Long went to Moscow in 2006 to support Russian activists, including Nikolay Alexeyev, attempting to organize a gay pride march in defiance of an official ban. The ban was part of a general strangling of civil society as President Vladimir Putin's regime became more authoritarian. Long witnessed and reported on skinhead and police violence against marchers, including a brutal attack on German member of the Bundestag Volker Beck. Long documented collusion between police and violent right-wing extremists, and "evidence that the police lured the lesbian and gay activists... to be beaten, then selectively jailed." He wrote of his own experience at the abortive march: