Matvey Volodin, known for his online performances as USSRboy, went missing under unusual circumstances at the end of May. Reports from the Guys PLUS project channel, the Severny Kavkaz SOS Crisis Group, and the Mediazona portal indicate that on 23 May, Volodin went on holiday with plans to create new content.

However, the following day, a user reported that Volodin had been detained by the police during a sexual encounter at a 'gay den' and was arrested on charges of drug possession.

Uniformed officers seized Volodin's phone and took over his social media accounts. They then used them to invite homosexual men to intimate meetings, which they recorded with a hidden camera. At least five men fell into the trap.

According to the informant, Volodin was accused of being a drug dealer who bribed police officers to secure his release. The informant also claimed that Volodin was beaten by the police, a reprehensible practice that is unfortunately common in Russia. Volodin was released from pre-trial detention after a week of forced cooperation, during which he spent ten days of his sentence for ‘petty hooliganism’. However, his liberty was short-lived.

Volodin's lawyer, Patimat Nuradinova, presented an entirely different account of events. According to her, Volodin believed he was going to meet internet friends in Dagestan. Instead, he was detained and beaten by police officers on the spot, who confiscated his phone and forced him to act as bait to entrap other gay men.

Activist Vladimir Chugrov confirmed in an interview with Guys PLUS that Volodin was lured to the location under the pretext of a sexual encounter. Instead of friends, he encountered state officers who detained him. Chugrov also revealed that Volodin had indeed been released from custody, but men in civilian clothes were waiting for him outside the building. According to the Crisis Group, these were officers from the Centre for Combating Extremism.

The Russian was forcibly pushed into a car and kidnapped by two undercover police officers before he could speak to his family and lawyer. Nuradinova attempted to record the incident, but one of the officers knocked the phone out of her hand. Volodin's whereabouts are currently unknown.

Chugrov added that the blogger is living with advanced HIV and urgently needs his medication. "Regardless of the offences, every citizen of Russia has the right to preserve his health," Chugrov said. "Without access to therapy, people with HIV are at mortal risk, and putting them in such danger is not justified."

The Guys PLUS portal reported that other men on USSRboy's contact list have received threatening messages since Volodin's phone was seized. Dagestani blogger and social activist Gadzhimurad Shamilovich, who calls himself a "populariser of moral values", is alleged to be behind the persecution of Matvey Volodin and other gay men.

Source: advocate.com/belsat.eu