From fighting racism and homophobia, to resisting genocide in Palestine, to the green energy transition, Russia will not miss any opportunity to sow confusion in the West. Let's learn to recognize Russian provocations and not give in to them.
This text has been auto-translated from Polish.
In October 2024, I reported on the elections in Moldova and a number of accompanying manipulations, usually attributed to Russia. In a report for Gazeta Wyborcza, I described attempts to pull queers from Western Europe to organize provocations involving them. People who "look gay" were sought.
The organizers posed as COC Nederlands, the oldest Western LGBT+ organization, pretending to be on a mission to spread tolerance for diversity. The European gay men, recruited by the Grindr service, were offered 1,500 euros and transportation, lodging and food in exchange for a photo shoot in Chisinau.
At the same time, the pro-Russian camp - headed by former President Igor Dodon - waged an intensive campaign, an important element of which was the scare of a "gay invasion." Dodon warned in his speeches that the European Union would force Moldova to introduce "LGBT quotas" in public institutions and introduce "gay propaganda" in schools.
Moldovans were finding flyers in their mailboxes designed to lend credence to this narrative, printed by shady organizations. Emails arrived at public institutions, whose authors impersonated Union representatives, ordering the display of rainbow flags on certain days.
This happened during the campaign preceding the referendum and the presidential elections. In both votes, the pro-Western option won by a hair's breadth. There were 0.7 percent more supporters of EU integration than opponents. The pro-Russian presidential candidate won among voters in the country - the re-election of Western-friendly Mai Sandu was decided by diaspora votes.
I talked about this with Angelica Frolov, director of the GenderDoc-M Center, the oldest LGBT+ organization in Moldova. - Pro-European parties and politicians also fell into this trap, who, in response to further Russian provocations, began to argue that Europe is not forcing anyone to legalize same-sex marriage or adopt other equality solutions, citing the most problematic EU countries such as Hungary, Romania and Poland as examples. Thus, Russia succeeded in killing two birds with one stone: fuel homophobia in Moldovan society and influence the language of its opponents. Russia imposed its agenda and its way of communication on the pro-European parties, and they didn't realize it, says Frolov.
"Only one man died, why the hype"
There is a long history of such provocations in Eastern European countries, both in the form of traditional rats against LGBT+ people and apparent support for them by Russian-linked organizations. Examples? The rainbow demonstration organized during Euromaidan by the FSB and Yanukovych security services, or the failed attempt by individuals from the LGBT+ community to fund an equality parade in Georgia in 2014. Given the brutal beatings at the parade the year before, and the imminence of the signing of an association agreement with the EU, the organizations that had previously been responsible for the event decided to postpone it to prevent tensions from escalating.
Protests against the Gaza genocide and occupation of Palestine, protests against the racist policies of Western countries, projects supporting refugees or abortion rights - each of these issues has been used at least several times in the past two decades by Russia as a tool to influence and destabilize Western societies.
How should the fact that an initiative close to us progressive Europeans is supported by a hostile force affect our actions?
Under my report in Gazeta Wyborcza, within the first hours of publication, homophobic, vulgar comments swarmed in. "The fight for gay rights is a Russian tool of influence," is how the position of a significant part of the commenters can be summarized. Others wrote that there should be no place in Europe for homophobic Moldova. "Let Russia take it for itself," - readers wrote. Both of these attitudes are water for Putin's mill. Without understanding the nature and purpose of Russia's organized provocations, we will not be able to defend ourselves against them.
At the heart of the use of LGBT+ people in Russian provocations are two elements: the homophobia already present in societies, and the strong reactions of Western media and liberal and leftist circles to manifestations of this homophobia.
The former makes it possible to count on the fact that some of the violence will occur "spontaneously," without any intervention from Moscow, while others can be easily provoked. It is not without reason that in the described cases of Moldova and Georgia there was an emphasis on "gay-looking" people, whose mere presence in the public space provokes homophobic reactions in conservative societies.
