Kenneth Glad
A comment has raised broader questions about political consistency, public accountability and the treatment of minority groups.
The dispute over Ruslan Kutayev’s remarks on LGBTQ+ people and so-called “honor killings” has put new pressure on Russia’s anti-Kremlin opposition.
Kutayev described LGBTQ+ people as “outcasts and perverts,” and said LGBTQ+ people from the North Caucasus should keep that part of their lives private rather than publicly connect it to their ethnicity.
In an opinion article for The Moscow Times, Ramazan Alpaut, a journalist who focuses on minority rights and Russian politics, argues that the case raises a difficult question: whether the opposition’s human-rights commitments apply equally to its own allies.
According to Alpaut’s account, Kutayev, who leads the Assembly of Peoples of the Caucasus, was suspended from the PACE Platform for Dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces, a Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe initiative created to engage with Russian opposition representatives, after comments that drew sharp criticism.
According to reporting by the independent Moscow outlet, Kutayev spoke about decisions over women’s lives in cases described as “honor killings” as family matters.
After the backlash, he said he had been misunderstood and later stated that no one has the right to kill another person.
Uneven responses
For Alpaut, the issue does not stop with Kutayev. His piece says the Kremlin has used state-backed “traditional values” to justify pressure on LGBTQ+ people, women and ethnic activists. Opposition figures, he argues, should not reproduce those same attitudes.
The Free Russia Forum said in a statement quoted by Alpaut that it “consistently opposes all forms of antisemitism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and other forms of discrimination and hate speech.”
Yet the reaction, in Alpaut’s telling, has not always been consistent. He points to cases where alleged anti-Muslim, nationalist or imperial rhetoric from prominent liberal figures received a quieter response.
The dispute therefore becomes a test of internal standards. Alpaut’s argument is that opposition groups cannot credibly condemn prejudice in the Kremlin’s politics while overlooking similar language when it comes from familiar or influential figures.
Russia’s regions
He then turns to Russia’s territorial future and criticizes opposition figures who reject, or sharply limit, the right of regions and peoples inside Russia to decide their own political status.
He cites Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s reported position that “Crimea and Donbas are Ukraine. The North Caucasus is Russia.”
In Alpaut’s view, that line reflects a willingness to challenge Putin while still treating Russia’s current borders as largely beyond question.
The piece also discusses Vladimir Kara-Murza’s comments about ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and other groups. Alpaut writes that Indigenous rights activists viewed such remarks as shifting moral responsibility for the war and reinforcing imperial assumptions.
For Alpaut, the opposition’s test is whether it can reject not only Putin, but also the hierarchies and prejudices that have helped sustain his rule.
Source: The Moscow Times.
