Europe
Berlin becomes refuge for LGBTQ Ukrainians
Dmitry Shapoval swam across river to flee Ukraine
BERLIN — Dmitry Shapoval is a 24-year-old gay man from Ukraine who lives with HIV.
He was working at an IT company’s call center and studying web and UX design in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, in February when Russia launched its war against his country. Shapoval swam across a river and entered Poland less than a month later.
Shapoval now lives in Berlin with his cat Peach and has begun the process of resettling in Germany.
“I feel very secure here,” Shapoval told the Washington Blade on July 22 during an interview at Berlin’s Palais Populaire by Deutsche Bank on the city’s Unter den Linden boulevard.
Shapoval is one of the more than 900,000 Ukrainians who have arrived in Germany since the war began.
Ukrainians are able to enter Germany without a visa, and the German government provides those who have registered for residency a “basic income” that helps them pay for housing and other basic needs that include food. Ukrainian refugees can also receive access to German language classes, job training programs and childcare.
Anastasiia Baraniuk and her partner, Yulia Mulyukina, were living together Dnipro, a city on the Dnieper River in central Ukraine, when the war began.
Mulyukina, who is from Russia, was living in Moscow when she and Baraniuk began to talk online. Mulyukina traveled to Lviv in western Ukraine via Istanbul to meet Baraniuk, who is a Ukrainian citizen.
Mulyukina on July 22 told the Blade at Palais Populaire that she asked the Russian Embassy in Kyiv for help when the war began. Mulyukina said officials suggested that she “ask Ukraine what to do.”
“I was really shocked that my own country, with this idea of bringing peace, bringing quiet to Ukraine, just rejected me entirely,” she said in Russian as Shapoval translated.
Baraniuk, who also spoke with the Blade in Russian, said the Ukrainian government and a local NGO provided them with food and money.
The couple had planned to stay in Ukraine, but they decided to leave after Mulyukina “heard five explosions” while she was walking to a store. The two women’s friends gave them money to buy train tickets to Poland.
Insight, a Ukrainian LGBTQ and intersex rights organization, helped Baraniuk and Mulyukina and their cat enter Poland. They spent a week there before they arrived in Berlin on April 28.
Shapoval met them when they arrived at the train station.
Shapoval, Baraniuk and Mulyukina are among those who attended a reception that took place at the end of a two-day meeting the Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration organized that took place in Berlin from July 21-22.
Activists from Ukraine, Germany, Poland, Romania, Moldova, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Italy and the U.S. attended the gathering that had a stated goal of starting “the conversation about long-term/mid-term needs and solutions for LGBTIQ Ukrainians and incite collaboration among stakeholders working with LGBTIQ Ukrainians and third-country nationals.”
“We were thrilled to bring together activists and human rights defenders from 10 countries and 20 organizations to develop medium and long-term strategies to support displaced LGBTIQ Ukrainians and third country nationals,” ORAM Executive Director Steve Roth told the Blade after the meeting. “All these organizations, including ORAM, have done an amazing job getting emergency support and services to LGBTIQ Ukrainians in need. As the war in Ukraine drags on, it’s more important than ever for organizations to coordinate efforts and plan for supporting longer term needs. This two-day roundtable in Berlin was a great step in that direction.”
ORAM has partnered with Airbnb.org and Alight (formerly known as the American Refugee Committee) to provide more than 1,000 nights of short-term housing to LGBTQ and intersex Ukrainians and other displaced people in Germany and other countries in Europe. Shapoval, Baraniuk and Mulyukina are among those who live in such apartments.
Roth noted ORAM has begun to develop “a housing collective” for LGBTQ and intersex Ukrainians in Berlin. He said ORAM rents the apartments in which the refugees can live for up to six months, “allowing them to register in Berlin, access social welfare and other services.”
“Safe and secure housing is one of the most urgent needs facing displaced LGBTIQ Ukrainians,” Roth told the Blade. “It’s an essential element in getting settled and rebuilding lives.”
Berlin Pride shows solidarity with Ukraine
The meeting ended a day before the annual Christopher Street Day parade took place in Berlin.
