Militant Right-Wing Extremism in Putin’s Russia: Legacies, Forms and Threats

Post-Soviet Politics

MILITANT RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM IN PUTIN’S RUSSIA LEGACIES, FORMS AND THREATS Jan Holzer, Martin Laryš and Miroslav Mareš

Militant Right-Wing Extremism in Putin’s Russia

Militancy continues to be characteristic of many supporters of the Russian far right, encompassing a belligerent rhetoric, a strong perception of participants as political warriors and often the use of physical violence. How serious a threat does Russian militant right-wing extremism pose to Russia and the World, and how has the level of threat changed over time? This book addresses this question by exploring right-wing extremism in Russia, its historical context and its resurgence over the past thirty years. Outlining the legacies and forms presented by current right-wing extremism, with a particular focus on militant extremism, it employs a historical, descriptive method to analyse the threats and risks posed. Presented within the framework of research on extremism and political violence related to Russian political thought, the book outlines the key criteria of identifying threats, such as the level of violence, ability to gain supporters and penetration of governing elites. Primarily aimed at researchers and academics in political science, extremism, security studies and the history of Russia and Eastern, Central and South-East Europe, this book will also be of interest to political journalists and practitioners in international security. Jan Holzer is a Political Scientist, Professor in the Department of Political Science and Principal Researcher in the International Institute of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. His research interests include Modern Russian Politics; Comparative Area Studies, Political Systems/Regimes of the East European Countries and former Soviet Republics; Theory of Undemocratic and Hybrid Regimes; and Theory of Democratization. Martin Laryš is the Chairman and Co-founder of the Centre for Security Analyses and Prevention, Czech Republic, since 2012. He previously worked in business development in post-Soviet countries and as a foreign correspondent for a Czech newspaper in Moscow. He has published several articles on right-wing extremism, on Russian politics and the politics of the former Soviet republics (particularly the Caucasus and the Ukraine). In 2009, he earned a

degree in Political Science from the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. Miroslav Mareš is a Political Scientist, Professor in the Department of Political Science and Principal Researcher in the International Institute of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. He is a member of the International Association of Political Science, the European Expert Network on Terrorism Issues (chair of the subgroup on right-wing extremist, left-wing extremist and separatist violence in Europe) and the editorial board of the Radicalisation Awareness Network. His research interests include political extremism and terrorism as well as security policy in East Central Europe.

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The last decade has seen rapid and fundamental change in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Although there has been considerable academic comment on these changes over the years, detailed empirical and theoretical research on the transformation of the post-Soviet space is only just beginning to appear as new paradigms are developed to explain change. Post-Soviet Politics is a series focusing on the politics of change in the states of the former USSR. The series publishes original work that blends theoretical development with empirical research on post-Soviet politics. The series includes work that progresses comparative analysis of post-Soviet politics, as well as case study research on political change in individual post-Soviet states. The series features original research monographs, thematically strong edited collections, and specialized texts. Uniquely, this series brings together the complete spectrum of work on post-Soviet politics, providing a voice for academics worldwide. The Politics and Complexities of Crisis Management in Ukraine From a Historical Perspective Edited by Mykola Kapitonenko, Viktor Lavrenyuk, Erik Vlaeminck and Greg Simons Crises in the Post-Soviet Space From the Dissolution of the Soviet Union to the Conflict in Ukraine Edited by Tina Olteanu, Felix Jaitner and Tobias Spöri Militant Right-Wing Extremism in Putin’s Russia Legacies, Forms and Threats Jan Holzer, Martin Laryš and Miroslav Mareš For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge. com/Post-Soviet-Politics/book-series/ASHSER1198

Militant Right-Wing Extremism in Putin’s Russia Legacies, Forms and Threats

Jan Holzer, Martin Laryš and Miroslav Mareš

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Jan Holzer, Martin Laryš and Miroslav Mareš The right of Jan Holzer, Martin Laryš and Miroslav Mareš to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 9781138592513 (hbk) ISBN: 9780429490019 (ebk) Typeset in Times NR MT Pro by Cenveo® Publisher Services

Contents

List of tables Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Russia’s militant right: Notes on the historical, systemic and ideological ­conceptualisation of a specific political actor

ix x 1

4

2 The Russian militant right: A historical reflection on a specific political phenomenon

24

3 Militant right-wing extremism from the beginning of the Putin era to the war in Ukraine (2000–2018)

46

4 Right-wing extremist subcultures in the Russian Federation

81

5 Terrorism committed by militant Russian nationalists and violent racist gangs

107

6 Russian militant nationalism and the war in Donbass

126

7 Contemporary pro-Putin Russian militant nationalism in Russia and Ukraine

152

8 Contemporary anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism

181

viii  Contents

9 Russia’s support for militant nationalism abroad 

209 235 248 275

List of tables

3.1 Violent clashes instigated by Russian extremist organisations 2006–2015 4.1 Russian football clubs and hooligan groups 5.1 Overview of hate crimes and physical assaults according to the SOVA Centre for Information and Analysis 5.2 Violent racist gangs

72 97 119 120

Acknowledgements

This book has been written as part of the project “Russia in the Categories of Friend/Enemy: A Czech Reflection” (MUNI/M/0921/2015), funded by the Grant Agency of Masaryk University. Indeed, the Russian extreme right has a strong impact on contemporary Czech–Russian relations. The authors would therefore like to express their gratitude to the Grant Agency for their support of this project. They would also like to thank Patricie Mertová for her help with the formal aspects related to the preparation of the manuscript. Many thanks go also to Olga Pospelova, PhD student at the Department of Political Science (Faculty of Social Studies) at Masaryk University, for her remarks on current Russian conservatism and for sharing several texts that deal with this issue. Last but not least, our thanks go to the translator, Štěpán Kaňa, who was able to resolve issues caused by the interactions between the Czech, Russian and English languages, as are encountered in examining a complex political topic.

Introduction

Russia has been closely involved in world events for centuries. Its policies have been determined by a number of internal influences, from many parts of the political spectrum. One of these influences is the extreme right, which is being watched very carefully today. The evolution of the extreme right in Russia in recent years has been characterised, in part, by its opposition to President Vladimir V. Putin’s government, but also by its cooperation with this regime, as some on the extreme right help Russia’s leaders achieve their ambitions for power in both domestic and foreign policy. Militancy, based on a belligerent rhetoric; a strong perception of themselves as political warriors; and, often, the use of physical violence have been and continue to be characteristics of many supporters of the Russian far right. In the second half of the 2000s and the early 2010s, Russia was blighted by a wave of extreme-right attacks against ethnically and politically defined enemies; these attacks claimed hundreds of lives and resulted in many injuries. At the same time, a war erupted in eastern Ukraine, in which thousands of Russians participated as combatants, largely on the side of the separatists, but some of them—due to their anti-Putin position and their neo-Nazi beliefs—fought, and are still fighting today, on the Ukrainian side. In recent years, pro-regime vigilante groups have appeared in Russia. The extreme right and its supporters abroad have become involved in what has been described as ‘hybrid war’. Russia’s extreme nationalism has a long tradition dating back to the tsarist era, the post-1917 revolution émigrés and World War II anti-Stalin activities; and the ideological sources of contemporary Russian neo-Nazism can be seen in all these periods. The historical inspiration is strong and conspicuous in many activities that have developed time and again after significant periods in Russian history, from the perestroika-era of communism, the turbulent period of Boris N. Yeltsin’s regime, the early phase of Putin’s Russia and up to the present day, when the Russian militant extreme right has been significantly affected by the conflict in the Donbass and the various factions of the extreme right have responded in their own ways to the tightening of the domestic regime. Historical traditions and positions on contemporary issues continue to inform the stratification of Russian militants.

2  Introduction All these phenomena pose challenges for scholars; first, those analysing modern Russian history and politics; second, those studying far right and right-wing extremism worldwide (although the application of concepts typical of the West is not necessarily meaningful in the Russian context); third, those interrogating the regime-opposition relationship in transitional, hybrid or non-democratic regimes (including the current discussion of modern authoritarianism); and fourth, those taking a broad view of political violence, including terrorism and armed conflicts. It is the perspective of specifically militant ways of behaviour and rhetoric that provides the main research paradigm for this book, distinguishing it from other works on the Russian extreme right. Since the 1990s to the present day, a large number of important papers, articles, studies and books have been written about the Russian far right, and many are quoted in this book. Of those that have informed later research, Walter Laqueur’s 1993 monograph Black Hundred: The Rise of the Extreme Right in Russia can be considered a classic. Then, in 2008, came the results of Andreas Umland’s long-term study of the ideological background and conceptualisations of the Russian extreme right (Umland 2008). Marlene Laruelle (Laruelle 2008) was among those who studied Aleksandr Dugin’s Eurasianism, an important ideological current that was used to legitimise the activities of certain elements of the Russian extreme right, including its international influence (Laruelle 2015). Russia’s support for the far right internationally (including the use of Russian pro-regime extremeright entities) has been clarified by Anton Shekovtsov (2018). In the broader context of Eastern Europe, the Russian extreme right has been studied by Michael Minkenberg (most recently Minkenberg 2017a). Particular issues pertaining to the Russian far right have been examined by Ivanov (2007), Kozhevnikova and Verkhovskii (2009), Zakharov (2015), Herrera and Butkovich Kraus (2016) and many, many others. A specific focus on the violent dimension has hitherto been limited to few works. Several books have analysed the militants (Arnold 2016; Kelimes 2012; Likhachev 2002). Two of the authors of this book sought to provide an overview in a jointly written article (Laryš and Mareš 2011). They later supplemented this article with an analysis of the transnational relations of the Russian extreme right, with an emphasis on its militancy (Mareš and Laryš 2015). Some aspects of the violence committed by the Russian far right have been analysed in several papers and books (Zuyev 2013; Tipaldou and Uba 2014; Enstad 2015; Glathe 2016; Likhachev 2016; Arnold and Markowitz 2017). Russian extreme-right violence has been examined in some broad studies of right-wing extremism worldwide (Koehler 2016). This is the context in which we have sought to analyse comprehensively the contemporary Russian militant extreme right, with a focus on its organisational aspects and forms of activities. Given the difficult application of the notions of the extreme right and militancy in the Russian environment, the book opens with a conceptual chapter, offering a historical, systemic

Introduction 3 and ideological conceptualisation of the political right in Russia. Because many contemporary entities have deep historical links, Chapter 2 provides a historical reflection of the Russian far right and its militancy until the end of the Yeltsin era. The next chapter presents militant right-wing extremism from the beginning of the Putin era to the war in Ukraine. Further chapters are dedicated to extreme-right subcultures, terrorism of the extreme right, the ties between Russian militant nationalism and the war in Ukraine, contemporary pro-Putin Russian militant nationalism in Russia and Ukraine, and contemporary anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism. Given the international influence of the Russian extreme right, one chapter is given to this issue. The conclusion summarises the book’s findings.

1

Russia’s militant right Notes on the historical, ­systemic and ideological c­ onceptualisation of a specific political actor

The issue of identifying the main ideological currents or familles spirituelles remains one of the most interesting, but also most knotty, challenges in the study of modern Russian politics. It is not necessary to frame the issue by questioning whether Russian politics has created sufficiently well-defined and lasting ideological and programmatic options; on the contrary, ideologies have always been and continue to be present and put to intensive use in Russia’s politics. In this respect, Russia is no anomaly—not even the Russia of today, classified most often as an authoritarian regime, headed by Vladimir Putin and led by elites who are allegedly pragmatic and non-­ ideological in their outlook and actions. How strong and stable were and are these ideological options in modern Russian politics; what potential do they have, now and historically, to mobilise the populace; and how have they influenced and continued to influence the practical exercise of political power in Russia—these remain the salient questions. Be that as it may, modern Russian politics have produced many actors with remarkable ideological profiles, and they have taken their ideologies very seriously. Indeed, given the experience of the twentieth century, one might even say that they have produced too many of them. The authors of this book have aimed to provide a testimony concerning one such product of Russian politics, namely the country’s militant right. This aim is not just contingent on current scholarly or any broader demand for an analysis of such segments of the political spectrum in European countries: in Russia, the issue of the militant right is both highly topical and fully grounded historically. Thus, the objective of this book is, on the one hand, to consider the peculiarities of Russia’s past and present and, on the other hand, to conceptualise the topic of Russian right-wing extremism by means of the broadly conceived terminology and typologies of political science, even though these have often been created primarily on the basis of comparing Western European countries. This ambition testifies to the authors’ conviction that it makes sense to compare Russia’s culture with those of other areas, above all, with those of Western and Central Europe. For that matter, this is a procedure ‘methodologically very advantageous’, as Tomáš Garrigue

Russia’s militant right 5 Masaryk, a Czech sociologist, politician and outstanding scholar of Russia of his era wrote more than a century ago in his book Russia and Europe, because ‘Russian analogies bring the Europeans’ own issues into sharper relief’ (Masaryk 1996 II: 430). So, what does this imply for the terms militant and right, with respect to both the contemporary social-scientific terminology and this monograph?

