Yea that's why I said repeatedly and explicitly that America of all people had no room to criticize them on this but that doesn't mean it's not a bad thing.

Russia not criminalizing homosexuality would also lead to more lgbtq people worldwide having better conditions than now and that seems a lot easier to accomplish in the short term than defeating western hegemony

And it's not like being incredibly homophobic is helping them defeat the west, in fact as others pointed out if they'd stop going out of their way to persecute lgbtq people it would completely nullify one of the main criticisms of them and allow them to correctly point out its another of a long list of standards that America holds other countrtries to while completely refusing to hold itself to the same standard