Some have praised Ilya’s monologue explaining why he will never return to Russia, where his sexuality would mark him as a disappointment to his family and lead to his ostracism from wider society.

“If you live as an openly gay man in Russia, you are constantly facing pressure and living in fear,” a Moscow resident, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Post. “The best option for someone who wants to live openly and freely is to leave.”

Unsurprisingly, the popularity of Heated Rivalry has outraged conservatives. Sorok Sorokov, a conservative Orthodox Christian group that campaigns for “traditional values,” said it plans to ask Roskomnadzor, the state media watchdog, and the prosecutor general’s office to remove the series from streaming platforms and prosecute websites making it available to Russian viewers for violating the country’s anti-LGBTQ “propaganda” law.

“The series is full of sodomite sex scenes,” Georgy Soldatov, the group’s chairman, told Absatz Media. “Russia already has a mortality rate higher than its birth rate, and yet our youth are shown propaganda of unnatural debauchery.”

According to The Washington Post, a law set to take effect in Russia on March 1 bans films that “discredit traditional values” or promote drug use, granting regulators broader authority to pressure cinemas and streaming services to remove such content from their platforms.

Last year, Roskomnadzor blocked 1.3 million pieces of content, a 59% increase over 2024. While virtual private networks, which disguise a user’s internet location, were the most frequently targeted, LGBTQ content ranked as the second-largest category.

Mikhail Zygar, a prominent Russian journalist living in exile, wrote an essay for Vanity Fair describing how the series resonates with him and other LGBTQ Russians, drawing parallels between Ilya’s story and his own life.

“Like the character, I was born toward the end of the Soviet Union, a time when homosexuality was still a criminal offense,” Zygar wrote. “My father was a military officer. I grew up in a society where coming out never seemed possible; it was always clear that being gay in Russia would mean being an outcast, being cursed, having no chance whatsoever.”