A group of Russian soldiers went AWOL in Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiyv, and hid is a basement used as a community room by the LGBTQ community.
The soldiers hiding out in the basement were discovered by a group of Ukrainian LGBTQ people who beat the Russians and took them prisoner, according to the newspaper Israel HaYom (Israel Today).
While Ukraine doesn’t have full equality protections for its LGBTQ citizens, its policies are ahead of those in Russia. So while all Ukrainians fear what life could be like under Russian domination, the LGBTQ community is particularly fearful.
Israel HaYom quotes Viktor Pilipanko, the Ukrainian LGBTQ rights activist who contacted the newspaper with the story.
“This is our war, the Ukrainians, but we have also been fighting as LGBTQ people, and I’m sure that the comrades in Kharkiyv understood that,” Pilipanko said. “We are confronting a tyrannical, homophobic enemy.”
Same-sex relationships are legal in Ukraine. A 2015 law makes workplace discrimination against LGBTQ employees illegal. Laws have changed over the past few years that makes it easier for trans men and women to transition. Marriage is still not legal, but that would probably change with the country’s admission to the European Union that was approved this week.
— David Taffet