At key moments of political overtures - Euromaidan, elections, referendums, negotiations with the EU - Russian provocations target a specific segment of the population in a given country and play on the fears of those who believe that the EU is a rotten, queer institution, that it will "teach children to masturbate" and push "LGBT+ propaganda" into every aspect of life. As a result, undecided voters are expected to give up supporting the pro-Union option and stay home. Some will join its opponents, and some may even commit acts of violence against LGBT+ people, further exacerbating conflicts, heightening fears and drawing the attention of third countries
The second aspect is the widespread outrage generated by acts of homophobia in Western civil society. The beating or murder of a demonstrator or common criminal, however tragic, is met with incomparably less response among Western publics than acts of violence classified as hate crimes. Criticism or publicity of such cases involves not only the media, but also grassroots LGBT+ organizations, human rights monitoring organizations or even the diplomatic apparatus in Western countries. A case in point is the open letter from diplomats of EU missions in Tbilisi to the Georgian foreign minister in July 2021, in response to the outbreak of violence during the Equality Parade.
Often, for example, in reporting homophobic violence in Georgia, the way the message is conveyed reinforces Western audiences' perception of a society where hate crimes occur as backward or dangerous. An act of violence against an LGBT+ person - as opposed, for example, to an act of violence against an intersectional protester - is within the focus and reporting area of hundreds of NGOs, international organizations' agendas, profiles and activists, and therefore gets more media "coverage."
Outrage, protests or criticism voiced by institutions outside the country where the incident occurred can also create a siege fortress syndrome among homophobic (but not necessarily pro-Russian) citizens of that country and a sense that the West is meddling in strictly domestic affairs and "wants to impose its rules on us," that.
Acts categorized as hate crimes draw more Western attention than common, albeit violent, crimes, which are usually abundant in countries such as Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova. For example, three years ago, the homicide rate per hundred thousand population was 0.67 for Poland, while it was more than three times higher in Georgia and Moldova, and more than five times higher in Ukraine, not including war casualties. So it's hard not to notice how vividly the West reacts to acts of violence against LGBT+ people, and has taken little interest in others. This disparity often arouses resentment among the public, often already prejudiced against LGBT+ people, and leads to the conclusion that the West values the lives of some people more highly than the lives of others.
A case in point is the example of the fatal beating of a journalist during a 2021 equality parade in Georgia, which was met with international protests, condemnation from NGOs or a diplomatic response from many EU countries. In response to this criticism, Georgian Bishop Anthony Buluchia, who is credited with pro-Russian sentiments, was said to have responded "only one man died, why the hype" - suggesting that diplomats and the public should take an interest in other topics.
To a certain extent, what Buluchia was seeking occurred in late 2024. The process of opening Georgia's EU accession negotiations was de facto halted by the EU side, in response to, among other things, widespread violence against peaceful demonstrators, the possibility of rigged elections, and the adoption of laws incompatible with EU legislation and values. In response, the Georgian government announced that it was suspending accession talks itself until 2028.
The Left is held hostage by centrists
Significantly, in many of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the pro-European parties are centrist or center-right parties. These parties often deliberately avoid focusing their message on LGBT+ rights, wanting to avoid scaring off homophobic voters, and hoping that liberal, leftist and queer communities will support them anyway for lack of better options.
It is worth noting that in many cases - as in Georgia or during the aforementioned Euromaidan - LGBT+ circles themselves consciously choose to reduce their presence in public spaces to minimize the risk of clashes or homophobic incidents. However disheartening this form of self-censorship may seem to the Western left, it is the result of political calculation. Organizations such as Gay Alliance Ukraine have recognized that the image costs of a clash between protesters at Euromaidan outweigh the value of what it would be to protest individually under a rainbow flag.
Even if we consider this a form of intimidation of the minority by the homophobic or indifferent majority, it is worth noting that the actions of LGBT+ organizations stem from a similar view of the situation as the actions of the Russian provocateurs - the assumption that drawing Western media attention to homophobic incidents in moments of political turmoil in the long run serves to exclude their countries from the "Western community of values" in the eyes of Western public opinion. The momentary support and outrage of activists and foreign diplomats will pass, most of them will not show tangible, concrete support to members of the LGBTQ community - instead, the delayed granting of EU candidate status to Georgia will delay improvements in their situation for years to come. If you're an educated gay man from Tbilisi, you can simply leave homophobic Georgia; but if you're an unemployed lesbian from the village of Ushguli, you'll be stuck in a state where the prospect of gaining the protection of EU laws and institutions is another 5 or 10 years away.