Baraniuk helped carry ORAM’s banner during the parade, while Mulyukina took pictures for the organization.
‘Stop Russian aggression’
Kyiv Pride Executive Director Lenny Emson is one of LGBTQ and intersex activists from Ukraine who participated in the ORAM meeting and in the parade.
He told the Blade before the parade began that he took several trains from Kyiv to Poland before he flew to Berlin. Emson said the trip took two days.
“I understand that it is a safe ground, but I still have those flashbacks,” Emson told the Blade as he smoked a cigarette in front of a hotel near the parade staging area. “When you were sitting in the conference room and I saw something that reminds me of an air raid siren I was getting a panic attack. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a safe place.”
Emson also took issue with parade organizers’ opposition to war.
“Unfortunately, we as the Ukrainian community here (are) very disappointed with the motto that Berlin Pride put on the main stage: No war,” said Emson. “This doesn’t reflect the feelings that we have right now.”
“We would like to actually say it loud: Stop Russian aggression,” he added. “We need action right now. We need to stop it. We need to stop Russian aggression. We need to stop it right now.”
A group of marchers held a blue and yellow — the colors of Ukraine’s flag — banner that read “Arm Ukraine: Make Pride in Mariupol possible” while others simply carried the Ukrainian flag.
A man carried a homemade sign that read “Arm Ukraine: Make Pride in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Zaporizha, Kryvyi Rih possible again.” Viktoriya, a woman from northern Ukraine who is now pursuing her PhD in Berlin, held a cardboard poster that noted her homeland’s “queer soldiers are fighting for all of us.”
“I’m marching for both rights of queer people and rights of Ukrainians: The right to live and the right for love,” she said as she marched towards Potsdamer Platz in the center of Berlin.
Discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity was commonplace in Ukraine before the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last year pledged his country would continue to fight anti-LGBTQ and anti-intersex discrimination after he met with President Joe Biden at the White House.
Shapoval, who is dating a man he met last October when he traveled to Berlin, told the Blade that he received “looks” in Kyiv if he wore a pink shirt.
He was wearing a pair of purple sneakers during the interview. Shapoval said he would not have been comfortable wearing them if he were still in Kyiv.
“For me it was even harder because I had misery in Ukraine because of homophobes,” he said. “Even the gay community is so toxic in Ukraine because it’s all about toxic masculinity and all of that … I also had some experiences where gays were like, ‘Oh my gosh just cut your hair and then we will get in touch with you.'”
Shapoval has begun the process of applying for German residency.
“I fell in love with the city right from the beginning,” he said. “I found friends here.”
Jessica Stern, the special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights, and others have noted transgender and gender non-conforming Ukrainians have not been able to leave the country because they cannot exempt themselves from military conscription. Another issue that LGBTQ and intersex Ukrainians have faced as they attempt to resettle in another country is the lack of legal recognition of their relationships.
A marriage equality petition that Kyiv Pride submitted to Zelenskky on July 12 received more than 28,000 signatures, which is higher than the threshold that requires him to consider it. Ukrainian law requires Zelenskky to respond to it within 10 days of receiving it.
Baraniuk and Mulyukina hope to resettle in the U.S. and Canada, but are unable to legally prove they are in a relationship. The U.S. has a marriage-based immigration system for bi-national couples, while the Canadian system requires them to be married or “common-law partners.”
The U.S. has approved Baraniuk’s resettlement request, but denied Mulyukina.
They said the process to legally prove they are together is prohibitively expensive.”Right now we are looking for a way to get the proof that we are a couple,” said Baraniuk. “We don’t want to stay in Berlin.”
European Union
Former Irish prime minister: Europe is leader in global LGBTQ rights movement
Leo Varadkar in 2017 became Ireland’s first gay head of government.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar earlier this month said Europe is now at the forefront of the global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement.
“In many ways, Europe is the light,” he told the Washington Blade on Oct. 20 during an interview that took place near Harvard University. “It’s holding up against anti-LGBTQ policies.”