Russia’s pre-revolutionary right The term right is primarily connected with the phenomenon of political pluralism. It announces that there is a coherent, yet partial, view of politics, that there are those who espouse this view (and the ideas and interest that it represents, and who thus legitimise it) and are ready to defend it in confrontations with those who espouse other (dichotomically speaking, left) views (Bobbio 1997). Of course, phenomena such as tensions and conflicts among various actors holding power have a long, pre-political history. Expressing the fact that the monolithic politics of the absolutist monarchies were being overcome, and that political competition was emergent, pluralism was born in a wave of European revolutions during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And the division of the countries’ political spectra into the left and the right became the constitutive element of pluralism. Russia, however, experienced a political revolution only in the twentieth century. The pre-revolutionary Russia of the Romanovs existed, in fact, in a pre-political era. Naturally, it knew divisions in terms of opinions and power. These were often the effects of various reform projects, brought to being by the recurring feeling on the part of some Russian elites that their country was lagging behind other great powers. Consider the famous reforms spearheaded by Peter I (the Great) in the early eighteenth century. These projects often elicited disapproving responses, which in turn either defended the status quo or even advocated a return to some idealised model from the past. Such tensions between the progressives, i.e. the advocates of change, and the traditionalists, i.e. the supporters of the unchangeable old order and customs allegedly proven by ages, produced in Russia’s society certain fundamental positions, in which one might identify the nuclei of future right-wing and left-wing stances. However, proposing reforms was a prerogative of the Tsar, the aristocratic and subsequently bureaucratic elite of the court that served him, and senior church figures. Thus, these tensions concerned only a narrow circle of actors; the broader popular strata served merely as extras in their disputes. This did not prevent the people from identifying with some of the competing sides and thereby becoming radicalised, as was the case as early as the second half of the seventeenth century, when a church reform (presented, incidentally, as a modernising step) split the nation and created the Raskolniki movement. Even the famous Decembrist uprising of 1825 was only an isolated revolt.1 It was the later dispute between the Zapadniki and the Slavophiles

6  Russia’s militant right that became the first truly ideologically defined, general cleavage to split the slowly-nascent Russian society according to the desired future course for the country. This dispute came to be partly under the influence of the Enlightenment adventures undertaken during the era of Catherine II (the Great), and partly as a reflection of the experience of the Napoleonic wars. Both camps first constituted themselves on socio-cultural lines. However, the contemporary seeking of answers to the classic Russian existential questions, ‘Kto vinovat?’ (Who is at fault?) and ‘Chto delat?’ (What to do?) gradually led to the establishment of pre-political positions that already reflected the key Russian value dichotomies, of which the most important were autocratic despotism versus political freedom, and elitism versus the common people.2 The Zapadniki (Pavel Vasil’evich Annenkov, Vissarion Grigor’evich Belinskii, Vasilii Petrovich Botkin, Aleksandr Ivanovich Gertsen, Timofei Nikolaevich Granovskii and others) understood Russia’s lagging behind the developed world and the country’s unwillingness to embrace modern (for which one might read Western-European) experience and trends as Russia’s greatest misfortune. By contrast, the Slavophiles (for example, brothers Konstantin Sergeevich and Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov, Aleksei Stepanovich Khomyakov, brothers Ivan Vasil’evich and Petr Vasil’evich Kireevskii, and Yurii Fedorovich Samarin) advocated allegedly autochthonous Russian traditions.3 In them they saw a pure, untainted source of their own identity, and hence the only truly functional model for Russian society as well as a mythical wellspring of moral force for Russia’s future conflict with secularising Western society, a conflict many of them thought was historically inevitable. For us the relevant question is this: Does it make sense to interpret the Zapadniki and the Slavophiles in terms of the right and the left? This must be answered in the negative. If we were to use the Western terminology of political doctrines, we might perhaps speak of liberal and conservative options respectively, but on the part of those who espoused them, both of these options were intuitively understood worldviews rather than ideologically fully-fledged strategies. The so-called conservatives, in particular, certainly did not worry about formulating their own programme; a sweeping critique of all their opponents, seen as voluntaristic revolutionaries who lost their national identity, sufficed. It is evident, however, that the future Russian conservatism broadly conceived did emerge from Slavophilia, and it offered a colourful spectrum of personalities and doctrines, ranging from reactionary traditionalists to militant anti-Semites (Pipes 2005). And, as Martin Malia noted, while the rhetoric of the Zapadniki brought the ‘light’ of the West to Russia, it was not a camp strongly defined in ideological terms, rather it was an ideologically non-selective effort to open Russia to outside influences (Malia 1994: 538). Against the background of the events and trends of the second half of the nineteenth century (Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War, the disintegration of the Tsarist monopoly on presenting modernising projects and the growing

Russia’s militant right 7 self-awareness of the Russian intelligentsia, largely idealist in outlook and increasingly active), the dispute between the Zapadniki and the Slavophiles was gradually replaced by new themes, above all by the ‘social question’. The search for the practical solution to this question continued even after the long-awaited abolition of serfdom in 1861 and produced the first truly political actor in Russia, the so-called revolutionary democrats.4 From this camp gradually emerged both the specific phenomenon of the Narodniki movement (khozhdenie v narod) and, in the late nineteenth century, the authentic Russian political left: the Esers and the Social Democrats as well as terrorist organisations such as Narodnaya volya. Slogans such as ‘repaying the debt to the nation’ (Berďaĭev 1990: 49) suggested the chiliastic mentality of this left segment of Russia’s nascent polity, a mentality that was influenced by Marxism, itself imported from the West. These leftists were determined to promote their idealist revolt by any means possible, including radicalism and violence. Paradoxically, their efforts to forge genuine links with Russia’s society tended to fail, as this society remained largely unstructured in socio-­ economic terms and perhaps for that very reason essentially apolitical. It is therefore a historical fact that it was the left, aptly understanding itself to be in a position ‘more remote from power and closer to the gallows’, which in the late nineteenth century became the dynamic element in the processes of establishing Russia’s party politics and of the very politicisation of Russian society. In this sense it is no mistake to describe the birth of the Russian right and of its segments that chiefly interests us in this book as a reactive act. The power of the Tsar was above criticism, and this fundamentally limited the establishment of Russia’s right at the time. The conservative elites found themselves in a schizophrenic situation: they could not act in the Tsar’s name, but neither could they ignore the growing ambition of the left. The premise of the Tsar’s monopoly on power thus in fact depoliticised a potential right-wing conception of the public sphere and, as suggested above, removed from the right the task of formulating a positive programme. The right therefore made do with two themes: (1) the defence of the Tsarist-authoritarian or socially-hierarchical status quo (Vydra 2010: 33–51) and (2) a critique of modern society, as epitomised by Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev (Dmytryshyn 1974: 337–352; Vlček 2012: 92–101). In short, negative responses to stimuli created by left-wing actors were typical of the nascent right-wing section of Russia’s polity at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The fundamental distinction between Russia’s left and right that formed itself during this period was therefore as follows: there was a resistance of the right against the left’s progressive, activist conception of politics and the public sphere that did not rule out the use of revolutionary tools; on the part of the right, this was in fact a resistance against politics as such, against politics as a way to resolve power struggles among the various actors, or even a resistance against the very admission that anyone but the Tsar could be concerned with the phenomenon of power.5 In sum: before 1905, Russia’s right

8  Russia’s militant right was characterised by its defence of the authoritarian status quo and rejection of any proposals for political change. *** This distinction continued to hold even after the great political concession made by the Romanov autocracy in the revolutionary year of 1905. From 1905 to 1917, however, the real power continued to be in the hands of the Tsar, as even the October Manifesto brought only quasi-constitutional change. The left, therefore, continued to attack not only government policies, but also the legitimacy of the whole political and social system. However, even under these circumstances, a political alliance failed to be created between the contemporary right and the throne. The Tsar and those around him viewed the social groups whose interests and values were evidently close to his own as unimportant inferiors and not as full actors. What is more, the continuing over-representation of the nobility and under-representation of the unprivileged social strata—a situation that Robert A. Tucker described as the ‘dual Russia’ (Tucker 1971: 122) and which precluded broader social support for right-wing ideas and interests—was in fact convenient for the right. They were either unable or unwilling to respond to Russian society’s emphasis after 1905 on pressing social and economic issues. This was connected with the fact that, at the time, Russia still found itself at a stage where its socio-economic, and hence also class, stratification and profiles were incomplete. During World War I, this was accompanied by an increasing awareness of how weak Russia’s position internationally truly was (as already suggested by the Russo-Japanese War). Yet the contemporary Russian right failed to use even this nationalist theme (i.e. it was necessary to renew the ‘greater’ Russia) for political mobilisation. The right continued to be passive, settling for a rejection of a left-wing, activist conception of politics that questioned the status quo. The right did not provide its own political alternative, one that would go beyond the horizon of Tsarist authoritarianism. Its position and potential were fully determined by the existing privileges of the Tsar’s power—and it was precisely this model for which the death-knell was soon to be rung. Throughout the 1910s the fundamental characteristic of the Romanov monarchy was the unwillingness on the part of the Tsar and his circle to consider power-sharing with other institutions, above all with the State Duma. This created an explosive atmosphere, full of frictions and disagreements, in which both the leftist camp—from the constitutional liberals to the revolutionary radicals—and the rightist camp (the monarchists, nationalists and conservatives) took delight. So when an individual (Petr Arkad’evich Stolypin) came up with a practical programme of prudent steps to be taken that did not call tsardom into question, he was opposed not just by the left (as could have been expected) but also by the right and by the strata represented by the latter, starting with the aristocracy. In other words, the political culture of the majority of Russia’s political parties prior to 1917 was

Russia’s militant right 9 dominated by radicalism and by acts and behaviours that were extreme (for more detail, see e.g. Droste 2001: 37–54). This tradition of Russia’s modern political history was not represented by an ideologically coherent party family but by encompassed actors avowing diverse ideological standpoints. On the one hand, they were anti-system in their view of the existing model of politics; on the other, they differed fundamentally as to how the model should be reconstructed. And when such actors showed willingness to use violence as a tool of political struggle, we come closer, in the corresponding context of the time, to the definition we hope for in this book, that is, of a militant left/right. One could also claim that, in the hesitantly emerging Russian polity at the time, there was a dichotomy—power versus subordination, or holder and executor (the subject) of power versus the object of power— that towered above all other cleavages. By contrast, what did not become established before 1917 was the conflict of regime versus opposition, which would suggest that the political arena was truly open. No early-democratic model was formed that enjoyed the respect of the majority of actors. But it is precisely the emergence of such a model that is a prerequisite if the placing of actors on a left-to-right scale is to make sense. This, at least, is the argument that comparative politics has made concerning the historical realities of the models which established themselves in Western Europe. The left and right segments of the political spectrum, theoreticians argue, are not distinguished by their approach to power but by the solutions they propose to their constituencies to enact should they win power, solutions that are underpinned by the supposed or real values and interests of these constituencies. In theory, both the left and right enjoy equal access to power. Thus, most of the relevant segments of society are thought to be able to influence political processes, or, expressed differently, it is the majority of the actors of the already-born polity, themselves representing the various social strata, who are able to exert such influence. In this context, the historiographical argument, according to which the process of building the modern Russian political nation was unachieved by 1917, assumes a special importance. A substantial community of authors writing on the issue of nation and nationalism (including Benedict Armstrong, Ernest Gellner, Eric Hobsbawm and Anthony D. Smith) evidently found it problematic to categorise the birth of the Russian nation. It is as if the classical schemes for classification suddenly ceased to apply, as if the example of Russia eluded the conventional models of national genesis (models, let us admit, that were largely conceived on the basis of European nations). One possible solution is offered by a key authority on the issue, the Czech historian Miroslav Hroch. Of the nation-building categories he proposed, that of ‘state-nation’ does not correspond to the path Russia took. Though it fulfils the fundamental criterion, i.e. state identity did precede national identity, it lacks another of the defining characteristics of the type because it was not liberal (Hroch 1999: 13). However, Hroch also defines a category of models in which the state’s awareness of its own power played a

