Russian security forces raided a capital city swingers club in the early hours of Thursday on suspicion of “LGBT propaganda.” While it’s unclear whether anyone was arrested during the raid, it’s just the latest instance of Russian forces using the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda law as a pretext to raid businesses and harass citizens.

The venue, named Bizarre, was hosting a “MILFs of Ancient Greece” event. (MILFs is an initialism for “Mothers I’d like to f**k.”) Photos of the raid showed party-goers face down on the floor, but the club’s managers said the venue would re-open for business on Thursday night.

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“It was absolutely nothing to worry about,” one club employee told Novaya Gazeta, downplaying the raid’s seriousness. “It was a regular unscheduled inspection by our state authorities. They identified a number of minimal violations that do not affect the work of the club.”

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In 2024, Russian police conducted at least 42 raids on LGBTQ+-friendly venues across the nation, according to an investigation by independent news outlet Current Time and human rights organization Sphere. Beatings, forced confinement, and sadistic humiliations based on sexual and gender identities regularly occur during the raids.

As many as a dozen individuals rounded up at gay clubs in the capital city in early December 2024 were found guilty of “hooliganism” by a Russian court and sentenced to administrative detention. The raids occurred at at least three nightclubs in the Russian capital, including Arma, Inferno, and Mono. Video of the incidents shows heavily armed men shouting orders at clubgoers seated on the floor with their hands over their heads.

Young men at the Mono nightclub were handed military draft notices by police, according to one source who spoke with news outlet Vyorstka,

Police in Moscow raided two gay clubs in October 2024, detaining over 50 people. Images from the arrest showed masked police officers storming into the downtown clubs Central Station and Three Monkeys, shouting at patrons and forcing them to lie on the ground.

In February 2024, security forces swept into a party in the city of Tula and dragged “feminine-looking” men out into the snow and beat them. The party’s description as a night of “love, openness and sexuality” was enough to attract authorities and get the event shut down.

In November 2023, Russia’s Justice Ministry described the “international LGBT public movement” as “extremist.” That same month, Russian forces conducted multiple raids on LGBTQ+ bars and other establishments in cities, arresting multiple people and charging them under the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Following a similar raid on a nightclub in the city of Orenburg in March 2023, the venue’s art director and administrator were both charged with being members of an “extremist organization.” 

Russian authorities even raided and shut down a convention celebrating My Little Pony after deeming it “LGBT propaganda.”

The country is building an electronic registry of LGBTQ+ citizens, and a Russian tech company has been helping hunt down LGBTQ+ businesses.

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