Glimpses of Ukraine’s LGBTQ warriors: 8 soldiers, 3 supporters resisting Russia

Viktor, Oleg, Borys, Dmytro, Vladislav, Valery, and Vlad are in the fight against Russian invaders. Veronika runs a combat and paramedic skills training camp for LGBTQ volunteers. Olena is preparing to fight if necessary.  Denys runs a safe house for LGBTQ people uprooted by the war.  Elvira, until she was killed by a Russian airstrike, was a volunteer supporting the government in eastern Ukraine.

They are a few of the LGBTQ Ukrainians who have played a role in the country’s resistance to the Russian invasion. Here are glimpses of the roles they have played in the ongoing Ukrainian struggle.

Vlad Shast, territorial defense volunteer

“The LGBTQ+ community is Ukraine is in huge danger should Russia win,” said Vlad Shast, 26, who volunteered this month for Ukraine’s territorial defense force, a civilian corps that reports to the military.

Shast, is a queer performer popular on the Ukrainian LGBTQ scene.  Once known for a drag act, Shast is now using his contacts as a stylist to help the army find materials and supplies.

“I am a legend in the Ukrainian queer scene,” Shast told NPR. “And you know, now I’m living with straight, hetero men, and they don’t even care about my homosexuality, about my queerness — because now we are united.”

Viktor Pylypenko, soldier

Out gay Ukrainian soldier Viktor Pylypenko is one of a group of more than 100 queer Ukrainian troops and veterans. He told Gay City News he first served in active combat in 2014, opposing Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the beginning of its aid to separatists in Ukraine’s eastern region.

He has since rejoined the military to defend Ukraine and its LGBTQ community from Putin’s persecution.  A native of western Ukraine, he currently lives in Kyiv.

Pylypenko — known as the first out gay person in the country’s military — focused on an early American intelligence report warning that the Russians had drawn up a “kill list” targeting LGBTQ activists in Ukraine.

“People are really scared that if the most dark prognosis will take place,” Pylypenko said. “The first thing Russia will do is rid civil society of activists — especially those who belong to the LGBTQ community and who are fighting for human rights. Human rights are the number one enemy for Putin’s regime.”

Pylypenko said he was widely embraced when he came out following his first stint in the military — and he knows trans troops who have found acceptance.

“As defenders, we had a high level of respect from civil people, so they easily could accept our second identity — our gay identity — and through that, we created an umbrella for the whole LGBTQ community,” he said.

LGBTQ Ukrainians who are not fighting have been raising money, aiding in medical efforts, and preparing items for soldiers at war, Pylypenko said. (Gay City News and Los Angeles Blade)

Elvira Schemur, supporter, RIP

A Russian missile killed LGBTQ activist Elvira Schemur, 21, on March 1, according to Kyiv Pride board member Maksym Eristavi. Schemur, who had been a “kickass volunteer” in Kyiv Pride, was working as a volunteer in the regional administration building in Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine when it was hit by the Russian airstrike, Eristavi said. (Washington Blade)

Olena Shevchenko, supporter

Olena Shevchenko, leader of the LGBTQ organization Insight, has remained in her apartment near Kyiv’s central station, according to reporter J. Lester Feder, writing in Vanity Fair. He reported:

“Shevchenko told me she has no plans to leave—in fact, most of her team is staying, not just in Kyiv but throughout Ukraine. And that’s true for many LGBTQ activists on the ground.

“ ‘I will stay,’ Shevchenko said, in order to keep assisting where she can and fight if she must.

“When I asked her why she hadn’t made a plan to escape should Kyiv fall, she said, ‘Because somebody needs to stay.’ ”

Oleg, Dmytro, Borys and Vladislav

Oleg, a 22-year-old bisexual man and former beer sommelier, signed up the Ukrainian armed forces three days after the Russian invasion.

Dmytro, a non-binary 23-year-old, joined Ukraine’s territorial defense force.

Vladislav, a 25-year-old gay Ukrainian soldier, said about the war: “”If there is no more Ukraine, then there will be repression. People will be killed and the LGBTQ+ witch-hunt will begin.”

Borys, a 26-year-old soldier and former paramedic, refuses to focus on what lies ahead.

“I don’t speak about the future a lot because, if you speak about the future a lot, you will (go) mad,” he said in a video call from Kyiv during a break from his shift, dressed in his military uniform.

“First, we have to win the war … And then you can call me again and we’ll speak about the future.”

For more about Oleg, Dmytro, Borys and Vladislav, see the Thomson Reuters Foundation article “LGBTQ+ Ukrainians fight for their country, and their rights”.

Denys Kratt, supporter

In a former restaurant and microbrewery in Kharkiv, Denys Kratt runs a safe house for LGBTQ people like Kratt and his boyfriend and friends who can’t leave the country because of the restrictions on men leaving Ukraine.

He promoted the shelter on social media as a refuge for friends, friends of friends and total strangers in need of shelter or donated clothes, food or medicine.

“It’s a very dangerous mix for me, being [an] activist for LGBTQ and activist for Ukraine,” Kratt said. “It’s so dangerous for me being under the Russian occupation.”

Kratt thinks the Russians know who he is. He knows they know Zhanna Simeiz — his drag character that made headlines at Kyiv’s 2017 gay pride.

Similarly, gay rights groups have established several small safe houses in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.

“We try to provide them with (a) place where they can get food, clothes, sleep,” said Tymor Levhuk, the executive director of Fulcrum UA.  (KTVH.com)

Veronika Limina, combat trainer

“I am angry,” Veronika Limina said. “We will kill Putin.” She works for an NGO that promotes the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the Ukrainian military. She was running a combat and paramedic skills training camp for LGBTQ+ volunteers before the invasion began. (The Advocate)

She signed up for Lviv’s territorial defense force and says she is ready to join the fighting.

“Either we defend our country, and it will become a part of the free world, or there will not be any freedom for us and will not be Ukraine at all.” (The Daily Beast and an earlier article in Erasing 76 Crimes)

 

Valery Brown, training for combat

“I am trying to do my best to be prepared,” said Valery Brown, who identifies as a lesbian. She was training to resist the Russian invasion. (The Daily Beast and an earlier article in Erasing 76 Crimes)

LGBTQ rights in Ukraine

Ukraine would be no paradise for LGBTQ people, even if Russian invaders had not been wreaking havoc there for a month. Hate crimes have been a problem for years, including attacks on LGBTQ events and community centers.

But progress has been made. As Feder reported:

“When Russia invaded Crimea in Ukraine’s south in 2014 and Russian-backed separatists launched a war against the Kyiv government in Ukraine’s east, Insight and other LGBTQ organizations opened shelters for people fleeing conflict. [In the years since], the government barred employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and rules were reformed to make it easier for transgender people to change their legal status….

“Volodymyr Zelenskyy shouted down an anti-LGBTQ heckler several months into his presidency in 2019—something that would have been hard to imagine for a president years earlier. His government proposed hate crime legislation that covered LGBTQ people in 2020.”