10  Russia’s militant right dominant role in the creation of the nation. In this ‘imperial’ path to identity of the Tsarist multi-ethnic Russia, we find the following institutions in the state-making role: the Romanov dynasty, other power holders (the army being the prime example) and the Orthodox Church, established as a state church (Hroch 1999: 23–24).6 Such a model for the forming of the Russian nation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries corresponds to the non-liberal, conservative character of pre-revolutionary Russian political nationalism (Schapiro 1967) and explains the partialness of the project of the right, which failed to include important segments of Russian society. That is why the contemporary Russian left focussed on socio-economic issues, which it viewed as a different space in which it could formulate its own demands for modernisation and democratisation, and thus a different (and, again, partial) path towards the establishment of a Russian political nation. Thus, the state-building process in Russia was not closed by 1917; rather it remained open. And when, after the February 1917 revolution, Russia’s political arena did become truly open, this was a merely episodic arrangement, accepted by only some actors from the left (the Mensheviks) and centrist (the Kadets) segments of the political spectrum. By contrast, the major part of the increasingly dominant left (the Esers and the Bolsheviks) viewed it only as an interim step on the path towards implementing their own dreams of socialist revolution. The right was entirely unable to get its bearings in the new situation, let alone to adapt to it; it quickly stopped being a real participant in Russia’s politics, and in a few months, after October 1917, ceased to exist entirely. *** Let us now try to conceptualise the phenomenon of Russia’s right in the era prior to the Great October Socialist Revolution. First, it was born in response to the more dynamic process in which Russia’s political left was formed. Second, it showed little willingness to formulate a positive political programme; one could term this an ideological negativity. In terms of its position in the system, Russia’s right ‘snuggled up’ to the Tsar and those around him, and advocacy of the Tsarist-autocratic model was fundamental to its programme. During this time, it did not embrace a more open model, and a reactionary defence of the status quo was its essential strategy. Corresponding to this was its non-democratic and illiberal, or even apolitical, notion of politics and power. This was a defence of existing mechanisms of power, which, from the point of view of the right, were working; a defence that could be located on the scale of tradition versus progressivism. During the period described, Russia’s right made its appeals to the Russian people (a historical category) rather than to the Russian nation (a political category), and therefore it makes sense to describe it as a nationalist right, or more precisely a conservative nationalist right. It was a non-political conservatism that resisted political modernism and prevented the achievement of Russia’s state-building process.

Russia’s militant right 11

The Soviet era The Great October Socialist Revolution provided the opportunity to implement an international project in which there was no space for the concept of nation, at least initially, as the project relied on other socio-political categories. Lasting for seven decades, the Soviet era in Russian society was presented in the contemporary propaganda as a period where the historical rights of the hitherto oppressed, yet historically chosen, actor—the working class—would be definitively fulfilled. Everything was to be aimed towards the implementation of the classic Marxist thesis of a classless society, one that overcomes all antagonisms, and is therefore united and conflict-free as far as the needs and opinions of individuals are concerned (Bezancon 1998: 223–248). The construction of a paradise for Soviet nations precluded a nationalist rhetoric, at least in theory. However, in many respects, the centralist practice (Silnitskiĭ 1990) showed anti-internationalist tendencies. The Soviet Union stood on a nationalist foundation of the Greater Russia (Barghoorn 1956) ever since the Soviet Union was attacked by the armies of Hitler’s Germany (if not earlier), and the Stalinist elites understood well what the concept of nation offered in terms of legitimacy and mobilisation. In any case, the rise of Soviet power after 1917 implied a closure of the existing political arena. It did not, however, spell a depoliticisation of the public sphere. Rather, the public sphere was mobilised in the extreme through a super-ideological instrument, the Bolshevik (Marxist-Leninist) worldview. From the 1920s to the 1960s, and possibly beyond, Soviet power operated on the basis of a permanent and total ideologisation of everything, including the private sphere. Hence the various attempts to reform or reconstruct the Soviet model—in short, the contemporary struggles for power— had ideological subtexts and were presented as clashes of ideas, calling for a return to the ‘original’, or even better the ‘true’, -isms. For that reason, in eliminating its various real and imagined enemies, Soviet power used (among others) the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’, whether it was concerned with the various factions within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Kommunisticheskaia Partia Sovietskovo Soiuza, KPSS)7 during the 1920s and 1930s, the nationalist platforms following World War II or the opposition of the 1960s and 1970s. For example, during the 1920s and 1930s, the so-called old Bolshevik opposition, groups of democratic socialists and the so-called working opposition were labelled as ‘right deviation’ (Priestland 2007: 236–241), whereas after World War II this same designation was applied to nationalist oppositions in Ukraine and other regions in the Soviet Union. In the context of the functioning of the totalitarian Soviet regime, these labels were entirely twisted and abused, and this is not the place for their analysis. The ideological self-identification of some independent actors during the Soviet era is another question altogether. Soviet attempts to equalise society, though persistent, did not lead to the total liquidation of that society’s natural ideological identities, their mythologies or their founding stories.

12  Russia’s militant right It is extremely interesting in this respect that the term left largely prevailed on the contemporary independent scene. One might even argue that the contest for a contemporary or timeless Russian ideological Holy Grail took place exclusively on the left. By contrast, the right, positively understood, practically disappeared from Russia’s political dictionary during the Soviet era—its attractiveness was nil. Incidentally, this was also true of the Brezhnev era, when Soviet power began to give up on the ideological instruments of mobilisation and increasingly focused on formal adherence to the communist code. Using Juan J. Linz’s terminology, it transitioned into a post-totalitarian phase (Linz 2000: 245–261). And yet, even during the 1960s and 1970s, the self-identification with the left continued; consider the ‘bizarre situation’ of the time, when the KPSS was a left-wing party, yet small groups of dissidents were described as ‘left-wingers’ (Danks 2001: 196–197) in the sense that they offered an antithesis to the petrified structures of the party and the state. In sum, a contest for a leftist (that is, a revolutionary or progressive) conception prevailed not just in official circles, which continued to see themselves as a historically privileged avant-garde of the world’s left, but also in Russia’s non-official intellectual circles. *** And so it came to be that another Russia, represented by the post-revolution émigrés, became after 1917 the bearer of Russia’s right-wing tradition, the actor that kept it alive. Though dotted throughout Europe, together the émigrés yearned for Russia, for the home which soon became a paradise lost. It probably will not surprise anyone that the nostalgic mentality of the Russian exile worked with a traditional, right-wing image of the true Russia. And yet this environment produced not just a defence of the old model but, during the 1920s, also a new, original ideological conception, which expressed many values and theses of a right-wing programme. Eurasianism, which conceived of Russia as a leading constituent in a culturally autochthonous Eurasian continental entity, combined a number of traditional right-wing values (above all, an authoritarian exercise of power and a rejection of liberalism) with a newly-formulated territorial ambition. It also expressed evident identitarian consequences. Its ability to identify a coherent essence of Russia’s historical mission was its unquestionable advantage. Peter the Great’s reforms of the early seventeenth century, which started to alienate Russia from Asia, and for which the Bolshevik revolution provided an epilogue, were described as crucial for this historical mission. The key for rediscovering Russia’s identity, by contrast, was to admit that the peculiarity of the Russian nation consisted in its Eurasian mentality (Laqueur 1993), to which Tatar invasions made a contribution; as such they should not be viewed as having impeded the development of the Russian nation. By defining a multi-national imperial Russian identity, one that called into question none of the periods of Russia’s historical development, Eurasianism opposed both the cosmopolitan/internationalist and

Russia’s militant right 13 the nationalist conceptions and provided a constitutive contribution to the discussion about the varying identity of the Russian political community. The founders of Eurasianism, such as the economist and geographer Petr Nikolaevich Savitskii, the linguist and ethnographer Nikolai Sergeevich Trubetskoi, the philosopher Lev Platonovich Karsavin and the philosopher and theologian Georgii Vasil’evich Florovskii, were critical of both Bolshevism and the Tsarist model. And even though their initial impulse lost much of its energy as early as the late 1930s, it did leave an ideological legacy that proved relevant and stimulating for further development of Russian political thought.

The post-Soviet era The era of perestroika, symbolised by the figure of Mikhail Gorbachev, opened a transitional period, which brought about the conclusion of the Soviet experiment on Russian society (Suny 1998) and an opportunity for a thoroughgoing reconstruction of its state-nation model and its political regime. Naturally, the period of the late 1980s and the early 1990s also produced complaints about the alleged ‘spiritual degradation of Russian society’ and ‘a crisis of nation-state values’ (Medvedev 1998: 288) as well as scenarios of catastrophic future developments, based on the alleged lack of a clear vision as to ‘what society we are building and goals we are pursuing’ (Volkov 1998: 250). In reality, however, ‘Russia’s ideological field’ was filled with unprecedented alacrity with the most varied programmes for a new Russia, ranging from those proposed by individuals (consider Solzhenitsyn’s famous essay ‘How we should arrange Russia’; Solzhenitsyn 1990) to the manifestos of newly-founded political parties to broad, non-partisan conceptions such as Eurasianism (see Laruelle 2008 and Bassin, Glebov and Laruelle 2015), in the words of O. A. Misyurov, ‘the most varied teachings of “all times and nations”’ (Misyurov 1996). The search for rules to guide the political contests of the colourful, nascent spectrum of political currents—from traditionalists to modernists, from conservatives to revolutionaries—was a fundamental feature of Russia’s transition. With a multitude of opinions in place, one could also expect the new actors to have identified themselves as the left or the right. However, according to the transitology paradigm of democratisation studies, the process of division into the left and the right tends to be an effect of the post-transition phase. It was no different for post-Soviet Russian politics, with two key lines of conflict during the transition—the ‘old’ Soviet regime against the ‘new’ regime, which can also be expressed as the advocates of the status quo against the reformers (Cotta 1992; Beyme 1994: 285)—that continued to establish actors’ identities with reference to the Soviet era. This was also reflected in the political vocabulary of the time. Thus the leaders of the group Democratic Russia (Demokraticheskaya Rossiya; DR), which wanted to liberalise the political system, and the economic