Paradoxically, this could lead to situations in which organizations representing LGBT+ people limit their activities precisely when Russia is willing to fund both rainbow marches and demonstrations by their opponents.
Russia supports both sides
It should be noted that this is by no means a new tactic or, as the homophobic, anti-Russian right may believe, proof that all queer initiatives are tools of Moscow. Russia has been supporting various movements for decades, often motivated by legitimate social anger or focused on the real problems of excluded groups.
In the 1960s, the Soviet Union expressed support for Martin Luther King or the civil rights movement, and activists in the movement were targets of intelligence games between the FBI and KGB. A growing number of publications also point to Russian involvement in the activation and promotion of both the Black Lives Matter movement and racist groups that clashed with protesters - this was one of the efforts to influence the 2020 elections.
During the earlier U.S. elections, in 2016, among the many documented examples of Russian influence, one worthy of mention is the organization of two protests - an Islamophobic one and a pro-Islamic one in Houston. Russian agents of influence, impersonating the real association United Muslims of America and the self-organized patriotic group Heart of Texas, fed the fears of both sides by appealing to both negative values (fear of violence) and positive values (concern for loved ones, attachment to culture, freedom of speech).
Heart of Texas did not focus exclusively on Islamophobic narratives - it was just as eager to raise secessionist themes and attack the federal government. The fake United Muslims of America website raised not only the issue of pride in one's heritage, but also the most real need to respond to Islamophobic and racist attacks - which the website run by the same operators was largely responsible for filming.
We don't have to go as far as the ocean, by the way. The protests by Polish farmers - again, largely legitimate, stemming from the economic frustration of a large and crucial social group for our food security - were to some extent inspired and escalated by Russian agents of influence. You can read about it in most mainstream media.
Released to Russia this year, Pablo Gonzalez - or GRU agent Pavel Rubtsov, claiming to be a Spanish journalist - infiltrated the Polish journalism and activist community. He and his Moscow-linked associates were involved in the Polish-Belarusian border crisis, black protests, and criticism of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Rubtsov helped organize the protests, interacted with the activists, and reported on their activities. In a sense, he was at the heart of the issues that many on the Polish left - including me and my friends - care about.
Social Disintegration
As with its support for anti-colonial or leftist movements in the West during the Cold War, however, it should be clearly recognized that Moscow is not guided by any form of empathy or humanitarianism in the cases described above, but only by political calculation calculated to increase social polarization in the countries where it undertakes such actions. It also has the added benefit of discrediting certain circles in the eyes of the rest of society when funding or cooperation is revealed.
Urgent social problems - such as homophobia, the Gaza genocide, people dying on the Polish-Belarusian border or the racism of the US police - can be permanently patched as "contrived" problems in the opinion of strongly Russophobic voters, and activists can be considered useful idiots funded by an external enemy. The strong association of a given topic with Russian influence will, as a result, discourage centrist and moderate politicians from addressing these issues, often economically or morally important to millions of citizens.
Such operational tactics lead to social disintegration: a situation in which a country's citizens cease to trust each other or abandon key social issues, and the yawning chasm at the heart of society continues to widen....
It seems, therefore, that the abandonment by allies of issues that have somehow been tainted by "Russian influence" is exactly what the adversary expects. If allies - i.e., people who are not directly affected by an issue - abandon an issue, leaving the fight for it only to a group of people directly involved or affected by systemic problems (whether refugees, non-hetero-normative people or ethnic minorities), the effect is likely to be twofold. First, the presence of the issue in the public space will radically decrease, and the broader public will no longer demand that politicians, institutions and other public actors address it and find solutions.
Second, the sense of alienation and loneliness among the group directly affected will lead to its radicalization, to which the oppressive system will respond with increasingly radical measures to pacify their voices.
Above all, however, third: certain issues are simply important, and taking care of them - such as human and minority rights, adherence to international law, or the protection of life and health - is the heart of a democratic civil society. We cannot allow them to be taken away just because we fear exploitation or association with the actions of a hostile empire.