Varadkar, 46, in 2017 became Ireland’s first gay prime minister.
He stepped down in 2020 after his center-right party, Fine Gael, lost 15 parliament seats in the general election, but he remained in the government. Varadkar, whose father was born in Mumbai, in 2022 once again became prime minister.
Varadkar in 2024 resigned and stepped down as Fine Gael’s leader.
The Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights on Oct. 16 announced Varadkar’s appointment as a senior fellow for its Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program for the 2025-2026 academic year. He — along with former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and former acting Treasury Secretary David Lebryk — are also Hauser Leaders at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership for this year’s fall semester.
Varadkar during his fellowship will focus on LGBTQ and intersex rights within the EU.
He sat down with the Blade on the same day he spoke at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Varadkar on Tuesday participated in an event in Brussels that focused on LGBTQ and intersex rights in the EU.
New EU LGBTQ strategy ‘not wonderful, but at least it was done’
The European Commission on Oct. 8 released an LGBTQ and intersex rights strategy that focuses on three specific areas:
- Protecting LGBTIQ+ people (from hate-motivated harassment and violence, from discrimination, from conversion practices)
- Empowering LGBTIQ+ people through (equality bodies, rainbow families, promoting inclusion at workplace)
- Engaging society to advance LGBTIQ+ equality by (calling on all EU countries to adopt national strategies, improving the data collection and analysis, launching an ‘LGBTIQ+ Policy Forum’)
“It’s not wonderful, but at least it was done,” said Varadkar. “You won’t see that done in China, Russia, or even the United States, unfortunately.”
“Europe needs to hold the line, but also we want to focus on places where there is backsliding, like Bulgaria, like Slovakia,” he added, while also referring to the Czech Republic and Hungary.
Varadkar is among those who participated in this year’s Budapest Pride, even though Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government banned public LGBTQ events.
“It wasn’t just a regular Pride protest, and in Eastern Europe Pride is still a protest, very much so … they’re met by football hooligans, and police who aren’t necessarily there to support there to protect them,” Varadkar told the Blade. “This time, everyone joined in: students, unions, families, even more moderate political forces that might not always want to be associated with the LGBT cause, but it became about freedom of expression and became about free speech, and that’s why there was such a big turnout.”
Varadkar since he left office has also traveled to Bulgaria to support the country’s LGBTQ activists. Varadkar also spoke to the Blade about Russia and the Kremlin’s efforts to “influence and destabilize European societies.”
Russia in 2022 launched its war against Ukraine.
“One of the ways they do that is through election interference and misinformation online, and they’ve identified this as an issue that can divide European societies,” said Varadkar, specifically referring to the Russian government’s opposition to LGBTQ rights and its overall human rights record. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin has very much embraced the idea of traditional values and Russian Orthodox Christianity, and he’s using that as a wedge issue in Central and Eastern Europe.”
“So as ever our fight is part of a bigger fight that’s linked to things like democracy, human rights, academic freedom, press freedom,” added Varadkar. “We’re on the front line in the same battle, in my view.”
He also said the EU needs to be pragmatic in how it responds to Orbán and other anti-LGBTQ leaders.
“[The EU] is in a bit of a dilemma as to how it acts, how it does withdraw funding sometimes from countries if they’re in breach of the standards around the rule of law,” said Varadkar.
The European Commission in 2021 threatened to withhold funding to local and regional governments in Poland that declared themselves “LGBT-free zones.” The European Commission in 2022 sued Hungary over a law that a press release notes “singles out and targets content that ‘promotes or portrays’ what it refers to as ‘divergence from self-identity corresponding to sex at birth, sex change or homosexuality’ for individuals under 18.”
“Some of the more nationalist and populist leaders in Central and Eastern Europe; there’s nothing they want more than a fight with Brussels, these Western European elites … trying to impose their ideology on our country,” Varadkar told the Blade. “So that’s why I think the European Union has to be smart as to how it acts.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is among those who condemned the Budapest Pride ban. Varadkar told the Blade he “was disappointed there wasn’t more action” from Brussels “in relation to why Budapest Pride was being banned.”
