Putin’s LGBTQ+ crackdown: Russian artist fined for displaying rainbow flag

While the rainbow symbol itself is not banned in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, displaying a flag featuring one has already led to its first guilty verdict. 

A Russian court fined a photo artist for posting a rainbow flag on her social media, citing the country’s ban on LGBTQ+ symbols. 

On Monday, a regional court judge fined artist Inna Mosina 1,500 rubles (around €15) for “demonstrating the symbols of an extremist organization,” the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reported. Mosina could face up to four years in prison for repeat offenses. 

Mosina’s case, which began on December 13, was the first since Russia’s Supreme Court declared “the international LGBTQ+ movement” an “extremist” organization in November. 

Mosina’s attorneys stated she had posted the photographs before the Supreme Court designation; the court found her guilty nonetheless.

As Mosina’s trial proceeded, other cases arose. A court in Volgograd region in Russia’s southwest fined a local resident 1,000 rubles (€10) for an online rainbow flag image, while a woman from Nizhny Novgorod, some 400 kilometers east of Moscow, was sentenced to five days in jail for wearing rainbow earrings. 

“I am not aware of any laws that prohibit the rainbow in Russia,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday when asked about the case. He added that he didn’t not know all the details and couldn’t comment further.

Sergey Goryashko is hosted at POLITICO under the EU-funded EU4FreeMedia residency program.