Russia Just Raided Its Biggest Publisher For Selling Gay Books… And It’s Only Getting Worse
Russia’s clampdown on LGBTQIA+ life has accelerated sharply. Within three days this week, police raided the country’s largest publishing house over books with gay themes, and two separate LGBTQIA+ organisations were declared “extremist” by Russian courts. Both moves build on a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that branded the so-called “international LGBT movement” as extremist.
Eksmo publishing house raided in Moscow
On Tuesday, police searched Eksmo, Russia’s top publisher, and seized thousands of books. Chief executive Yevgeny Kapiev was taken in for questioning, along with the firm’s finance director, head of distribution and deputy commercial director, Eksmo communications director Yekaterina Kozhanova told AFP. Kozhanova said the raid was part of “a criminal case on extremism” over the publication of books “dealing with LGBT themes.” An earlier investigation in 2025 targeted Eksmo’s subsidiary Popcorn Books after authorities claimed to detect “LGBT propaganda” in its catalogue, and several staff were arrested at the time.
Two LGBTQIA+ groups declared extremist
On Thursday, the Moscow Community Center for LGBT+ Initiatives and ParniPlus, a Russian-language outlet that reports on LGBTQIA+ health and rights, said separate courts had designated them extremist organisations, Reuters reported. Both said they would keep operating. “We view this as yet another step toward criminalising LGBTQ visibility, independent journalism, and any public solidarity with the community in Russia,” ParniPlus said in an online statement.
Why this matters beyond Russia
The legal framework is not new, but its reach is widening. Since the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling, Russian courts have fined and jailed people for displaying rainbow flags, wearing rainbow jewellery, and sharing queer posters. The advocacy organisation Rainbow Europe ranks Russia third from the bottom on LGBTQIA+ rights out of 49 European countries. In March 2026, Human Rights Watch accused the Russian authorities of “weaponizing the justice system to marginalize and censor LGBT people and their supporters, flagrantly violating their rights to free expression, association, and nondiscrimination.”
The pattern DNA has been tracking
This did not come out of nowhere. DNA has followed the slow escalation for a while. Russia fined Apple over so-called LGBTQIA+ propaganda posts, hit a news site with a $6,600 fine just for reviewing the gay hockey novel Heated Rivalry, and we wrote about how strange the anti-gay witch hunt had become as the state kept widening what counts as “propaganda”. The raid on Eksmo and the two new extremist rulings fit the same shape: first the laws, then the symbols, then the books, then the people who report on community life.
For readers elsewhere, it is a reminder that queer visibility is not guaranteed anywhere. Backing an LGBTQIA+ rights group, buying a queer book, or amplifying the work of a Russian activist are small ways to keep that visibility alive.
