Russian LGBT activists missing in DPR

Russian LGBT activists Oleg Vasilyev, known under the names Gray Violet and Maria Stern, and Victoria Miroshnichenko went missing on the territory of Donetsk People’s Republic illegal formation.

As reported by Anti-Discrimination Centre “Memorial” to the Human Rights Information Centre, referring to the post on social networks.

According to culturologist Alek Epstein, communication with Vasilyev was interrupted on January 31.

As a result of searches Epstein found out that, on January 31, activists have crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border on the territory controlled by DPR, through the Uspenka checkpoint.

This was reported to him by so-called assistant of Denis Pushilin, the “speaker of People’s Council of the DPR”.

“… According to her, Oleg and Victoria have successfully passed all checkpoints and got to Donetsk – their further traces are lost. “Assistant of the Chairman of People’s Council of the DPR” affirms that she checked the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but there are no signs of them. We heard nothing from them for 5 days and it seems completely pointless to me to keep quiet about it”, – wrote Epstein on January 8.

In the comments to his post, he explained that he has not yet reported on the visit of activists to the DPR, since he received information that during the day of February 6 activists will be released and expelled from the “republic”.

As reported by activist Oleksiy Knedlyakovsky to the Mediazone news agency, Vasilyev was going to conduct a pacifist campaign in Donetsk on behalf of the LGBT movement. 27-year old activist Victoria Miroshnichenko went with him on the territory of the DPR.

In August 2014, the Migration Service of Finland has granted political asylum to Vasilyev, which he asked for, referring to the persecution in Russia, due to the participation in the LGBT campaigns and opposition rallies.