Organizers of the KyivPride March announced on Thursday that the first gay pride event in the Ukrainian capital since the beginning of the Russian invasion will be held on June 16.
The Kyiv Independent reported that the event will have “strict security measures,” the most notable of which is that only the 500 registered participants will know when and where the march will begin.
“The march will take place in close proximity to shelters in case of an air alert,” the Kyiv Independent said, passing along one of the few details that has been divulged to the public.
Kyiv’s metro system was originally proposed as the venue for the march, but the city council denied permission, citing security concerns. Kyiv City Hall explained that the metro is a “dual-use facility and part of the city’s infrastructure,” and one of its uses is to serve as an air-raid shelter during Russian attacks.
According to KyivPride board chairwoman Anna Sharyhina, this year’s march will focus on the gay community within the Ukrainian military, with the theme “Unite for Equality and Victory.”
“We have a strong community of LGBTQ+ military personnel. Not all of them are open, but those who are open will also come to the march. And we want to show to Ukrainians and to the world that there are LGBTQ+ military personnel in Ukraine,” Sharyhina said.
KyivPride held its June 2022 march in the Polish capital of Warsaw, folding it into that city’s gay pride events. KyivPride organizers said the imposition of martial law after the Russian invasion made holding large public events in Ukraine difficult.
The July 2023 march was held in Liverpool, England, and likewise folded into that city’s scheduled gay pride events.
“LGBT+ people are a global community, and that’s why it is crucial that we ‘shout it loud’ in solidarity with all LGBT+ people across the world,” Liverpool City Region Pride Foundation chief Andi Herring said on that occasion.
Ukrainian LBGT activists frequently warn that if Russia seizes control of Ukraine, the fate of its gay citizens will be dire because homosexuality is strongly frowned upon by the Russian government.
The Russian Supreme Court ruled in November that LGBT activists should be considered “extremists,” effectively banning “the international LGBT social movement” in Russia. Russia also forbids transgender surgery and openly promoting “non-traditional” sexual relations.
The United Nations said the Russian Supreme Court decision “significantly distances the Russian Federation from its obligations to promote and protect human rights for all,” but its condemnation had no apparent effect on Moscow. Russia’s first convictions of LGBT activists for “displaying the symbols of an extremist organization” were handed down in February.
Ukraine is not terribly liberal on gay rights by Western standards, although most LGBT activists view it as less hostile than Russia even before the invasion and the participation of LGBT soldiers in defending against the Russian invasion has encouraged goodwill toward the gay community.
On Friday, Russia’s state-run Tass news agency reported that a hundred residents of Kyiv went to City Hall to protest plans for the KyivPride march. According to Tass, the demonstrators were “mostly young people holding up banners against the LGBT parade and in support of traditional values.”
Before the Russian invasion, Kyiv’s gay pride marches often devolved into brawls between the marchers and counter-protesters, with both sides complaining about how the police handled the unrest. This is presumably one of the reasons why the details of the upcoming march are being kept confidential until the last minute.
The last march before the Russian invasion in 2021, which had about 7,000 participants, was more orderly despite several hundred counter-protesters staging a demonstration of their own. The 2020 march was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.