Russia’s oppressive attempts to erasure LGBTQI+ folks have become more severe since the country invaded Ukraine.

Russia fined TikTok with about $27,000, and Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta, with about $53,000 on Tuesday, after the platforms refused to delete LGBTQI+ related content posted by their users.

The country’s ‘communications regulator’, also known as the Roskomnadzor, has been pressuring social media networks to erase LGBTQI+ related content and posts that don’t satisfy Russia’s authoritative regime, and has blocked access to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for the platforms’ restrictions on fake news by Russian media.

Meanwhile, Russian politicians like Vitaly Valentinovich Milonov are spearheading hateful propaganda against LGBTQI+ folks – a reality show called “Я не гей”, which translates to “I’m Not Gay”, focuses on testing people’s “heterosexuality” (which backfires, because the show itself is as gay as it could possibly get).

Russia is infamous for its human rights abuses against LGBTQI+ folks. In 2013 President Vladimir Putin signed a law spearheaded by Milonov, for banning the spread of LGBTQ+ “propaganda” to minors, after which crimes against queer and trans folks – especially against youth – have doubled.

Milonov’s anti-LGBTQI+ propaganda has been awarded by Russian president Vladimir Putin one of the country’s highest civilian honours – a medal of the order “For Service to the Fatherland” in the second degree.

“In 2012, he attempted to bring Madonna and Lady Gaga to court after they spoke in support of LGBT rights at their concerts in Russia…He also filed a complaint against Lena Klimova, the founder of the Deti-404 online support group for LGBT teenagers, who was eventually fined under Russia’s gay propaganda law in a separate case,” Guardian reports.