14  Russia’s militant right reformers headed by Egor Gaidar understood themselves as located on the left because they sought to define themselves in opposition to what they viewed as the reactionary communist elite, whom they described as ‘red-brown’ conservative imperialists (Pashentsev 1998: 7).8 There are multiple interpretations of the point at which Russia’s transition was complete. According to some authors, it ended in August 1991, when the permanent clashes between the advocates of ‘conservative stabilisation’ and the reformists led to an unsuccessful coup, which Boris El’tsin overcame thanks to the power he had received when he was elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) in June 1991. According to other authors, the end of Russia’s transition came later, in the dramatic events of internal politics in the autumn of 1993, when the parliament was vanquished by the president’s camp, which codified the Russian model of limited pluralism. Even during this period, however, the overwhelming majority of the contemporary descriptions of Russia’s party politics focused on identifying the poles in the party system and tended to be rather sceptical about the feasibility of a deeper doctrinal analysis,9 one that could distinguish Russia’s left-wing and right-wing parties (e.g. Oleshuk, Pribylovskii and Reĭblat 1996). The ideological profiles of many Russian parties of the time were incoherent amalgams and were subject to rapid change. The classic notion of ideological distance (polarisation) of the actors in the system could therefore provide only limited information about the changes occurring during the first years of Russia’s post-transition politics. The broad academic consensus therefore was as follows. During the 1990s, there were four party-political camps: the ex-communists (above all, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (Kommunisticheskaya partiya Rossiiskoi federatsii, KPRF) and the Agrarian Party of Russia (Agrarnaya partiya Rossii, APR); the liberals (DR; Russia’s Choice (Vybor Rossiya, VR); Blok Yavlinskii-Boldyrev-Lukin, Yabloko); the supporters of the president (a group most diverse in its make-up10); and the nationalists and patriots (represented by the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (Liberal’nodemokraticheskaya partiya Rossii, LDPR). In terms of conceptualising the post-transition Russian political right, we need to focus on two poles: the supporters of the president, and the nationalists and patriots. By contrast, the contemporary liberal Russian parties of the period deserve only a brief note. In the early 1990s, their reform- and market-oriented programmes challenged Russia’s communist and ex-communist left, but the vision of future Russia as proposed by DR—and subsequently, in the parliamentary election of December 1993, by Vybor Rossiya—was one of broad democratisation, which one might read as anti-communist. A division based on socio-economic issues, in which the liberal camp could have established a right-wing role for itself, lasted only for a few months in 1992, and quickly lost relevance with the departure of Egor Gaidar and the arrival of Viktor Chernomyrdin in the office of

Russia’s militant right 15 prime minister. In the following period, Russia’s liberalism—for example, the Blok Yavlinskii-Boldyrev-Lukin—adopted a social-democratic position on economic issues and a modern liberal position on questions of values; it was, in short, pro-Western. Its potential continued to wane, however, and in the late 1990s (let alone the 2000s) it was no longer a relevant actor. In other words, the liberal camp failed to contribute to the establishment of a permanent left–right cleavage in Russia’s politics, as it simply failed to win sufficient electoral support. The pro-presidential camp, by contrast, is extremely important for an analysis of post-Soviet Russian politics. This camp consisted of the so-called ‘parties of power’, which brought together party politics and the executive branch of government in a peculiar manner. The basic framework was provided for this camp in the 1990s by the semi-presidential form of government in Russia, dominated by a strong president, who for many in society represented a much-desired point of reference in a volatile situation as a sort of paternalist refuge. Incidentally, this model did not create a situation favourable for the constitution of a stable and ideologically distinctive party spectrum; yet it did not exhibit an open desire to drift towards a model of government that would be closed and lacking in pluralism and freedom. It was, first of all, a reliable institutional mechanism, allowing for effective governance. The parties favouring the president did not tend to transform themselves into full-fledged political parties, either of the parliamentary type or the presidential (American) type (Ryabov 1998: 89–90). They largely provided information about the support for the president and were involved in solving the issue of who would occupy the most powerful office; consider the events of the turn of 1999 and 2000. As far as programmatic options were concerned, the parties supporting the president liked to present themselves as non-ideological. More specifically, if they had a defining characteristic in this respect, it was their ability to adapt themselves to any attractive external ideological stimuli, even if they were contradictory. What is more, over the various elections, a significant number of parties, with programmes entirely different from each other, sought to play the role of the main pro-president party. Thus, I. N. Barygin could describe the 1995 programme of the pro-president party Our House Russia (Nash dom Rossiya, NDR) as centre-right, without implying that NDR was a member of an actual party family. V. S. Chernomyrdin, a NDR member and Russia’s prime minister from 1992–1996, said of the same programme: ‘We will not build socialism, communism is a utopia, and capitalism—from the viewpoint of developed countries—that is a phase long since finished’ (Barygin 1999: 104). Thus, when discussing the pro-president camp, it makes little sense to assume that these parties developed their own ideologies. Rather, one might speak of their pragmatic approach to party programmes, showing an ability to understand the mentality of Russian society and adapt themselves to it. Contemporary political science could perhaps seek to apply the notion of

16  Russia’s militant right populist parties. With reference to an earlier work by the present author, one could also suggest the notion of synergism, expressing a certain programmatic pell-mell (Holzer 2004: 166). In any case, the key to understanding is provided by the notion of mentality, which can be profitably applied not just to the authoritarian phase in Russian politics starting with Vladimir Putin’s victory in the 2000 presidential election. Putin was seeking the votes of precisely those segments of Russia’s post-Soviet society that pro-presidential parties appealed to before 2000.11 What, then, was it that the corresponding and important part of the Russian electorate demanded (and continues to demand)? It is: (1) a strong, paternalist, providing state, one that (2) favours the interests of the collective over those of the individual and (3) guarantees social security and stability. In the domain of foreign policy, this mentality is dominated by (4) a varied (sometimes reticent, sometimes even chauvinist) anti-Western orientation, not precluding a realist’s ability to enter into pragmatic alliances. Any attempt to express the orientation of Russia’s pro-presidential parties using the classical vocabulary of Western European ideologies is fraught with difficulties. One could write that these parties combined statist, social-democratic views of society and the economy with conservative values; it is probably not coincidental that, during the 1990s, which was a period of relative openness in Russian politics, no social-democratic or conservative parties had established themselves (Holzer 2004: 242–262). The camp supporting the president fostered a post-Soviet, post-ideological mentality (Holzer and Balík 2010), one that cannot be placed on the left-to-right scale and whose true long-term potential became apparent after 2000, when a depoliticised, consolidated authoritarian regime was quickly established.12 *** The second case crucial for any attempt to define the post-Soviet Russian right is the so-called national-patriotic camp; it is of special importance when we focus on the radical right. However, the task of defining this camp is yet another complex challenge posed by modern Russian politics to political science. This is because nationalism in Russia cuts across political divides; the most important political actors have all used nationalist rhetoric and continue to do so, but they refer to various periods of the country’s history. This situation is related to the stumbling nation-building process in Russia, as already noted in this chapter; a process that was not completed under the monarchy, in the very brief parliamentarian phase, or in the subsequent Bolshevik era. Nationalism’s extraordinary ability to mobilise was already apparent in Russia’s politics at the end of the 1980s. Indeed, throughout the 1980s, organisations such as Pamyat or the so-called Russian Party (Minkenberg 2009: 445–458; Laqueur 2015: 171–176) established themselves on nationalism. Externally, nationalism was used to overcome the frustration arising out of the Soviet Union’s disintegration and to help Russia find a new position in the international system (whether considered in its post-Soviet,

Russia’s militant right 17 European, Eurasian or global aspects), as republics that were formerly part of the Union sought to emancipate themselves and countries of Central Europe embraced pro-West policies. Internally, nationalism was able to explain many contemporary economic and social ills using that time-proven technique, the search for an enemy. Appearing most often in this role were ‘the West’—a vehicle for liberalisation and globalisation trends—and its potential domestic ‘exponents’, i.e. the liberals, Jews and non-Russians, originally members of the Transcaucasian nations and later the Muslims. The aim of this chapter is not to provide an exhaustive commentary on Russian nationalism; we are only interested in certain segments of the national-patriotic camp. Two fundamental divisions within contemporary Russian nationalism as described by the Polish political scientist Jaroslaw Bratkiewicz (1998: 29–59) are useful for our endeavour: first, the National Bolsheviks versus the anti-communists, and second, the All-Russians versus the Greater-Russians, corresponding to the rossiiskii–russkii dichotomy and referring to Roman Szporluk’s terms, ‘empire savers’ and ‘nation builders’ (Szporluk (1989: 17). As far as our topic is concerned, we can ignore the National Bolsheviks of the first division outlined above. During the 1990s the National Bolsheviks were a group of parties headed by the KPRF, which originally emerged from the disintegrating KPSS (Gill 1994) and sought to revive the Soviet model, if possible within the frontiers of the former Soviet Union, if not then within those of the Russian Federation. This programme was often espoused by coalitions or broader platforms such as the Coordinating Council of the National-Patriotic Forces of Russia (Koordinatsionnyi sovet narodovo-­patrioticheskikh sil Rossii) and the National Salvation Front (Front narodnogo spaseniya), representing the anti-El’tsin camp in 1992–1993; the Congress of the Nations of the Soviet Union (Kongress narodov SSSR) founded in 1993; and the Front of the Working People, Army and Youth (Front trudyashchegosya naroda, armii i molodezhi). These entities included nationalist rhetoric in their programmes, but their negative views of the contemporary situation in Russia were largely driven by Soviet nostalgia. This current has been and continues to be Bolshevik first and nationalist second. What Bratkiewicz (1998) calls the ‘classic nationalists’ suggests a presence in Russia’s politics of an ideological current compatible with certain Western-European parties. In the Russian context, however, classic meant anti-communist; in other words, in its xenophobic and chauvinist programmes this movement was not nostalgic for the Soviet past. These parties considered the contemporary political practice, which up to 2000 was at least partially competitive and plural, as ‘conventional’ and did not intend to respect and defend it. Crucial for their establishment were their visions of enemies who allegedly rejected Russian values and developmental ­models. An emphasis was placed on the idea of a Greater Russia, which was to revive national consciousness, to be guaranteed by the state as well as the Orthodox Church (Papkova 2011: 118–151). Rhetorically, entities such

18  Russia’s militant right as the Spas movement, the Party of Russia’s Spiritual Revival (Partiya dukhovnogo vozrozhdeniya Rossii), the Russian Party (Rossiyskaya partiya) and the Movement of Patriotic Forces—Russian Cause (Dvizhenie patrioticheskikh sil—Russkoye delo) were often militant and did not rule out violence. However, typically they were marginal, with the exception of Vladimir Zhirinovskii’s LDPR, a party with a relevant position in Russia’s party system. Though rhetorically radical, in practice it did not oppose the system, either before or after 2000. The previous paragraph finally suggests an environment where we might find the actors with which this book is concerned: Russia’s militant right. There is no need to complicate the conceptualisation of the militant right by applying theories widely discussed in political science that are connected with the analysis of extreme manifestations in contemporary politics, i.e. theories of extremism and radicalism.13 For our definition, the concepts of radicalism (understood as a tendency to adopt unconventional approaches and behaviours that reject compromise, but not a commitment to violence) and of extremism (an extreme position within the system and an anti-system mind set of the given actor) are not sufficient or cardinal for the post-Soviet system. In radicalism, as compared to the notion of the militant right, the element of violence is clearly absent. And an application of the notion of extremism, with its key question—extreme vis-à-vis what?—would only be a step towards identifying the fluid ‘margins’ of Russia’s political system,14 but it would say nothing about the presence of such a specific ideological current in contemporary Russian politics. The environment of classic nationalism has nevertheless evidently produced such currents (see below). In summary, in Russia’s politics prior to 2000, there were two broad camps that sought to represent the country’s right wing. The first of them, the so-called pro-presidential camp, tended to deploy a rhetoric of depoliticisation, suggesting a trend that was to become dominant in the next decade. Thus, its right-wing identity largely referred to the historical mentality of the Russian right, as it was described above in the context of pre-1917 developments. The national-patriotic camp, by contrast, was a right-wing actor that presented itself in ideological terms. The relationship between these two camps is interesting: the pro-presidential camp was pro-system, but so was the most important party of the national-patriotic camp, Zhirinovski’s LDPR. However, the majority of the entities in the national-patriotic camp were strongly anti-system and were very critical of the pro-presidential parties.

