Pro tennis player is the latest LGBT celebrity to defect from Russia
Daria Kasatkina defected because of Russian oppression, homophobia and the war in Ukraine
Daria Kasatkina announced in March that she was changing her nationality. A tennis player of Russian nationality who was Number 12 in the world in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), she is the latest major figure to defect, explaining that she “no longer has a choice” as a lesbian opposed to the war in Ukraine, in the face of increasing repression of all forms of protest in Russia.
Reasons for defection
Starting in November 2023, Russia has placed what it calls the “international LGBT movement” on its list of people and organizations declared “terrorist and extremist”. That laid the foundation for intensified surveillance and arrests of people who frequent social establishments identified as LGBT+ by domestic intelligence services, which makes them seem socially untrustworthy by the regime.
In July 2022, Kasatkina came out to the Russian media and has not set foot on Russian soil since, citing security concerns. At the same time, she spoke against the war in Ukraine, calling it a “complete nightmare” that she follows on a daily basis.
At a press conference in the United States on the sidelines of the recent Charleston tennis tournament, she declared: “With everything that’s going on in my home country, I didn’t really have a choice. As an out homosexual, if I want to be myself, I have to take that step. And I did”.
The start of a new life
Daria Kasatkina has been competing for Australia starting this month, after obtaining permanent residency there in March.
Kasatkina’s defection is not the only one in the Russian LGBT+ community. More recently, drag queen Miss Tizzy left the country in 2022, while journalist Masha Gessen and film director Alexander Kargaltsev fled as soon as Vladimir Putin returned to the forefront in the early 2010s.
