Exporting intolerance: how Russia's anti-LGBTQ+ model is spreading across Central Asia, the Caucasus and Europe
Kyrgyzstan has passed a ban on gender transition at first reading, Kazakhstan a law against "LGBT propaganda," Belarus a set of administrative fines, and Lithuania is preparing a referendum on the "traditional family." Rights advocates describe these not as scattered episodes but as a single mechanism, built in Russia and designed for export. This is how the mechanism works — and how the community is resisting it.
In early June 2026, Kyrgyzstan's parliament passed a ban on gender transition at first reading. A few months earlier, at the end of 2025, Kazakhstan approved a law banning so-called "LGBT propaganda." In Europe, conservative movements and politicians are pushing similar measures and reproducing the talking points of Russian propaganda almost word for word. And in Russia itself, the authorities have equated queer people and the organizations that help them with extremists.
These developments share a common source. As a report by Current Time (Nastoyashchee Vremya, RFE/RL) shows, Russia has turned queer people into a geopolitical instrument and its repressive model into what rights advocates call an exportable infrastructure.
The Russian template
The logic is set by the very sequence of Russian laws. Since 2013, the country has banned "LGBT propaganda" aimed at minors. In 2023, gender transition was effectively prohibited, and then the Supreme Court designated the non-existent "international LGBT movement" as extremist. This was followed by raids on queer spaces, administrative and criminal cases, and ever louder rhetoric about defending "traditional values."
Denis Oleynik, director of the Russian organization Coming Out (Vykhod), describes this as a deliberate strategy: the authorities bet on confrontation, equating LGBT people with the "decay of the West" and with values supposedly alien to the region — and that "infection," in his words, is spreading to neighboring countries, more strongly in some places than others.
Central Asia: "colonial pressure"
Russian laws and narratives have made their mark most visibly in Central Asia. In Kyrgyzstan, deputies floated an analogue of the "propaganda law" as early as 2014 — almost immediately after Russia adopted it; vague wording sank the bill then, but the measure passed in 2023. By 2026, the authorities had moved on to banning gender transition and "trans propaganda."
A human-rights coordinator at the Eurasian Coalition ECOM, speaking under the name Ayana (changed for safety), describes this as direct ideological, political and legal influence: countries in the region copy Russian laws and use vulnerable groups as a tool. According to her, when laws against NGOs were adopted — including in Kyrgyzstan and Georgia — public rhetoric leaned heavily on the image of queer people as part of a "Western threat."
Dependence amplifies the dynamic. Hundreds of thousands of Kyrgyz citizens work in Russia, and that link, Ayana notes, shapes political decisions; passing such laws becomes a way to demonstrate loyalty. The consequences for people are concrete: after raids, the country's main LGBTQ+ organizations — Kyrgyz Indigo and Labrys — were forced to wind down public work, shut their websites and social media, and some activists left. Support is now carried on by hidden grassroots groups.
In Kazakhstan, a law banning "LGBT propaganda" was passed at the end of 2025 despite protests from civil society. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev then spoke of the need to define marriage in law as a union of a man and a woman, and films began to be screened for "propaganda" before release. Criminal prosecution of queer people has not yet followed, the ECOM representative says, but the law has hit the personal freedom and public activity of NGOs: partner organizations have scaled back their social media presence, discussed labeling content, and considered making their pages community-only.
Alua, an activist with the "I am not propaganda" campaign who uses they/them pronouns, framed the dependence bluntly at a Coming Out discussion held during Vilnius Pride: Russia has no need to wage war on Kazakhstan or occupy it — the country, they said, is already "in Russia's pocket."
In Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, where same-sex relations are partly or fully criminalized, the situation has always been harsh. Now the organizations that help are being targeted too. Laws on HIV transmission and the distribution of pornography are used against queer people, Ayana says: personal photos or videos found on a phone can be classified as pornographic content, and human-rights defenders face pressure from the security services.
These processes are embedded in a global shift to the right. The strengthening of traditionalist ideology and the cuts in international donor funding, Ayana notes, have struck organizations that were already vulnerable, leaving many without resources — which in turn has emboldened politicians who initiate anti-LGBTQ+ laws.