The Putin era Our task—to conceptualise the phenomenon of Russia’s right from the viewpoint of scientific-political analysis—has become more complicated since the rise in the early 2000s of an authoritarian regime essentially linked with the figure of Vladimir Putin. Two topics came under intense discussion: (1) the question of typologising Putin’s regime, including its ideological identity;

Russia’s militant right 19 and (2) the related issue of this regime’s sympathies for the European extreme right (e.g. Orenstein 2014). The academic consensus has only gradually been achieved that the term authoritarianism is appropriate to describe Putin’s regime—it was in fact reached after 2012, when Putin returned to the office of Russia’s president. Initially, the debate was dominated by hybrid-regime concepts (semi-authoritarianism, semi-democracy, electoral authoritarianism, etc.), which reflected the ultimately unfounded expectations connected with the allegedly liberal preferences of Dmitri Medvedev, who replaced Putin in the presidential post for the 2008–2012 term. In parallel, there appeared in scholarly literature attempts to categorise the hegemonic discourse of Putin’s regime as a conservative one (Prozorov 2005), i.e. using a concept from the domain of ideologies, even though Juan J. Linz’s classic approach rejects a connection between authoritarianism and ideology (Linz 2000: 162–165). Essentially this was a way of defining the prevailing mentality in Russia’s polity and the path taken in the building of this polity. What these steps had in common was their tendency to see the key actors in Russia’s political model as right-wing ones. A crucial and negatively constitutive category opposed to the description of Putin’s regime as conservative was then the notion of liberalism. This statement conforms to the fact that a characteristic trait of Russia’s politics since 2000 has been its increasing authoritarianism, but also (and this might go hand-in-hand with the former) that it attempted to complete the processes of nation-building and state-building. During this period these processes faced many uncertainties and alternatives. Unlike the 1990s, the dichotomy of Soviet versus anti-­ Soviet was no longer able to mobilise the electorate. However, the tension between an internationalist (multi-ethnic, all-Russian) model of a political community and a nationalist one (ethnic purity and Greater Russia; see the division of Russian nationalism according to J. Bratkiewicz above) and, to a limited extent, also a Eurasianist versus a nationalist model were (and perhaps still are) choices to be made between alternative visions, which provide meaningful guidelines appealing to substantial segments of Russian society (Tsygankov 2014: 169–177; Rojek 2015). In these respects, the dichotomy between conservatism and liberalism noted above can be productive. It reminds us of the non-liberal, conservative version of Russia’s national political project, dating to the phase prior to 1917, intellectually preserved by the exiles and after 2000 re-formulated as the so-called new Russian nationalism (Clover 2016). This new nationalism seeks to challenge contemporary liberal democracies (e.g. Roylance 2014 or Pomerantsev 2015), and in this respect it finds itself in agreement with the contemporary European extreme right (e.g. Laqueur 2015: 190–198). These notes are compatible with the thesis formulated by Marlene Laruelle (2009), according to whom the notion of nationalism has offered a broader range of options to the Russian elites both before and after 2000. In addition to the populist, conservative-centrist and socially-consensual dimensions/applications of nationalism in Russia’s party politics, Laruelle

20  Russia’s militant right also notes that there has been nationalism as opposition, used by those outside the parliament. Included in this segment, according to Laruelle, is the radical right which, she argues, restructured itself after 2000 and also became more radical in that it became more explicit in its willingness to use violence (Laruelle 2009: 58–83).15 In this context it makes sense that, in its struggle with opposition (largely but not exclusively left-wing opposition,16 as there is right-wing opposition, too), the Putin regime has produced legislation targeting ‘extremism’ (a 2002 law, amended in 2007). Thus, the opposition movement, The Other Russia (Drugaya Rossiya), for instance, was labelled as extremist (Horvath 2013: 171–205). The majority interpretation is that the anti-extremism legislation is a tool for fighting Putin’s opponents; it is nonetheless evident that it has also been motivated by the need to deal with the growing prominence of individual and organised racist and xenophobic activities (White 2011: 338). In this respect, Putin’s administration faces problems that are well known in the Western World,17 and a conceptualisation of Russia’s right again becomes more complicated. *** Let us now sum up our initial notes on the historical, systemic and ideological conceptualisation of Russia’s militant right as a specific actor in modern Russian politics. We can start with the famous thesis of the outstanding scholar of Eastern Christian spirituality, Cardinal Tomáš Špidlík, who argued that there is in Russia ‘a different view of man’ (Špidlík 1996), a thesis that many internal and external observers of Russian public life share. With reference to this viewpoint, one may then argue that the contest over who gets to formulate the exclusive national idea of Russia is as typical of the country as it is of any other national community, but is also a phenomenon sui generis. It also seems that historically these ideological contests have taken place in Russia within less clear-cut, rather undefined boundaries, or that perhaps the contenders have not yet agreed on the definition of these systemic boundaries. This was true of the Soviet era, too. Though its model was already consolidated, it was not competitive; rather it excluded a number of actors, and therefore the Russian dream about a state-national consensus was not fulfilled but left open. Hence the competition was quickly renewed after 1989, but even then it did not mean a definitive realisation of a tendency towards an open political model. In sum, the processes of nation and state building continue in contemporary Russia. In recent years, since the turn of the twenty-first century’s first and second decades, a new factor came into play. Western democracies, traditionally the main frame of reference for Russia, have faced fundamental internal questions about the legitimacy of their own political consensus, and, admittedly or not, find themselves in a period where they are reformulating the identity of their polities (their values, degree of inclusiveness, scope of rights, etc.). This has, of course, revitalised some of Russia’s actors, especially those who

Russia’s militant right 21 define themselves in opposition to the West and see the so-called crisis of the West as an interesting opportunity to obtain more legitimacy. In this context, this book’s interest in the Russian militant right is justified by several factors. It is, of course, an interesting phenomenon sui generis, an opportunity to study the members of a specific party family. But it is also a political camp situated within a political regime that is remarkable for its currently successful authoritarian path towards consolidation. This calls into question many convictions produced and shared by scholars of comparative politics after the fall of communism in 1989, starting with the argument of liberalism’s victory in the world to the paradigm of hybrid regimes to the notions of democracy promotion and the so-called colour revolutions. Finally, it is a study of an actor that, by eliciting some sympathy within the already-mentioned Western liberal democracies, constitutes a challenge to their elites, a kind of potential rival, one that is perhaps annoyingly subversive, but perhaps one that is systemic. Thus, multiple scientific-political concepts would seem to offer themselves for a conceptualisation of the militant right in Russia, including theories of extremism, radicalism and right-wing extremism.18 The authors of this book believe that the concept of nationalism provides a more suitable research framework and, in this chapter, have sought to outline the reasons. To recap: first, nationalism aims at the ideas behind the very identity of the entities under study. Second, in Russia the question of defining a stable and integral national and state framework remains open. And third, there is still today a struggle for generic political rules that define who holds power and who is merely an object of power—it is not just a conventional competition within limits that are already settled. Both of the main streams of contemporary Russian nationalism—ethnic (exclusive) and imperial (inclusive) nationalism—are relevant for our study, as there is an overlap between them and the militants. Bearing in mind all these aspects, we can sum up as follows: historically, Russia’s militant right was characterised by their support for a nativist form of an internally homogeneous and externally exclusive nation, guaranteed by a specific symbiosis between state and church, and consisting of the parallel processes of the sacralisation of the state and caesaropapism. Important traditional attributes in the ideological toolkit of Russia’s militant right were negative visions of enemies, with anti-Semitism as the most stable and reliable call to mobilisation. In strategic and instrumental terms, a segment of Russia’s right has historically favoured authoritarian methods, and even demonstrated its own combat morale and ability to take recourse to violence, which equates to: it was able to be militant. These attributes provide merely a basic conceptual framework for the research presented in this book. They constitute a framework that internally structures the search for answers to questions that are concerned with the ideological identity and systemic position of the present Russian militant right. To formulate these questions, it seems useful to the authors to define

22  Russia’s militant right the fundamental axes of the research that should delineate the contemporary Russian militant right: 1 The relationship with the present authoritarian Putin regime: support versus opposition; 2 The definition of the Russian state and its borders: the expansion of borders versus consenting to the secession of ethnically non-Russian parts of the Russian Federation (especially the Northern Caucasus); 3 The position towards the present Russo-Ukrainian conflict: support for the line taken by the contemporary Russian elites versus support for Ukraine; 4 The way in which violence is used and its aims: a ‘pro-regime’ vigilantism versus political opposition to the regime versus terrorism; and 5 The position towards the West: Russia as part of Europe versus Russia fulfilling the ambition for a ‘Third Rome’. In the context of the formulation of these axes of research, this book also aims to answer more subtle and specific research questions: • • •

• • •

What did the various representatives of the Russian militant right look like in the past? What is the relationship between the Putin regime and the militant right? In terms of defining the enemy, what has replaced the earlier resistance to political modernism, typical of the Russian right in the early twentieth century? Is it the resistance to political postmodernism, framed by modern liberalism, its philosophical premises and strategic instruments? Can some of the Russian militant right-wing entities be described as fascist19 or neo-fascist? Can Russia’s militant right become part of the mainstream? What is the real influence of the Western European far right on contemporary Russian politics and the militant right as a political actor?

Notes 1. It nonetheless gave birth to a strong symbolic story that became part of the Russian political mentality. 2. This can also be expressed by the term prostonarod’ye. 3. For the degree to which they were autochthonous or, by contrast, adopted, see O. Figes (2003: 145 and others). 4. Let us disregard for the moment such specific phenomena as nihilism and oblomovism, which connects in a peculiar manner the public with the art of literature. They are difficult to classify socio-politically, but their influence on the political preferences of Russian intellectual circles should not be ignored. 5. Of course, this thesis has its fragile limits, starting with the fact that it is necessarily a simplified description of a part of a spectrum (incidentally, this is also true of the left) that is internally much more colourful. For example, concerns

Russia’s militant right 23 about the consequences of the actions of some rebels, typically university students, were also voiced by certain liberal thinkers (for example, K. D. Kavelin), who felt an affinity largely for the socialist camp (Offord 1985: 208–213). 6. Earlier historians, for example F. Meinecke (1908) and H. Kohn (1955), also wrote about an illiberal ethnic/cultural model of the nation, in contrast to the civic/political, liberal model. 7. From 1925 All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks); in Russian Vsesoiuzaia kommunisticheskaia partia (bol’shevikov), VKP (b) and renamed KPSS in 1952. 8. In this context, J. Pashentsev wrote in his late-1990s description of ­Russian parties about the so-called right deviations on the Russian left, noting a right-bureaucratic and a right-bourgeois deviation. The former allegedly sought to restore the conservative bureaucratic model, whereas the latter aimed at the ideological and political subordination of the labour movement to the interests of capital. See Pashentsev (1998: 9). 9. Contemporary Polish political science has produced contributions containing valuable data. A. Stepień (1999: 31–32), for example, wrote about liberal (radical-reformist), conservative (reformist), communist, socialist and traditional (national-patriotic) entities, noting that these ideological foundations had compounded identities. E. Zieliński, meanwhile, proposed the categories radical reformers, moderate reformers, critical reformers, right-wing opposition, left-wing opposition and pragmatic centrists (Zieliński 1995: 106–107). 10. Successively in the early twenty-first century, Russia’s Choice, Our Home— Russia (Nash dom—Rossiya), Fatherland—All Russia (Otechestvo—Vsya Rossiya) and Unity (Edinstvo). 11. The creators and bearers of synergism were the administrative structures of the Communist Party, which have embedded into this doctrine their own interests and ideas about the effects of the daily political and economic processes in the Russian Federation. To articulate and promote their interests, they formed a party (since 2003, United Russia, Edinnaya Rossiya, ER), whose structures penetrate those of the state. Unlike other post-communist countries, a reformed Communist Party embracing social-democratic ideology has not become a representative of this social category. In Russia, the Communist Party bureaucracy was, at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, exposed to many stresses and rifts that prevented it from undergoing a process of de-communisation. 12. For the ‘political psychology of Russian public mentality’, see the book edited by Elena Shestopal (2015), which is rich in data. 13. Russian approaches towards radicalism and extremism are described by A. Verkhovsky (2010: 26–43). For a broader view of the topic, see Ramet (1999). 14. Thanks to a shared vision of an enemy (the emerging El’tsin regime), the extremes of Russia’s party-political spectrum that identified themselves as leftand right-wing respectively were able to reach early agreement at the beginning of the 1990s—consider the National Salvation Front (Danks 2001: 196–197). 15. For similarly varied approaches to the ‘new Russian nationalism’ see the volume edited by Kolstø and Blakkisrud (2016). 16. As an example, see the study about the Oborona group (Lyytikäinen 2016). 17. For instance, Russia’s Ministry of the Interior started to publish lists of ‘extremist’ organisations in 2010 (White 2011: 451). 18. For recent efforts to apply terms such as extreme, populist, racist or radical right, see Minkenberg (2017) and Mudde (2017a and 2017b). 19. Let us remember that some of the far-right Russian parties of the period 1905–1917—for example, the Union of Russian People (Soyuz Russkogo Naroda, associated with the Black Hundreds movement), or the Union of the Archangel Gabriel (Soyuz archangela Gabriela)—are sometimes described as proto-fascist; for more details see Stepanov (1992).

