Russian adult content provider forced to entrap gay men online by Dagestan police — Novaya Gazeta Europe
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A Russian male adult content provider was detained in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan for the second time in two weeks on Wednesday after reportedly being forced to entrap gay men online by the republic’s police.

A Russian male adult content provider was detained in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan for the second time in two weeks on Wednesday after reportedly being forced to entrap gay men online by the republic’s police.

Matvey Volodin, a Moscow resident who performs under the name USSRboy, was detained by plain clothes police officers as he left a temporary detention centre where he had been held for 10 days, North Caucasus SOS, a Telegram crisis group devoted to helping LGBTQ+ people in the region, said.

A lawyer Volodin spoke with told North Caucasus SOS that Volodin had come to Dagestan in late May at the invitation of men who had contacted him online and told him they had rented him an apartment there.

However, they turned out to be officers from the Centre for Combating Extremism, a special unit within the Russian police, who after beating Volodin and confiscating his phone, forced him to assist them with entrapping gay men online, according to North Caucasus SOS. Using Volodin’s account to invite people to the apartment, the officers allegedly filmed Volodin’s sexual encounters with more than five men.

  • @talEnglish
    2•23 days ago

    So, historically, you often had churches and states that had close ties. The church would help control the public and keep it in line with the state. The state would protect the church and give it special treatment.

    And in Russia’s case, I understand that the head of the church has taken a very pro-Putin position. The Russian Orthodox Church, as I understand it, is considered by Kyiv to act on behalf of Moscow, doing intelligence-gathering and such; they closed them down.

    https://theconversation.com/holy-wars-how-a-cathedral-of-guns-and-glory-symbolizes-putins-russia-176786

    A curious new church was dedicated on the outskirts of Moscow in June 2020: The Main Church of the Russian Armed Forces. The massive, khaki-colored cathedral in a military theme park celebrates Russian might. It was originally planned to open on the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany, in May 2020, but was delayed due to the pandemic.

    Conceived by the Russian defense minister after the country’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, the cathedral embodies the powerful ideology espoused by President Vladimir Putin, with strong support from the Russian Orthodox Church.

    The Kremlin’s vision of Russia connects the state, military and the Russian Orthodox Church. As a scholar of nationalism, I see this militant religious nationalism as one of the key elements in Putin’s motivation for the invasion of Ukraine, my native country. It also goes a long way in explaining Moscow’s behavior toward the collective “West” and the post-Cold War world order.

    The Russian president himself appeared in earlier versions of the cathedral’s frescoes, along with Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. However, the mosaic was removed after controversy, with Putin himself reportedly giving orders to take it down, saying it was too early to celebrate the country’s current leadership.

    Patriarch Kirill, who has called Putin’s rule a “miracle of God,” said the new cathedral “holds the hope that future generations will pick up the spiritual baton from past generations and save the Fatherland from internal and external enemies.”

    So if you figure that Putin is looking to use the Russian Orthodox Church the way that rulers often historically used churches, and that the Jehovah’s Witnesses – who are famous for going out of their way to find converts – are recruiting people who could be Russian Orthodox, which the Russian Orthodox Church isn’t gonna like, it maybe makes more sense.