2007 photo by OutRage! London via Flickr.  As captioned: Protest
against homophobic Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov who was in London
to meet the mayors of London, Paris and Berlin. Luzhkov has banned
Moscow Pride and denounced gay people as "satanic". This photo:
Nikolai Alexeyev (centre), flanked by Peter Tatchell of OutRage! (left)
and London Assembly member, Darren Johnson.

The Independent (UK) reported on Oct 25, 2010:

Russia was told by the European Court of Human Rights yesterday that its ban on gay marches is illegal.

In a landmark ruling greeted with delight by the country's beleaguered homosexuals, the court in Strasbourg said that restricting the community's rights of assembly was a form of discrimination. 

The authorities were told to pay around £25,000 (US$41,000) in compensation to Nikolai Alexeyev, Russia's top gay rights activist, who brought the action. 

"This is a crippling blow to Russian homophobia on all accounts," commented Mr Alexeyev.

Gay rights activists said the ruling had tremendous implications for all civil society in Russia, as it states that the authorities' insistence that protesters must obtain permission to hold rallies or pickets is illegal. Currently, authorities in many Russian cities reject applications for gay marches or demonstrations of the democratic opposition, often claiming that they clash with other hastily-arranged events.

Each year a small number of gays defy the ban and march anyway, which often ends with riot police wading in and arresting the demonstrators.