A Russian man arrested for allegedly running a travel agency for gay customers was found dead in custody in Moscow, rights group OVD-Info reported Sunday, amid a crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights in Russia.
According to OVD-Info, which tracks political arrests, Andrei Kotov — director of the “Men Travel” agency — faced charges of “organizing extremist activity and participating in it.”
OVD-Info said an investigator told Kotov’s lawyer that her client had died by suicide early Sunday while in pretrial detention and was found dead in his cell.
Prior to Kotov’s death, independent media outlet Mediazona reported earlier this month that Kotov had rejected the charges and said in court that law enforcement officers beat him and administered electric shocks during the arrest, even though he didn’t resist.
Just over a year ago, Russia’s Supreme Court effectively outlawed any LGBTQ+ activism in a ruling that designated “the international LGBT movement” as extremist. The move exposed anyone in the community or connected to it to criminal prosecution and prison, ushering in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.
The LGBTQ+ community in Russia has been under legal and public pressure for over a decade but especially since the Kremlin sent troops to Ukraine in 2022. Russian leader Vladimir Putin has argued that the war is a proxy battle with the West, which he says aims to destroy Russia and its “traditional family values” by pushing for LGBTQ+ rights.
Meanwhile, on Saturday Putin apologised to Azerbaijan’s leader for what the Kremlin called a “tragic incident” over Russia in which an Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed after Russian air defences were fired against Ukrainian drones.
The extremely rare publicised apology from Putin was the closest Moscow had come to accepting some blame for Wednesday’s disaster, although the Kremlin statement did not say Russia had shot down the plane, only noting that a criminal case had been opened.
Flight J2-8243, en route from Baku to the Chechen capital Grozny, crash-landed on Wednesday near Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from southern Russia, where Ukrainian drones were reported to be attacking several cities. At least 38 people were killed.
Four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan’s investigation told Reuters on Thursday that Russian air defences had mistakenly shot the airliner down. Passengers said they heard a loud bang outside the plane.
Putin called President Ilham Aliyev and “apologised for the tragic incident that occurred in Russian airspace and once again expressed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the injured,” the Kremlin said.
“At that time, Grozny, Mozdok and Vladikavkaz were being attacked by Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, and Russian air defence systems repelled these attacks.”
The Kremlin said civilian and military specialists were being questioned.
Putin also phoned Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, his counterpart in Kazakhstan, to express his condolences over the loss of life in the crash, the Kremlin said.