Europe: the "exportable mechanism"
The Russian authorities have tied queer identity directly to geopolitics and built what Nef Cellarius, program director of Coming Out, calls a legal infrastructure that makes queer people's lives dangerous — and it is precisely that infrastructure which is exportable. Cellarius identifies three mechanisms: legal uncertainty (the laws contain no clear definitions of "propaganda" or "participation"), the criminalization of support infrastructure, and transnational persecution.
The 2020 constitutional amendment, which fixed "family" in Russia exclusively as a union of a man and a woman, serves as a model. European conservative movements have adopted the idea. In the spring of 2026, Lithuanian parliamentarians proposed holding a referendum alongside the 2027 municipal elections that would enshrine such a status of the family in the Constitution; rights advocates appealed to the European Commission.
Vladimir Simonko, head of the Lithuanian Gay League, warns that even existing rights are not a given but something that has to be defended constantly: if society and the authorities are not reminded of this, "everything can change in a single day." Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius, a former member of the Seimas, adds that since Lithuania joined the EU in 2003, not a single law in favor of LGBTQ+ rights has been adopted, and progress has come almost entirely through the courts. Lithuania, he says, sits on the border of the Western and Eastern worlds, and Russian influence exploits the theme of human and minority rights to stoke division.
In Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko signed a law in the spring of 2026 on administrative liability for "propaganda of LGBT, sex change and being childfree." Dmitry Yermolovich-Dashchinsky, a queer researcher and head of the Belarusian section of the Warsaw Queer Museum, sees a double danger: the rule applies to all Belarusian citizens regardless of where they live, while the security services pressure the relatives of activists abroad, conduct searches and "preventive talks." He describes life for the community inside the country as driven entirely into the shadows — so much so that a queer teenager in Belarus may sincerely believe that people like them do not exist.
Moldova is a separate case where Russian influence is especially visible. Former president Igor Dodon advocated rapprochement with Moscow; in the spring of 2025 his Party of Socialists proposed banning "LGBT propaganda" in schools, but parliament rejected it. Ahead of the parliamentary elections, a campaign demonizing queer people unfolded on social media: pro-European parties were accused of promoting "LGBT ideology" in schools, and false claims circulated about "millions from Soros" for "LGBTQ+ programs." Researchers at the Reuters Institute traced the link between these injections and Russia. Lorelei Grigoriță, director of the Queer Voices film festival, says it is extremely difficult to change the minds of people who believe such narratives, but cultural events and inclusive spaces that bring people together around shared interests do help.
Similar laws operate inside the EU itself: bans on "LGBT propaganda" aimed at minors in Hungary and Bulgaria, and in 2025 Slovakia enshrined in its Constitution the recognition of only two genders, with the right to marry and adopt. Here, though, there is a countercurrent: in April 2026 the Court of Justice of the EU ruled that Hungary's law violated EU law and its founding values. An LGBTQ+ researcher from Georgia who goes by the name Jason S notes that the Hungarian example is used as proof that, with such laws, a country can supposedly remain in the EU "with honor" by defending "traditions" — and in Georgia this has allowed the authorities to double down on "traditionalism."
There are far more allies than it seems
For all the pressure, rights advocates also record a countertrend. According to the organizations Coming Out and Sfera, more psychologists and lawyers in Russia are joining assistance programs, and parents are forming informal groups to support queer teenagers. In Central Asia, where NGOs are closing or going underground, the main burden has shifted to regional and international organizations that people can still turn to.
Support is possible even in a repressive environment, Ayana stresses, and it begins with the immediate circle — with the love of relatives and with destigmatization, with the habit of checking information against reliable sources rather than homophobic channels. Denis Oleynik sees the key task as preventing the fragmentation of the rights sector that benefits the authorities: it matters that LGBTQ+ organizations cooperate with other NGOs, businesses and community centers and pursue rights not only for queer people but for all vulnerable groups.
For the countries in the most difficult position, the question is already one of survival. Dmitry Yermolovich-Dashchinsky calls the community's situation in Belarus one of the most hopeless in the European part of the post-Soviet space, and says queer Belarusians now need, above all, relocation programs, support with adaptation and access to medical care.
Where it is possible, Pride remains an anchor. The first Vilnius Pride in 2010 drew 350 people; today thousands travel to it. Simonko insists that protest can also take the form of celebration: Pride unites the community, its friends and civil society — and it is on such days that it becomes clear there are far more allies than everyday life suggests.
