Photo by Vitalik2416, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Nadya Karpova: The Russia striker comes out and speaking out against war in Ukraine
Nadya Karpova's full first name - Nadezhda - means «hope» in Russian. She has a small tattoo with the word in English on the front of her neck. She had it done when she was 21, but doesn't even remember what hopes she had at that time. Now it has real significance.
Nadya Karpova, who plays club football for Espanyol in Spain, is the third Russian sport profile that has voiced anti-war message. She is the only member of the Russian women’s team to have voiced her opposition to the Russian invasion war in Ukraine, and she does so almost every day. Since the war started, more than three months ago, she has been posting anti-war messages on Instagram, where she has 143,000 followers.
«I can’t just look at this inhumanity and stay silent», she says according to BBC news.
There are no openly gay national team athletes in Russia. Karpova has never spoken publicly about her sexuality before. She even only told her mother a year ago.
«It’s not a secret to anybody that the main problem of gay kids is that you are always in the closet», she says to BBC news. «You are afraid to be judged by society. And when your state becomes the one who bullies you, it’s just absurd».
«Now Russian propaganda is trying to discredit people who speak out against the war, by outing them according to BBC news.
«For instance, when Margarita Simonyan [editor-in-chief of state media outlet RT], was talking about [comedian and presenter] Maxim Galkin’s anti-war position, she said: «He is actually gay!» Like being gay means that you are a bad, disgusting person with no moral values».