Russia Is Forcing Gay Chechen Men To Become Soldiers In Ukraine War, Says LGBT Group

SK SOS, a human rights group in Chechnya, say that Russian authorities are "blackmailing" imprisoned gay Chechen men to become soldiers, and fight for Russia in the war against Ukraine. The group says that the men are threatened and blackmailed into 'volunteering' to fight on the frontlines of the globally controversial war. SK SOS says they are aware of at least seven cases of gay men being forced by blackmail to fight, and that one of the men sent to the frontlines in Ukraine has been killed. Releasing the report on Telegram, the SK SOS post details the threats the men received. "They were threatened that a criminal case would be fabricated against them and they would be sent to a pre-trial detention center to await sentencing, where information about their orientation would become known to their cellmates," reads a translated version of the Telegram post. "The alternative option was to pay a ransom or volunteer for the war. As a result, three of the detainees were forced to agree to become volunteers, since the ransom amount was too much for their families. The security forces were asking for 1.5 million rubles." Earlier this year, the human rights group also noted that gay Chechen men were being sent to Ukraine even before 21 September 2022, when Vladimir Putin announced "partial mobilisation" of the army. Gay Chechen men 'imprisoned and tortured' There have been various reports of LGBTQIA+ Chechens, mainly gay men, who have been imprisoned and tortured in the Russian Republic of Chechnya since at least 2017. It has been estimated by human rights groups that LGBT Chechens have fleed the region en masse, and more than 100 gay men who were imprisoned between 2017 and 2019 have died. Reports from SK SOS say there was an “increasing wave of detentions” of gay men in Chechnya in August this year, where Chechen authorities would use dating apps to entrap and then detain gay men. They would also reportedly then use those men's social media and dating app accounts to entrap other gay men. In 2021, the Council of Europe described the treatment of LGBTQIA+ Chechens as follows: "This is the single most egregious example of violence against LGBTI people in Europe that has occurred in decades. Those who survived this violence have been not only physically and psychologically scarred, but forced to flee Chechnya, and in many cases the Russian Federation – fearing for their lives. The involvement of law enforcement officials in this persecution, overtly condoned by the leader of the Republic, made it impossible for victims to turn to the police to seek protection." SK SOS (which translates to 'North Caucasus SOS') is a human rights crisis group which was created in 2021 to provide assistance and protect LGBTQ+ people in the region who are facing life-threatening persecution, discrimination, and abuse by Chechen authorities.

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