Varadkar praises Sarah McBride
Ireland is among the countries that have issued travel advisories for transgender and nonbinary people who are planning to visit the U.S. since the Trump-Vance administration took office.
President Donald Trump shortly after his inauguration issued a sweeping executive order — Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government — that, among other things, bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers. Trump in his inaugural speech also said the federal government will only recognize two genders: male and female.
Trump in February issued another executive order that bans trans women and girls from female sports teams. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in August announced it will ensure “male aliens seeking immigration benefits aren’t coming to the U.S. to participate in women’s sports.”
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights abroad was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Jan. 24 directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response to an executive order that Trump signed after his inauguration. Rubio later issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue operating after bowing to pressure, but the Blade has reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of gaps in U.S. funding.
Rubio in March announced 83 percent of U.S. Agency for International Development contacts had been cancelled, and the State Department would administer the remaining programs. USAID officially shut down on July 1.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding since the Trump-Vance administration took office.
“It has an impact, particularly on organizations in the Global South and in Central and Eastern Europe,” said Varadkar.
Varadkar told the Blade he is working with the Global Development Project and other philanthropic organizations to “fill some of the gap” in funding.
He said the current situation “demonstrates why we should never be too dependent on any government or corporations.” Varadkar also spoke more broadly about the Trump-Vance administration and its policies.
“I’m a guest in this country. I’m not here to tell you what to do. The American people decide who the president is. I don’t, but I am genuinely disappointed to see the backsliding on human rights and academic freedom and free speech here in America,” said Varadkar.
“What do I associate America with? I associate it with being one of the homes of democracy and helping to spread it around the world. I associate it with free speech, sometimes even saying any crazy thing you want. And I associate it with as being the birthplace of the LGBT liberation movement. I think of Stonewall. I think of the Castro,” he added. “It all started here, long before anyone in Ireland could ever imagine homosexual acts being decriminalized, let alone a gay person being the head of government.”
“To me this is where it all started,” said Varadkar. “It’s particularly worrying that things appear to be going in the wrong direction here, and that has impacts in the rest of the world too, that Americans might be very aware of.”
Varadkar also said he admires U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who in 2024 became the first openly trans person elected to Congress.
“She’s there for everyone in Delaware, and yes, she is trans too,” Varadkar told the Blade. “She’s willing to be a leader, but I think as LGBT leaders, we should make sure that our causes are part of the wider welfare and society and not separate.”
United Kingdom
King Charles III unveils memorial to British LGBTQ servicemembers
Ceremony is first time monarch held ‘official engagement’ in support of community.
King Charles III on Monday unveiled a memorial to British LGBTQ servicemembers.
The memorial is located at the National Memorial Arboretum in Burton-on-Trent, England.
“We see all the LGBT+ serving members and veterans of the Armed Forces, and we salute you,” said the Royal Family in a social media post that contained a video of Charles placing flowers at the memorial.
“Throughout the 20th century, gay men, lesbians, and bisexual people were banned from serving in the UK Armed Forces,” it adds.
We see all the LGBT+ serving members and veterans of the Armed Forces, and we salute you. 🌈
This afternoon at the National Memorial Arboretum, The King attended the Dedication Ceremony of a new memorial in recognition of all LGBT+ people who have served and continue to serve… pic.twitter.com/tEbkzsQHTG
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) October 27, 2025
“Today marks a historic step for healing and reconciliation,” said the British Defense Ministry.
The BBC notes gay servicemembers could not serve openly in the UK until 2000.
Monday’s ceremony is the first time Charles held an “official engagement” in support of LGBTQ rights.
His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, gave royal assent to the Sexual Offenses Act of 1967, which decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations among men in England and Wales who are at least 21, and to a law that extended marriage rights to same-sex couples in England and Wales in 2014. Elizabeth, among other things, also pardoned Alan Turing, an acclaimed World War II codebreaker and computer scientist who died by suicide two years after his 1952 conviction for “gross indecency.”
