Masked Russian police officers burst into the crowded gay club, brandishing assault rifles and wearing body armour. “On the floor!” they shouted, forcing men to lie half-naked and spread-eagled on the ground. They were accompanied by members of a pro-Kremlin nationalist group.
The raid on the Pose club in Orenburg, a city 900 miles east of Moscow, came after the Russian supreme court outlawed the “international LGBT social movement” as an extremist group, even though no such entity exists. On Friday, Russia also added the same fictitious LGBT global movement to its official list of “extremist and terrorist” organisations.
Two of the club’s employees were accused of aiding and abetting extremist activities and now face up to ten years in prison. Diana Kamilyanova, the club’s
