INFO:

​LGBT activists allege that a new antigay purge in Chechnya has led to at least two deaths by torture and 40 detentions. The republic's information minister, Dzhambulat Umarov, says the "seeds of sodomy will not sprout" on the "blessed soil of the Caucasus." The purge began in late December, according to the Russian LGBT Network, and appears to be the second wave of a sweeping crackdown that provoked international condemnation but little action within Russia when reports of it first surfaced in April 2017.