rainbow, they get a tingle in their ass and want to suck dicks,” he continued, before warning “KGB cocksuckers” that they should “be afraid”.

Yevdokimov, 36, who was already in police detention awaiting trial for “justifying terrorism” over another social media post he wrote when he received the fine, has regularly taken part in opposition protests in the past, and in January 2021 was arrested for 10 days for his attendance of a rally in support of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, according to human rights group OVD-Info.