The St. Petersburg City Court recognized the interregional public movement "Russian LGBT Network" as an "extremist organization". This decision was the sixth such case since the beginning of 2026. Let's figure out what this means for activists, donors and ordinary people.
On April 27, 2026, a judge of the St. Petersburg City Court granted the claim of the Ministry of Justice to ban the Russian LGBT Network.
The consideration of the case was held behind closed doors because of the "secret" stamp. According to lawyers, the reason for the ban was the organization's human rights activities: monitoring violations of the rights of queer people and providing reports to the UN special rapporteur.
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This decision continues the trend towards the complete criminalization of LGBT activism in Russia, which began after the Supreme Court recognized the non-existent "International LGBT Public Movement" as extremist at the end of 2023.
Who else was banned?
In the past few weeks alone, courts in different regions of Russia have recognized five more organizations as "extremist":
- St. Petersburg LGBTQ+ group "Exit";
- Yekaterinburg LGBT Resource Center;
- Samara public organization "Irida";
- Moscow Community Center for LGBT initiatives;
- queer media "Guys+".
In addition, the Ministry of Justice demands to ban organizations "Center T" and T9 NSKthat help transgender people, as well as the Yaroslavl movement Callisto.
What is the threat to employees and supporters?
The status of an "extremist organization" entails serious criminal risks for all those associated with it:
- Organizers and leaders faces from 6 to 10 years in prison (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code).
- Participants (including volunteers and those who help in holding events) - from 2 to 6 years in prison (Part 2 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code).
- For donations The organization is liable under the article on financing extremist activities (Article 282.3 of the Criminal Code) - up to 8 years in prison. The risk arises even when transferring insignificant amounts, for example, 200 rubles.
In addition, the defendants in such cases are included in the list of extremists of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, which means that bank accounts are blocked and it is impossible to work officially.
And what about the symbols?
The publication of "extremist symbols" (for example, a rainbow flag) can now become a reason for administrative arrest of up to 15 days under Article 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses. Although the Supreme Court's decision lists a six-stripe flag as the LGBT symbol, in practice, people are punished for other images as well, such as rainbow earrings, photos of same-sex couples, or the use of feminitives.
It is important to remember that posts on the Internet are considered continuing offense: The security forces can prosecute for old publications made before the ban on the organization, if they have not been deleted.
What to do?
Human rights activists call what is happening "distilled arbitrariness" and "a deliberate policy of intimidation of everyone." Lawyers advise LGBTQ+ people in Russia to:
- Unsubscribe from regular donations prohibited organizations (although the risk for past transfers remains).
- Clean up social media from the symbols and reposts of materials from these groups.
- Use anonymous forms of communicationif you continue to communicate in activist chats.
"You can ban an organization, names, symbols, but you can't ban mutual support, love and just people," said Natalia Solovyova, head of the board of the Russian LGBT Network. The movement intends to appeal the court's decision.
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