2

The Russian militant right A historical reflection on a specific political phenomenon

‘Rossiya dlya russkikh!’ — ‘Russia for Russians!’ A slogan of Chernaya sotnya, The Black Hundred

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of those actors in modern Russian politics who have decided to promote their right-wing visions (for the definition of the right in Russian politics, see Chapter 1) using militant methods. Given the dramatic metamorphoses of Russian political realities from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries, it should come as no surprise that the use of militancy or radicalism has been typical of various political movements and groups, and that we find elements of such radicalism in the practice of most of the camps in Russian politics. Indeed, it seems that, in Russia, political objectives cannot be attained without using radical instruments, violence included; the Bolshevik revolution can serve as a classic example of this. The birth of political extremism in Russia is nonetheless indisputably linked with the left. At the outset were the activities of social movements disappointed in the hopes they placed in Aleksandr II, whose 1860s reforms were merely proclamatory. The first theoreticians (including Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin, Varlaam Nikolaevich Cherkezov, Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin, Petr Lavrovich Lavrov and Petr Nikitich Tkhachev), as well as practitioners (e.g. would-be assassin Dmitrii Vladimirovich Karakozov), of Russian radicalism came from the aristocracy and the intelligentsia (Parland 1993: 33–37). Ideologically, the overarching contemporary designation narodniki included early socialists, anarchists and nihilists. Their proclaimed target group, on which they pinned their hopes, was the Russian peasantry. The narodniki preferred radicalism, not excluding the physical elimination of the leading figures of the state and of capitalism. Their terrorist acts—this ‘small war against absolutism’ (Masaryk 1996 II.: 104)—accompanied by the specific phenomenon of the so-called ‘revolutionary expropriation’ (but in reality, common crime) peaked in 1905–1907.1 By that stage, the original groups of the narodniki had gone through several transformations in terms of organisation, out of which emerged in 1902 the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (Partiya sotsialistov-revolyutsionnerov, PSR). Also called the SRs, they brought together the notion of the proletariat’s class struggle and the ideas

Reflection on a political phenomenon 25 of a general uprising of the peasants and a terror unleashed by the intelligentsia. The socialist-revolutionaries became the most important radical political party in Russia during the first constitutional era.

The Russian militant right during the first constitutional era (1905–1917): The Black Hundred Russian radicalism, then, emerged on the left of the political spectrum. The Russian right, including its militant branches, established themselves later as a reaction to the ideas and methods of the Russian left. There had been a conservative camp from about the 1860s, in which three currents gradually became established: aristocratic, bureaucratic and (neo-) Slavophilic. This was originally a very elitist arrangement, concentrated in the contemporary salons, such as the one held by Count Sergei Dmitrievich Sheremetev in St Petersburg (see Stogov 2007 for details). Although this provided space for intellectual discussions, it did not stimulate the formulation of a positive political programme. Typical features included a protective identity, defence of the status quo and a nostalgic pining for idealised models from the past. Given the privileged position enjoyed by the members of these circles, the use of violent methods and instruments was wholly alien to them at the time. In the late nineteenth century, the Russian idea2 and its defence came to symbolise the movement. Significantly, the expression originally had neither ethno-centric, nor officially nationalist, nor political meanings, but rather a religious meaning. In the early twentieth century, this universalist conception had some effect on the Russian spiritual renaissance, represented by figures such as Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev, Ivan Aleksandrovich Il’in, Dmitrii Sergeevich Merezhkovskii and Vasilii Vasil’evich Rozanov. Ultimately, however, an ideology crystallised around the Russian idea slogan. Nikolai Berdyaev subsequently described this ideology as church nationalism: it was a programme that combined intense patriotism, conservative monarchism, a privileged position for the Orthodox Church and justification for the territorial expansion of the Russian empire.3 Thus, the conservative nationalist movement took on a political character. Its first organisation, a quasi-party that remained elitist in character, was the Russian Assembly (Russkoe Sobranie), which existed from 1900 to 1904.4 This association did not endeavour to canvas broader support—indeed, such activity would have contradicted the fundamental ideological tenets of the movement. There were more pro-monarchist entities in the early years of the twentieth century, but these were typically regional, appearing largely in west Russian governorates such as Nizhnii Novgorod and Minsk, and lacking Russia-wide significance. Militant methods took root on the right only in the post-1905 era, when this current of Russian politics adapted relatively quickly to the new constitutional realities. Its most important contemporary representatives were the Russian Popular Union of Archangel Michael (Russkii narodnyi soyuz imeni

26  Reflection on a political phenomenon Mikhaila Arkhangela), the Russian Monarchist Party (Rossiiskaya monarkhisticheskaya partiya) and, most importantly, the Union of Russian People (Soyuz russkogo naroda, SRN).5 The Union of Russian People became generally known as Chernaya sotnya (the Black Hundred).6 The movement became established under the influence of a society-wide disillusionment produced by the catastrophic result of the Russo-Japanese war and in response to activities undertaken by the radical left, which had already intensified gradually at the turn of the century and were mobilised further by the 1905 revolution and the October Manifesto, issued by the Tsar.7 The Black Hundred was founded in November 1905 and headed by Aleksandr Ivanovich Dubrovin. It did not have a broad, consolidated, organisational structure, but soon became a mass movement with a membership that was socially and professionally varied (according to the data of the tsarist Ministry of the Interior, it had more than 400,000 members at the turn of 1907–1908). Dozens of other legal organisations and semi-legal cells joined the movement, which tended to dominate in regions with Russian-speaking majority populations (Zevelev, Shelokhaev and Sviridenko 2000: 88). For various reasons, however, the groups of the Black Hundred never achieved real political influence. The main point of the Black Hundred8 programme was the theory of official nationality, drawing upon the classical ideological triad of religious Orthodoxy—tsarist autocracy—nation, as developed by Sergei Semionovich Uvarov, the minister for national education during the era of Tsar Nicholas I.9 Above all, the Black Hundredists proclaimed as their aim to express the interests and values of the whole nation and not of particular groups, as other political parties allegedly did. The movement endorsed the Slavophile argument that the West and Russia had developed along divergent pathways, thus justifying their anti-liberal, anti-democratic, anti-capitalist and anti-Semitic slogans and their overarching monarchist rhetoric. This was to be the defence of the ‘original’, true Russian values: of a Russia that was autocratic, patrimonial, patriarchal, obshchina (commons)-based and rural. Incidentally, the leaders of the Black Hundred did not hesitate to criticise the contemporary state authorities in this spirit, censuring particularly those members of the power elite whom they thought insufficiently resistant to reforming tendencies and seeing their duties and roles as purely bureaucratic, thus forfeiting their historical mandate to lead Russia. For this reason, the position of the throne and the tsarist administration towards the Black Hundred was ambiguous and guarded, even distant. The Black Hundred programme did not have the social question as its focus, which was the key reason that, among the working classes, the movement could not compete with the left. Instead, the movement focused more on developing their nationalist theory. They proclaimed the Russian nation the creator of the empire, and the exclusive bearer and implementer of the imperial idea. This, the argument went, gave Russians (understood as the Slavic population of the empire; however, the criterion of ethnicity was

Reflection on a political phenomenon 27 secondary to the political principle) a ‘natural’ privileged position in the state, its administrative apparatus and its army, as well as in terms of property rights. All non-Slavic nations were understood as foreign, but it was the Jews who were the main symbol of foreignness.10 Here the movement could lean on the Russian anti-Semitic tradition,11 which was not fundamentally different from or more intense than anti-Semitism elsewhere in Europe (Thomas 1992). Still, the description of Russia as the first victim of a Jewish conspiracy, with references to the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion,12 suggested the depth of the hatred, as manifested in the efforts of the Black Hundred to ‘cleanse’ the whole public sphere of the Jews.13 The anti-Semitism of the Black Hundredists is the first of the characteristics that allow us to classify their movement as militant. Another is the fact that they did not hesitate to use illegal methods to implement their programme. Illegal acts were committed by small organised paramilitary groups, which reported directly to the party’s main council; in some cases they were tolerated by local state authorities. Their violence most often targeted members of other political parties, but attacks on reform-minded public figures were not rare. It was not as extensive as the contemporary left radicalism, however; for the Black Hundred, extremist methods provided an accessory to their repeated attempts to win parliamentary representation. Their independent candidate list for the elections to the First Duma failed, and cooperation with the Octobrists ahead of the elections to the Second Duma produced only minimal success (two Members of Parliament). Subsequent Dumas were elected under a different system, however, and the radical right camp won up to 140 seats. Such success created tensions that, during the era of Prime Minister Petr Stolypin, erupted into a crisis in the movement. The rift was between, on the one hand, the realist advocates of the parliamentary method of struggle and acceptance of the role of legal opposition, and, on the other, the supporters of illegal methods. The secession of the radical Dubrovin’s AllRussian Union of the Russian People (Vserossiiskii dubrovinskii Soyuz russkogo naroda) in 1911–1912 disorganised the entire Russian radical right. The wave of patriotism experienced by Russia after the beginning of World War II failed to improve the situation. The establishment of the Progressive Bloc and the rise of reformist forces in government spelled the twilight of political nationalism: other topics became important and the patriotic surge was over. And when, in February 1917, the Russian right failed to show actual support for the dynasty, it signed its own death warrant (Zevelev, Shelokhaev and Sviridenko 2000: 84–96). It played no substantial role in the events of 1917.

Extreme forms of the White Guard movement, ‘White’ émigrés and Russian ‘fascism’ Understandably, the rise of the Bolshevik regime put an end to any activities that dallied with the political right. A nationalist rhetoric, too, was out of bounds, despite the fact that the Soviet ethnic policy relied for the

28  Reflection on a political phenomenon exercise of its power on a nationalist, Great Russian foundation (Barghoorn 1956),14 and some of the political leaders toyed with the doctrine of national Bolshevism (Brandenberger 2002: 2; Kivelson and Suny 2017: 309–310). The objective of creating a new, Soviet, man remained the cornerstone of the official ideology; yet it was never fully achieved. Some of the émigré circles therefore became the torchbearers of the legacy of the Russian right. In the interpretation of the Russian revolutionary events of 1905–1917 as proposed by the émigrés, it was not just October 1917 that was seen as a tragedy: February 1917 and the rise of republicanism were also deemed tragic, and so was, in certain extremist views, the abandonment of the absolutist model of government back in 1905. Interpretation of the civil war was also conflicting: according to the more realist views, the ‘Whites’ had failed precisely because they insisted on a programme proposing the restoration of the autocracy, ignored the rights of the non-Russian nationalities and were unable to compromise, all of which alienated them from most strata of the population in Russia, including those with anti-Bolshevik leanings. The radicals among the émigrés insisted that the tsarist monarchy must be restored as the bare minimum of their programme. In this sense, the political right in exile was more monarchist and imperialist than nationalist. Its leading figures included Ivan Aleksandrovich Il’in and Ivan Luk’yanovich Solonevich, both of whom were convinced that the monarchy had a future in Russia. This is one of the reasons that discussions among the émigrés focussed on the dynastic issue—specifically, whose claim to the throne to support: that of the eldest Romanov, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, or that of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich? Neither had direct descendants. More practical discussions were concerned with seeking Russian public figures with whom a positive programme could be linked in the future. Thanks to his conservative and patriotic plans to rebuild Russia, Petr Stolypin became the favourite figure of the Russian émigré right. However, the émigrés were unable to take concrete action. Despite this, the émigrés did make a lasting contribution to the Russian right by formulating a new ideology that developed some of the original values and slogans and articulated such an interpretation of the historical mission of Russia (ranging from the Kievan Rus’ to the Soviet present) that would become an useful instrument for mobilising in the future. One might summarise the manifesto of Eurasianism, an original Russian contribution to the array of political ideologies and social-philosophical conceptions, as follows: Russia is in crisis, and its spiritual essence is subjected to unrelenting pressure from liberalism, individualism, cosmopolitanism, secularism, pragmatism and egoism, which together pose a fundamental threat to the Russian lifestyle. At any cost, Russia must avoid the choices the West made in the era of the enlightenment (and of which it now bears the consequences). The emergence of the Eurasian movement dates to the 1920s. Its founders included the economist and geographer Petr Nikolaevich Savitskii, the