I hope that despite the ritualistic complaining about Polish society, we all recognize the enormous progress we have made in these spheres over the past 30 years. As a society - brought up by the media, the authorities but also, above all, by each other - we are much more decent and good to each other than we were even 20 or 30 years ago.
For several decades, declaring a commitment to human rights and humanitarianism as values was a condition for participating in public life. We had to abolish the death penalty, ratify the European Charter of Human Rights, stop making jokes in public about other people's appearance or orientation, because these were the conditions for participating in the "civilized" West. Of course, often our elites conformed only out of necessity, they did it for show, and the hypocrisy of these declarations was evident at every turn. Of course, selective adherence to the Constitution was the domain of many politicians from almost every party. And of course some of our establishment had no problem with violating international law once the American embassy gave us the green light.
However, at the level of declarations and language, we maintained our condemnation of such practices in the long term. We believed, as a society, in the ideal, inclusive and open community model we were striving for. A turn to "realpolitik," a cynical rejection of the values of civil society, social solidarity, fidelity to one another, or the common struggle for the rights of successive groups because we considered them an empty form or an exploited Russian hoax - that would have been a terrible defeat.
According to Rochefoucalt, "hypocrisy is a tribute paid to virtue by transgression." Of course, ideally, the elites themselves should believe in and be guided by the values they declare. But as long as this is not the case, even an apparent or partial respect for the values of humanism is better than open cynicism. An authority that at least hypocritically tries to maintain a semblance of interest in social problems and dialogue proves better than one that brazenly ignores them. Not only because of how this affects the actual position of certain groups, but also because it creates expectations, attitudes and boundaries of the norm in the rest of society. Therefore, knowing that Russia is using rhetoric against us that is close to our hearts must not be a reason to give in to despair or cynicism.
How to act in a world full of provocations?
Acknowledging that initiatives or areas in which we engage may be subject to Russian provocations is a tough nut to crack. However, it seems that the right response to such a situation is to confront it and be highly attentive: to regularly ask ourselves how a particular action or initiative positions itself in the bigger picture or how it serves a cause we care about. Asking ourselves, will this particular initiative bring us closer to achieving the solutions we want?
In the case of LGBT+ rights in the cases described earlier, Georgian and Ukrainian organizations decided that geopolitically moving closer to the EU and away from Russia was more important than marching on that particular day under the rainbow flag. But a few months later they held their events, believing that just then was the right time.
When we notice disturbing traces and clues leading to Russia, it's worth talking to other activists, pitching the cases to journalists or consulting with experts. If we come across something that looks like real links to an external hostile state or looks like a provocation - let's not be afraid to take matters into our own hands. Provocateurs must be ejected from demonstrations or organizations, and reported to the relevant services - even if on a daily basis our level of respect for the police operates at the level of the gutter.
Finally - sometimes it must be acknowledged that the sheer seriousness of the matter overshadows even the fact that outside forces may have supported the organization of social movements.
After the Oct. 22 anti-abortion verdict by the Constitutional Court, would the information that a few agents of influence were among the several hundred thousand protesters, and that information about the protests was spread by troll farms stop you from taking to the streets? Or would the fact that someone brings an anti-Semitic banner to a major march against genocide make you disassociate yourself from the whole initiative? If you read that some niche initiative of LGBT+ communities in a homophobic country you are visiting was funded by the Kremlin, would you decide to avoid all contact with those communities from now on?
It seems to me that the answer to all these questions should be "no."
Discouraging cooperation and creating a chilling effect is one of the side benefits to be gained by Russia-inspired provocations. This includes ordinary citizens or activists, but also (and perhaps especially) journalists, the participating intelligentsia or politicians, some of whom, as a result of changes in global politics, have begun to retreat from their former positions and declarations.
Let's not let civil society take away from us. Instead, let's be vigilant, and if we find traces of provocations and hostile actions, let's get rid of them like weeds, without hesitation and without mercy. However, we must not give up acting on issues that are close to our values - because that is exactly what our enemies have in mind.