This article is based on a report by Current Time (RFE/RL); the original was written by Kristina Zakurdaeva and Roman Vasyukovich. Some interviewees speak under changed names for safety reasons.
In early June 2026, Kyrgyzstan's parliament passed a ban on gender transition at first reading. A few months earlier, at the end of 2025, Kazakhstan approved a law banning so-called "LGBT propaganda." In Europe, conservative movements and politicians are pushing similar measures and reproducing the talking points of Russian propaganda almost word for word. And in Russia itself, the authorities have equated queer people and the organizations that help them with extremists.
These developments share a common source. As a report by Current Time (Nastoyashchee Vremya, RFE/RL) shows, Russia has turned queer people into a geopolitical instrument and its repressive model into what rights advocates call an exportable infrastructure.
The Russian template
The logic is set by the very sequence of Russian laws. Since 2013, the country has banned "LGBT propaganda" aimed at minors. In 2023, gender transition was effectively prohibited, and then the Supreme Court designated the non-existent "international LGBT movement" as extremist. This was followed by raids on queer spaces, administrative and criminal cases, and ever louder rhetoric about defending "traditional values."
Denis Oleynik, director of the Russian organization Coming Out (Vykhod), describes this as a deliberate strategy: the authorities bet on confrontation, equating LGBT people with the "decay of the West" and with values supposedly alien to the region — and that "infection," in his words, is spreading to neighboring countries, more strongly in some places than others.
Central Asia: "colonial pressure"
Russian laws and narratives have made their mark most visibly in Central Asia. In Kyrgyzstan, deputies floated an analogue of the "propaganda law" as early as 2014 — almost immediately after Russia adopted it; vague wording sank the bill then, but the measure passed in 2023. By 2026, the authorities had moved on to banning gender transition and "trans propaganda."
A human-rights coordinator at the Eurasian Coalition ECOM, speaking under the name Ayana (changed for safety), describes this as direct ideological, political and legal influence: countries in the region copy Russian laws and use vulnerable groups as a tool. According to her, when laws against NGOs were adopted — including in Kyrgyzstan and Georgia — public rhetoric leaned heavily on the image of queer people as part of a "Western threat."
Dependence amplifies the dynamic. Hundreds of thousands of Kyrgyz citizens work in Russia, and that link, Ayana notes, shapes political decisions; passing such laws becomes a way to demonstrate loyalty. The consequences for people are concrete: after raids, the country's main LGBTQ+ organizations — Kyrgyz Indigo and Labrys — were forced to wind down public work, shut their websites and social media, and some activists left. Support is now carried on by hidden grassroots groups.
In Kazakhstan, a law banning "LGBT propaganda" was passed at the end of 2025 despite protests from civil society. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev then spoke of the need to define marriage in law as a union of a man and a woman, and films began to be screened for "propaganda" before release. Criminal prosecution of queer people has not yet followed, the ECOM representative says, but the law has hit the personal freedom and public activity of NGOs: partner organizations have scaled back their social media presence, discussed labeling content, and considered making their pages community-only.
Alua, an activist with the "I am not propaganda" campaign who uses they/them pronouns, framed the dependence bluntly at a Coming Out discussion held during Vilnius Pride: Russia has no need to wage war on Kazakhstan or occupy it — the country, they said, is already "in Russia's pocket."
In Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, where same-sex relations are partly or fully criminalized, the situation has always been harsh. Now the organizations that help are being targeted too. Laws on HIV transmission and the distribution of pornography are used against queer people, Ayana says: personal photos or videos found on a phone can be classified as pornographic content, and human-rights defenders face pressure from the security services.
These processes are embedded in a global shift to the right. The strengthening of traditionalist ideology and the cuts in international donor funding, Ayana notes, have struck organizations that were already vulnerable, leaving many without resources — which in turn has emboldened politicians who initiate anti-LGBTQ+ laws.
Europe: the "exportable mechanism"
The Russian authorities have tied queer identity directly to geopolitics and built what Nef Cellarius, program director of Coming Out, calls a legal infrastructure that makes queer people's lives dangerous — and it is precisely that infrastructure which is exportable. Cellarius identifies three mechanisms: legal uncertainty (the laws contain no clear definitions of "propaganda" or "participation"), the criminalization of support infrastructure, and transnational persecution.
