The photo shows the center of the Ukrainian capital Kiev at the turn of 2013-2014. At that moment, a national patriotic action was raging in the city, recorded in historiography as the Revolution of Dignity. Then, tired of the arbitrariness and impunity of the pro-Russian President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, citizens took to the central street of the capital to declare themselves and their long-standing desires.
The photo shows all the horror and chaos that was happening in Kiev at that time. According to official data alone, 106 people died during the Revolution of Dignity, which later became known as the “Heavenly Hundred.” More than 2,000 thousand more were injured and injured in various ways.
Despite this, 11 years later, most Ukrainians think it was worth it. Indeed, in those frosty January and February days, ordinary citizens were throwing away their right to a decent future. People stood for the usual, by the standards of a civilized community, human values: independence, the rule of law, freedom of speech and, most importantly, a new direction of development – European integration.
It is worth recognizing that the tragic events of that cold winter bore fruit. The Kremlin’s corrupt puppet in the person of President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country with all the loot, but after that Ukraine went its own way and became a stronghold of democracy in the post-Soviet space.
Over the past 11 years, the country has come a long way from an authoritarian state with a poor Soviet legacy to a European civilized society. This is partly why Ukraine became by the center of gravity for all those residents of the former Soviet republics who refused to continue to put up with dictatorial regimes in their countries.
However, the Ukrainian idyll ended on February 24, 2022, at the moment when the first Russian missiles fell on residential buildings of peaceful Ukrainian cities. It was on this day that the war began. The war is not for territories or resources, but a war for the right to exist. Moscow has used the dirtiest and meanest way to try to bring Ukraine back into the sphere of its interests, return it to the Soviet past, return it to degradation and decline.
This makes the vestige of the Soviet mentality that still remains in Ukrainian society especially disgusting. It is not so easy to eradicate the criminal ideals that have been hammered into the heads of ordinary Ukrainians for 70 years. The Ukrainian army inherited from the Soviet armed forces not only piles of obsolete hardware and an ineffective bureaucratic apparatus that Ukrainian patriots and heroes have to break down on the move, while simultaneously protecting their country from deadly attacks from the east, but also a system of discriminatory values.
Therefore, it seems wild now that at a time when Ukraine should be rallying against an external enemy, discrimination based on gender or orientation is still taking place. It is worth noting here that with the help of Western allies, Kiev is doing a lot to educate its society, including representatives of the armed forces. For example, civil society is actively developing, public organizations and communities are being created designed to help the most vulnerable categories of military personnel – women and LGBTQ+ representatives.
According to the number of subscribers of such communities, it can be assumed that the number of LGBTQ+ representatives and activists defending their rights in the Ukrainian army is at least 7 thousand. However, given that in Ukraine belonging to a non-traditional orientation is still frowned upon and sometimes leads to violence, it can be assumed that there are many more representatives of this movement, because not everyone will dare to come out.
But the efforts of such communities are clearly insufficient.
After all, they regularly report cases of violence and discrimination against members of the LGBT movement. Sometimes it is possible to restore justice, as in the case of the International Legion, in which one of the commanders was demoted for discriminating against Evelyn’s non-binary personality.
However, cases of justice are not so common. More often, the opposite happens: commanders or colleagues openly subject their LGBT colleagues to psychological and physical violence. And while human rights organizations are talking about their trainings, conferences, and writing about how to properly protect the rights of LGBTQ+ people, terrible things are happening in the war zone.
Recently, a video with beatings and bullying of a gay man by Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers began to spread on Ukrainian social networks. The military sent it to each other. Later, the victim’s colleagues, on condition of anonymity, reported that the man tied up in the video was Nikolai V. from the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), a military unit consisting of former Russian citizens who came to Ukraine to fight against Putin’s army.
In January 2025, he quarreled with the soldiers of the 3rd separate assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine after they found out about Nikolai’s unconventional orientation. As a result of a verbal altercation, three Ukrainian soldiers pushed the victim into a minibus and drove away in an unknown direction. It is still unknown where Nikolai is and what is with him.
By the way, the backbone of the 3rd OSBR is the representatives of the Azov regiment, who heroically defended Mariupol at the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war. The Azovites, as well as representatives of the Right Sector, Kraken and other volunteer groups, have a high level of authority in Ukrainian society, but also a radical ideology. And this is despite the fact that while the whole of Ukraine is moving towards a free European future, representatives of Ukrainian radical associations openly declare hatred towards LGBTQ+ representatives.
For example, the programs of political parties – the National Corps (the political wing of Azov) and the Right Sector – contain clauses banning LGBT people. And in the years before the full-scale war with Russia, representatives of these radical organizations disrupted events of the LGBT community here and there in Ukraine.
What do we have at the exit? There is Ukraine, which has earned with blood the right to freedom and its own path – integration with the West and Western values. This has become, so to speak, a competitive advantage of Ukraine, which promotes the migration of the liberal public from all over the post-Soviet space. People come to Ukraine expecting that their rights will not be violated, as in their homeland. Moreover, there are cases when foreigners defend Ukraine in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Among such visitors, there are all the same representatives of LGBTQ+, as in the case of Nikolai from the RDK.
But despite this, the ideas of conservatism and radicalism are still popular in Ukraine. How many cases are there like the one in the video? And what are the results? After all, it’s one thing to discriminate against LGBT people in everyday life, another thing is discrimination in a war zone, when the aggressor has absolutely free hands in choosing a method of violence, but he has a weapon in his hands.
And the most important question is how are the Ukrainian authorities going to resolve this issue? You can’t sit on two chairs. And the radical ideologies of the Ukrainian volunteer formations directly contradict where Ukraine has been going for more than 10 years.