"The death of Mikhail Gorbachev last week—especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—may ultimately mark the moment when all (Western) dreams of a progressive Russia were buried. In retrospect, it seems these dreams had always been short-lived, even directly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which Gorbachev helped herald. The event, interpreted by the triumphant West as a promise of a new beginning, was quickly followed by the ascent of the kleptocracy carried to extremes under the Putin regime. It also provided the Russian LGBTQ+ community with only a short moment of reprieve from the repressive Soviet regime"