The 2020 constitutional amendment, which fixed "family" in Russia exclusively as a union of a man and a woman, serves as a model. European conservative movements have adopted the idea. In the spring of 2026, Lithuanian parliamentarians proposed holding a referendum alongside the 2027 municipal elections that would enshrine such a status of the family in the Constitution; rights advocates appealed to the European Commission.
Vladimir Simonko, head of the Lithuanian Gay League, warns that even existing rights are not a given but something that has to be defended constantly: if society and the authorities are not reminded of this, "everything can change in a single day." Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius, a former member of the Seimas, adds that since Lithuania joined the EU in 2003, not a single law in favor of LGBTQ+ rights has been adopted, and progress has come almost entirely through the courts. Lithuania, he says, sits on the border of the Western and Eastern worlds, and Russian influence exploits the theme of human and minority rights to stoke division.
In Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko signed a law in the spring of 2026 on administrative liability for "propaganda of LGBT, sex change and being childfree." Dmitry Yermolovich-Dashchinsky, a queer researcher and head of the Belarusian section of the Warsaw Queer Museum, sees a double danger: the rule applies to all Belarusian citizens regardless of where they live, while the security services pressure the relatives of activists abroad, conduct searches and "preventive talks." He describes life for the community inside the country as driven entirely into the shadows — so much so that a queer teenager in Belarus may sincerely believe that people like them do not exist.
Moldova is a separate case where Russian influence is especially visible. Former president Igor Dodon advocated rapprochement with Moscow; in the spring of 2025 his Party of Socialists proposed banning "LGBT propaganda" in schools, but parliament rejected it. Ahead of the parliamentary elections, a campaign demonizing queer people unfolded on social media: pro-European parties were accused of promoting "LGBT ideology" in schools, and false claims circulated about "millions from Soros" for "LGBTQ+ programs." Researchers at the Reuters Institute traced the link between these injections and Russia. Lorelei Grigoriță, director of the Queer Voices film festival, says it is extremely difficult to change the minds of people who believe such narratives, but cultural events and inclusive spaces that bring people together around shared interests do help.
Similar laws operate inside the EU itself: bans on "LGBT propaganda" aimed at minors in Hungary and Bulgaria, and in 2025 Slovakia enshrined in its Constitution the recognition of only two genders, with the right to marry and adopt. Here, though, there is a countercurrent: in April 2026 the Court of Justice of the EU ruled that Hungary's law violated EU law and its founding values. An LGBTQ+ researcher from Georgia who goes by the name Jason S notes that the Hungarian example is used as proof that, with such laws, a country can supposedly remain in the EU "with honor" by defending "traditions" — and in Georgia this has allowed the authorities to double down on "traditionalism."
There are far more allies than it seems
For all the pressure, rights advocates also record a countertrend. According to the organizations Coming Out and Sfera, more psychologists and lawyers in Russia are joining assistance programs, and parents are forming informal groups to support queer teenagers. In Central Asia, where NGOs are closing or going underground, the main burden has shifted to regional and international organizations that people can still turn to.
Support is possible even in a repressive environment, Ayana stresses, and it begins with the immediate circle — with the love of relatives and with destigmatization, with the habit of checking information against reliable sources rather than homophobic channels. Denis Oleynik sees the key task as preventing the fragmentation of the rights sector that benefits the authorities: it matters that LGBTQ+ organizations cooperate with other NGOs, businesses and community centers and pursue rights not only for queer people but for all vulnerable groups.
For the countries in the most difficult position, the question is already one of survival. Dmitry Yermolovich-Dashchinsky calls the community's situation in Belarus one of the most hopeless in the European part of the post-Soviet space, and says queer Belarusians now need, above all, relocation programs, support with adaptation and access to medical care.
Where it is possible, Pride remains an anchor. The first Vilnius Pride in 2010 drew 350 people; today thousands travel to it. Simonko insists that protest can also take the form of celebration: Pride unites the community, its friends and civil society — and it is on such days that it becomes clear there are far more allies than everyday life suggests.
This article is based on a report by Current Time (RFE/RL); the original was written by Kristina Zakurdaeva and Roman Vasyukovich. Some interviewees speak under changed names for safety reasons.