Reflection on a political phenomenon 29 linguist and ethnographer Nikolai Sergeevich Trubetskoi, the philosopher Lev Platonovich Karsavin and the philosopher and theologian Georgii Vasil’evich Florovskii. As a movement within Russian émigré circles (some of them in Prague),15 the Eurasianists rejected both Bolshevism and the tsarist model. And even though the first wave of Eurasianism lost much of its energy as early as the late 1930s,16 without producing a stable organisation, it did leave a philosophical legacy that would be used by some political actors much later, after the fall of the Soviet Union. The very concept of Eurasianism referred to a mythical unity of Europe and Asia, a unity supposedly not just geographical but also cultural in character, distinguishing it clearly from other types of civilisation and endowing it with a special historical mission. This unity was allegedly disrupted by the early eighteenth-century reforms of Peter the Great, which started to alienate Russia from Asia; the Bolshevik revolution then provided an epilogue to the process. The key for re-discovering Russia’s identity, then, was to cease the unfruitful disputes between the Zapadniki and the Slavophiles, and to admit that the peculiarity of the Russian nation consisted in its Eurasian mentality. The Eurasianists argued that Tatar invasions made a special contribution to this mentality, and as such, they should not be viewed as having impeded the development of the Russian nation.17 This put Eurasianism in opposition to both cosmopolitan/internationalist and nationalist conceptions because Eurasianism believed there was a shared ‘ethnic substrate of all Eurasian nations’ (Mchedlov 2003: 289). The Eurasianists argued that traditional social and political forms, including the Romanov monarchy (given its weak resistance to the liberalising trends in Russia), had outlived their purpose. What Russia needed in its domestic politics, the Eurasianists suggested, was harmony between conservatism and radicalism, or, modernisation and a return to its roots at the same time. In this sense, Eurasianism provided a positive definition and an appreciation of Russia’s multinational, imperial nature,18 thus creating a foundation upon which some (but not all) currents of the political right could build, once the Soviet model had collapsed. The second important impetus for the ideological development of some Russian émigré circles was provided by fascism. The appropriate use of this term when analysing Russian politics is a conundrum that has a historical dimension (Shenfield 2001).19 The strongest fascist Russian émigré organisation appeared not somewhere in Europe, but in the Far East, in Harbin, Manchuria, in 1922. There, the local fascists of the Russian Students Association planned to create anti-Bolshevik partisan units in the late 1920s, but the plan was not realised. In 1931, the Russian Fascist Party was formed under the leadership of Konstantin Vladimirovich Rodzaevskii, and the group adopted the swastika as its symbol. In 1934 at a congress in Yokohama, it merged with the All-Russian Fascist Organisation (Vserossiiskaya fashisticheskaya organizatsiya), which had emerged in 1933 under the leadership of Anastasii Andreevich Vonyatskii in the United States of America. The new

30  Reflection on a political phenomenon All-Russian Fascist Party (Vserossiiskaya fashisticheskaya partya), which had its own women’s and children’s branches, allegedly had about 20,000 members in various parts of the world at its inception, though Harbin remained its official seat (Skornyakova 2013: 243–246). Acting under the guardianship of Japan, the party prepared sabotage actions against the Soviet Union, though there is no reliable information about the true extent of its activities. From 1937, the organisation was called the All-Russian Fascist Union (Vseruskyi fashisticheskyi soyuz). In 1943, Japan ceased the activities of the Union, and when the Soviet Union captured Manchuria, the leader of the union, Rodzaevskii, was executed in 1946 (Skornyakova 2013: 248).20 Fascism was also espoused by various individuals among the Russian émigrés. Examples include a Russian White Guard, Pavel Gorgulov, who assassinated the French president, Paul Doumer, in 1932. During the 1920s, Gorgulov lived in Czechoslovakia, where he founded the Green Party (the colour symbolising the agrarian movement at the time), which was to express the unity of the traditions of the Russian peasantry and fascism, and had the removal of Bolshevism as its goal. Gorgulov himself described his organisation as nationalist, military-political, dictatorial, Slavophile and fascist (Kopecký 1932: 34). He planned, but did not achieve, the assassination of the first president of the Czechoslovak Republic, T. G. Masaryk. Later, in France, he described himself as the chair of the Russian Fascist Party, but that was fiction. He attempted to justify his murder of the French president by arguing that France had not helped Russia against Bolshevism. He was later executed for the assassination (Fetherling 2001). There were more figures like this among the Russian émigrés between the two world wars.21

The era of the Great Patriotic War The conflict with the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War (the Russian designation for World War II) forced the Soviet leaders pragmatically to appreciate the potential of patriotic slogans. The doctrine of Russian nationalism was partially rehabilitated. However, the very term ‘nationalism’ continued to be used in official parlance as a synonym of chauvinism and fascism; as such it was very negatively connoted, with lethal consequences for any ‘victim’ so described (Zevelev, Shelokhaev and Sviridenko 2000: 595–597). Despite this, or indeed precisely because of this, there appeared during World War II phenomena that would serve as important sources of inspiration for the future neo-Nazi Russian militant movement: the appearance of Russian collaborationists in combat alongside the Axis powers, in particular, Nazi Germany.22 Initially, the elites of the Third Reicheither were lukewarm towards the involvement of Russians or rejected the option out of hand; this was primarily because of the Nazis’ racial theories. For instance, after the attack on the Soviet Union had begun, Hitler issued the command that Russian captives—even if they were willing to fight Stalin—should not be armed. As the war progressed,

Reflection on a political phenomenon 31 however, this position changed fundamentally. What is more, there was the specific case of collaboration by Cossacks, some of whom created autonomous structures (Germany even pushed for the ‘de-Slavification’ of the Cossack identity; cf. Newnland 2010: 121) while others, by contrast, cooperated with Russian collaborationists; this had effects, particularly towards the end of the war (see below). In view of these facts, the personnel resources and activities of Russian collaborationism must be seen in four areas: 1 In the population in the occupied territories of Russia, who started to cooperate with the Axis powers; 2 Among the White Guard émigrés, who entered the service of the Axis powers; 3 Among the Russian captives of the Red Army, who entered the service of the Axis powers; and 4 Among the opponents of the Soviet regime on Soviet territory, e.g. in partisan groups that had a nationalist orientation. Given the focus of this book, we will comment only on the issue of ideological-political and military collaboration, even though I. G. Yermolov also distinguishes administrative collaborationism in the occupied territories (i.e. collaboration on the administration of territory) and economic collaborationism (Yermolov 2013: 44–170). The first important act of political collaborationism was the founding of the National-Socialist Russian Workers Party (NSRP) by Konstantin Voskoboinik, the mayor of the occupied town of Lokot, in November 1941. After his death, the party was led by Bronislav Kaminskii. The anti-Bolshevik (and hence anti-Soviet) proclamations by the party were accompanied by claims to the national sovereignty of Russia, which idea did not appeal to the Germans, and nor did the evident adventurism of the NSRP founders (Michaelis 2002: 107–109). At a later stage of the war, Germany placed its political bets on the support of the captured Red Army General Andrei Andreevich Vlasov, who in 1944 became the head of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (Komitet osvobozhdeniya narodov Rossii), which was founded in Prague (Auský 2005: 21). The main forces of Cossack collaborationism joined the Committee. After the war, the leading figures of the Committee, including Vlasov, were executed. As far as military collaborationism is concerned, its beginnings can be dated back to 1941, when German commanders spontaneously sought to make use of prisoners of war who were showing anti-Stalinist leanings—despite Hitler’s command not to involve them in the German army. Gradually, however, auxiliary units were allowed (the so-called Hiwis—from the German word Hilfswillige or ‘voluntary assistants’) and national militias were created to maintain order in the occupied territories; by March 1942, they had recruited 1,650 people for the service (Yermolov 2013: 191–193). On this basis,

32  Reflection on a political phenomenon the Russian National Liberation Army (Russkaya osvoboditelnaya narodnaya armiya, RONA; known later as the Russian Liberation Army) was created in autumn 1942 under Kaminskii’s leadership and later became involved in anti-partisan action, often of extraordinary brutality (Yermolov 2013: 305). Beyond RONA, other units fought on various European fronts as part of the German Wehrmacht (armed forces) or the Schutzstaffel (SS) (Muňoz 2004: 27–59); the SS Druzhina brigade became particularly notorious for its cruelty.23 In 1944, the 29th Waffen Grenadier Division SS “RONA” (1st Russian division) and the 30th Waffen Grenadier Division SS (2nd Russian division)—i.e. Russian divisions of the SS—were founded (Michaelis 2002), indicating the acceptance of Russians into the ‘elite’ of the Third Reich. Near the end of the war, during the Prague Uprising in the capital of Czechoslovakia in May 1945, the 1st Russian division sided with the resistance against the Germans and made a significant contribution to the liberation of Prague (Auský 2005). Despite this, after the war, the Americans handed over the division’s members to the Soviet authorities. The members of the Cossack units were also handed over to the Soviets (particularly tragic events took place in the Austrian town of Lienz, on the initiative of the local British military authorities; Auský 2003: 231–246). These events continue to be remembered and mythologised by neo-Nazi segments of the contemporary Russian far right.

The post-Soviet era The process by which the doctrine of nationalism returned to the Russian/ Soviet public domain started in the post-Stalin era and involved both official and non-official structures.24 For instance, during the 1970s, there emerged among the dissidents a camp of national patriots; the case of the so-called Russian Party (Russkaya partiya) with the involvement of important intellectuals (F. Abramov, V. Belov, V. Rasputin, V. Soloukhin, V. Shukshin) did not proceed beyond the level of debates, but was able to appeal even to official figures of the Soviet regime (such as the academician D. Likhachev). During the 1980s, and especially during the period of perestroika, two variants of the rehabilitation of Russian nationalism started to take shape, one left-wing, the other right-wing. Both were anti-liberal and xenophobic (Parland 1993). The gradual opening of the public sphere brought with it a wave of efforts to uncover the truth about the Soviet and tsarist past. Initially, this interest was largely restricted to intellectual circles, within which dozens of organisations espousing patriotism appeared in the late 1980s, particularly in 1988–1989: examples include the Association of Russian Artists (Tovarishchestvo russkikh khudozhnikov), the Russian Centre (Russkii tsentr) in the Union of Russian Writers (Soyuz russkikh pisatelei) and the Union of Spiritual Revival of the Fatherland (Soyuz dukhovnogo vozrozhdeniya Otechestva). Beyond certain esoteric societies, fashionable in Moscow at the time (see Kelimes 2012: 29), the first activities of what was to become the militant