Then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in 2023 apologized to LGBTQ servicemembers who “endured the most horrific sexual abuse and violence, homophobic bullying, and harassment, all while bravely serving this country.”
Russia
Gay Russian asylum seekers remain in ICE custody
Andrei Ushakov and Aleksandr Skitsan sought refuge in US in November 2024.
A gay married couple from Russia who has asked for asylum in the U.S. has been in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for nearly a year.
América Diversa, a group that advocates on behalf of LGBTQ immigrants, told the Washington Blade that Andrei Ushakov and Aleksandr Skitsan fled Russia on March 14, 2024, “after the government began labelling LGBTQIA+ organizations as ‘extremist.’” Skitsan “faced direct threats at his workplace, forcing them to flee for their safety.”
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report specifically notes a Russian authorities “used laws prohibiting the promotion of ‘non-traditional sexual relations’ to justify the arbitrary arrest of LGBTQI+ persons.” The 2023 report also cites reports that “state actors committed violence against LGBTQI+ individuals based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, particularly in Chechnya” and “government agents attacked, harassed, and threatened LGBTQI+ activists.”
Advocacy groups in August sharply criticized the State Department after it “erased” LGBTQ and intersex people from its 2024 human rights report. Immigration Equality and other organizations say this omission could jeopardize the cases of LGBTQ who are seeking asylum in the U.S.
Couple separated, not receiving proper medical care in ICE custody
América Diversa says Ushakov and Skitsan arrived in Mexico on March 15, 2024.
The men used the CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) One app the Biden-Harris administration created that allowed them and other asylum seekers to schedule an appointment at a port of entry. Their appointment was on Nov. 27, 2024, and America Diversa said they asked for asylum on that day once they entered the U.S.
The Trump-Vance administration discontinued the CBP One app on Jan. 20, the day it took office.
“Upon entering U.S. custody, they (Ushakov and Skitsan) were separated without explanation,” said América Diversa.
Ushakov and Skitsan were initially detained at the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico, Calif., which is in the state’s Imperial Valley.
“Andrei was placed in an overcrowded unit with more than 60 detainees, where poor sanitation, excessive air conditioning, and the lack of adequate medical care have put his health at risk,” said América Diversa.
The group says the couple are now at the San Luis Regional Detention Center in San Luis, Ariz.
“They are now being denied all communication with each other, despite being legally married and sharing the same asylum case,” said América Diversa.
The group notes Ushakov has a “chronic medical condition that requires continuous medication and quarterly monitoring.”
“Despite repeated requests, he faces long delays in treatment and limited access to medical services,” said América Diversa.
América Diversa also noted Skitsan suffers from a “chronic ear infection, which causes ringing and temporary hearing loss, as well as untreated stomach issues.” América Diversa said Skitsan had been scheduled to see a doctor in December, but his “recent transfer to Arizona has jeopardized that case.”
“Their transfer to the San Luis Regional Detention Center has further worsened their situation,” said América Diversa. “At this new facility, they have been prohibited from communicating with each other, an act that violates not only basic humanitarian principles but also their rights as a legally married couple under both U.S. and international law.”
América Diversa Managing Director Yonatan Matheus on Oct. 22 told the Blade he had just spoken with Ushakov.
“He couldn’t talk with his husband, he was only able to talk with me for less than five minutes,” said Matheus. “The calls are recorded and monitored. He is very afraid to speak.”
The couple’s case are among those that have garnered attention since the Trump-Vance administration took office.
The White House earlier this year “forcibly disappeared” Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan makeup artist who asked for asylum in the U.S., to El Salvador. He returned to his homeland in July after he spent more than 100 days in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT.
ICE agents in August arrested Alice Correia Barbosa, a transgender Brazilian woman, while she was driving her car in Silver Spring, Md. A senior Department of Homeland Security official who misgendered Correia told the Blade that she “overstayed his visa by almost six years” and DHS plans to deport her.
Brazil has the highest number of reported murders of trans people in the world.
ICE did not respond to the Blade’s request for comment about Ushakov and Skitsan’s case.
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