LGBT soldiers in Ukraine hope their service is changing attitudes as they rally for legal rights
Several hundred LGBT Ukrainian servicemen and their supporters have marched in central Kyiv to demand more rights and highlight their service to their country in its war with Russia
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Several hundred LGBT Ukrainian servicemen and their supporters marched in central Kyiv Sunday to demand more rights and highlight their service to their country in its war with Russia.
The servicemembers — many wearing rainbow and unicorn patches on their uniforms — called on the government to grant them official partnership rights. They described the event as a pride march but it did not have the celebratory atmosphere of peacetime events and took place in the rain and under a heavy police guard amid threats from counterprotesters.
The role of LGBT members in the military has been credited with shifting public attitudes toward same-sex partnerships in the socially conservative country.
“We are ordinary people who are fighting on an equal footing with everyone else, but deprived of the rights that other people have,” Dmitriy Pavlov, an army soldier who used a cane to walk, told The Associated Press.