Reflection on a political phenomenon 33 current within the Russian right—this ‘camp of organised intolerance’ (Hanson and Williams 1999: 258)—were undertaken under the banner of the restoration of the monarchy (writers such as V. Belov, J. Bondarev, V. Rasputin and V. Soloukhin; writer and screenwriter G. Ryabov, writer A. Baranovskii). In addition, suddenly a number of nationalist media outlets became available, such as the magazines Molodaya gvardiya (Young Guard) and Nash sovremennik (Our Contemporary), and the official organ of the Union of Russian Writers, the weekly Literaturnaya Rossiya,25 which gave column inches to the anti-Gorbachev commentators of the perestroika era, such as M. Antonov, V. Kozhinov and S. Kurginyan. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s writings gradually became available, first those of the Khrushchev era and then those written in exile, and these provided an important impulse. Solzhenitsyn became a two-fold symbol: first, for his indomitable resistance to Soviet power, and second, for his passionate critique of the West, which did not employ the Marxist-Leninist terminology.26 The processes of disintegration that unfolded at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, and ultimately resulted in the break-up of the Soviet Union, provided an extraordinarily strong impulse for nationalist and xenophobic rhetoric. The various political actors, however, grasped the nationalist phraseology in their own, creative ways, and hence the doctrine was used for different purposes and with different motivations. The controversial elements were (1) the inclusion or non-inclusion of the values and effects of the Soviet era into the nationalist programme, i.e. an understanding of the relationship between the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation as either continuous or discontinuous; and (2) the identification of the current enemy, who would be described as the cause of contemporary economic and social difficulties. Into this role was placed the West, as the carrier of liberalisation and globalisation tendencies, and those who sought to imitate the West at home (i.e. liberal parties); but non-Russian nationalities, especially the nations of the South Caucasus as well as the Chinese and, traditionally, the Poles, could also serve as enemies. In this atmosphere, the camp of the so-called new Russian right— sometimes also designated as Russian neoconservatism27 or revolutionary conservatism—constituted itself. Its ideological basis was similar to the programme espoused by radical nationalists during the pre-revolutionary first constitutional era, and it consisted of patriotism; a belief in a strong, communal Russia, able to resist liberal and democratic temptations; religious Orthodoxy; and the doctrine of the Third Rome.28 This new Russian right sought to counter accusations of fascism by promoting the anti-racist idea of ethnopluralism, among other things. They considered the authoritarian regimes of the 1960s and 1970s, such as those in Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Chile, as the ideal model of governance for Russia. Thus, they preferred centralised power structures of the state with a strong army, important not just for security, but also in cultural (identitarian) and economic terms.29 Philosophically, the new Russian right revitalised some of

34  Reflection on a political phenomenon the slogans of the émigré Eurasianists. It found certain sources of inspiration in the French New Right (Nouvelle Droite) and its ideologist, Alain de Benoist; and in such thinkers as Oswald Spengler, Othmar Spann and Carl Schmitt.30 Aleksandr Dugin became the main representative of this line in contemporary Russian political thought. With a spirit of distaste for the facts and reality—a classic sign of radicalism—the camp showed minimal interest in the economy, which it saw as subordinate to the political sphere (and to the instincts and even to mysticism). It led a programmatic struggle against modernisation (if there was to be any modernisation, it would have to be conducted in a ‘Russian way’), industrialism, the bourgeoisie, economic freedom, Jewish capital and the market. The sale of Russian land or permitting foreign capital to enter the country were out of the question; with its Byzantine culture, Russia allegedly lacked the talent for the performance-focused methods of the West and its orientation towards material values.31 Their interpretation of Russia’s economic developments throughout the twentieth century sounded similar: collectivisation had been a catastrophe; but so had perestroika (hence dubbed katastroika), and its products, i.e. the Russian economy and politics of the 1990s, were nothing but a game overseen by Jews or the mafia, who pulled the strings of the weakened state. In foreign policy, the Russian radical right refused to recognise the independence of Ukraine, Belarus and the northern parts of Kazakhstan, which they continued to view as integral parts of Russia. Beyond opposition to the West, there was also distaste for China and Japan (see the Kuril Islands dispute) as well as for Israel. By contrast, in the first half of the 1990s a vision was created in the movement of a potential partnership with the Islamic world and, in certain circles, with Germany also (consider the slogan ‘a new Rapallo’). In their interpretation of Russian or Soviet modern history, the nationalist right appreciated some policies of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union— for example, its anti-liberalism and anti-Semitism32—and assessed individual communist leaders in a largely neutral fashion, especially if they had made a contribution towards the strengthening of Russia and its acquisition of great power status. Thus, they were reserved in evaluating Lenin, whom they viewed negatively more than positively (after all, he was a Christened Jew who had campaigned against the Orthodox Church); they were much more appreciative of Stalin and Brezhnev. In addressing these issues during the 1990s, the nationalist right-wing circles employed anti-Bolshevik rhetoric either rarely or not at all.33 The radical right had complicated relationships with the Orthodox Church and the monarchy. Some of the nationalists were not particularly fond of the Church because of its excessive accommodation of (or perhaps collaboration with) the KGB and its willingness to participate in the cult of Stalin. On the other hand, some could not envisage a future for Russia without a privileged position for the Orthodoxy (V. Osipov, V. Soloukhin, I. Shafarevich and A. Solzhenitsyn). Thus, Orthodox religion played a

Reflection on a political phenomenon 35 mobilising role in the justification of the activities of Russian and Cossack volunteers on the Serbian side during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992–1995 (Polikarpov 1999)—naturally, this was complemented by an emphasis on traditional Serbian-Russian Slavonic mutuality and Russian geopolitical interests. As far as the restoration of the monarchy was concerned, the intractable problem was that there was no indisputable heir to the throne: an attempt to choose one at a conference of monarchist groups in Moscow in May 1991 ended, significantly, in a fiasco. The first phase of institutional genesis in the Russian radical right camp was turbulent. As early as the late 1980s, there were about 70 monarchist groups, most of them marginal: consider S. Yurkov-Engelhardt’s Orthodox ConstitutionalMonarchist Party (Pravoslavnaya konstitutsionno-monarkhicheskaya partiya), the former dissident and communist prisoner V. Osipov’s Union for Christian Rebirth (Soyuz Khristianskoe vozrozhdenie) or the organisation Zemshchina, which associated extreme monarchists and anti-Semites. In terms of their impact on the future development of post-Soviet Russian politics, the most important groups were Pamyat’, Soyuz and the Liberal-Democratic Party. Pamyat’ is a generic designation for nationalist groups that were founded in the larger Russian cities from the early 1980s as historical or literary clubs or associations for the protection of monuments. The network of branches of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments (Vserossiiskoe obshchestvo okhrany pamyatnikov istorii i kultury) provided them with broad support. The name Pamyat’ first appeared in 1983. The movement became politicised in the mid-1980s, under the influence of D. Vasil’ev’s activities. Its original focus was augmented with arguments about a struggle against social decay and the dangers posed by the alleged Jewish architectural lobby. Pamyat’ started to mutate into a nationalist, extremist, radically anti-Semitic, yet non-militant movement (Laqueur 1994: 280–301). The response of state and Communist Party authorities to Pamyat’ activities was ambiguous: true, criticism appeared in the press and the risks of a rising ‘reactionary petit-bourgeois nationalism’ (immediately translated in the West as ‘fascism’, cf. Zevelev, Shelokhaev and Sviridenko 2000: 598) were discussed, but there was no concrete action or sanction taken; for that matter, many Pamyat’ activists were Communist Party members. Contrariwise, Pamyat’ was always careful about attacking the Communist Party, and in the early days of perestroika declared its support for Gorbachev.34 The argument that Pamyat’ was initiated and infiltrated by KGB agents appears repeatedly in the literature (Clover 2016: 165). In 1989–1990, under the impact of developments on the political scene, Pamyat’ started to turn towards monarchist circles and the Orthodox Church. In its programme, it began to blame the crimes of Soviet Communism on Jewish-Bolsheviks and on the Zionist movement that supposedly operated against Russia. As Russia’s politics became more plural, Pamyat’ lost the monopoly on patriotic slogans and often had to contend with even more

36  Reflection on a political phenomenon radical competition, for example, V. Emelyanov’s anti-Zionist Vseobshchii antisionistskii i antimasonskii front. In 1987, Emelyanov joined Pamyat’ after he was released, under suspicious circumstances, from a psychiatric hospital, where he was detained for having murdered his wife. In 1990, Pamyat’ expelled him for radicalism (Laqueur 1993: 205–206). At that time, Pamyat’ faced major internal pressures; in the same year, it even expelled its leader, D. Vasil’ev, and the movement splintered into a number of factions (hence the names Pamyat’ 1 and Pamyat’ 2, the National-Patriotic Front, etc.) In any case, Pamyat’ played a crucial role in popularising patriotic ideas in Russian society. Another politically important nationalist project, the so-called Union (Soyuz), emerged within the Soviet parliament. It was first mentioned in February 1990, and the organisation was officially founded in December 1990. Initially, this was an anti-separatist lobby of the Russian minorities in the various republics of the Soviet Union, especially in the Baltics and Moldova. It was headed by distinctive figures, including V. Alksnis (Lithuania), J. Kogan (Estonia) and J. Blokhin (Moldova), who promoted the slogan ‘socialism is secondary, the national question is primary’. In terms of its programme, the Union soon came openly to support a third way between communism and capitalism. This would mean, in the economy, a no to the market and to privatisation, and a yes to a strong state and subsidies for the military-industrial complex. Despite its substantial capacities in terms of personnel (with more than 500 deputies, it was the strongest group in parliament prior to the 1991 elections), Soyuz failed to fulfil the hopes that it would create a broader platform or become a real political party. It did not participate in the August 1991 putsch. The failed putsch of August 1991 did not have a substantial negative impact on Russia’s radical right. The camp sought to adapt to the new situation, which implied multiple waves of organisational restructuring and attempts at unification. For instance, in December 1991, the Russian AllNational Union (Russkii obshchenatsional’nyi soyuz, ROS) was founded with the participation of V. Alksnis, I. Artemov, S. Baburin, I. Shafarevich and V. Voronin. It emphasised in its programme the struggle against economic mafias and opposed returning the Kuril Islands to Japan (Barygin 1999: 134–137). In January and February 1992, meanwhile, there was the congress of the Slavic Assembly (Slavyanskii sobor), where Aleksandr Barkashov was one of the delegates—he was a former Pamyat’ member and the leader of the anti-Semitic Russian National Unity (Rossiiskoe natsional’noe edinstvo), the members of which would in 1993 defend the Russian parliament against soldiers loyal to President Yeltsin (Likhachev 2002: 40–43). Also at that time, a Congress of the Civil and Patriotic Forces (Sezd grazhdanskikh i patrioticheskikh sil) was held, which voted for the establishment of a Russian People’s Assembly (Rossiiskoe narodnoe sobranie). This platform, which included the Christian Democrats, N. Travkin’s and M. Astaf’ev’s ‘cadets’ (both Travkin and Staf’ev were former Communist Party members) as well

Reflection on a political phenomenon 37 as ROS, proclaimed the following as the main points of its programme: a fight against the disintegration of the country, chaos and crime; an emphasis on the army; and the replacement of the existing government, allegedly pro-Western, with a patriotic team. On 11 March 1992, representatives of 20 patriotic groups and organisations (including ROS and the Russian Party of National Rebirth, Rossiiskaya partiya natsional’nogo vozrozhdeniya) signed a declaration on the establishment of a unified opposition, which espoused a doctrine of ‘state democracy’ under the slogan ‘a united Russia is more important than a democratic Russia’. The last important joint project of these forces was the National Salvation Front (Front narodnogo spaseniya, FNS) and the related manifesto by 39 public officials from September 1992 (signed by, among others, I. Konstantinov, R. Kosolapov, N. Lysenko and I. Shafarevich). The failure of the National Salvation Front spelled the end of any hope that there could be a united nationalist movement, bringing together ‘the left’ and ‘the right’. However, this did not mean that the demand would vanish for a party espousing nationalist slogans. The story of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (Liberal’nodemokraticheskaya partiya Rossii, LDPR), the most important Russian nationalist political party, started in October 1988 with the creation of the Democratic Party of the Soviet Union (Demokraticheskaya partiya Sovetskogo Soyuza, DPSS). One of its leaders, V. Bogachev, left the party in May 1989 and founded the Liberal-Democratic Party of the Soviet Union (Liberal’no demokraticheskaya partiya Sovetskogo Soyuza, LDPSS). V. Zhirinovskii, the first chair of the party (elected at its first congress in March 1990), only joined it in autumn 1989.35 The original liberal-centrist programme of the LDPSS included such points as human rights, a multi-party system, a de-ideologisation of the country and a strong president. The radicalisation of the LDPSS started at its second congress in October 1990. The party actually fell apart prior to the congress. It was V. Zhirinovskii who managed to hold on to the party’s identity, whereas V. Bogachev and his supporters ended up in the centrist movement Democratic Russia. In April 1991, the party was registered officially and adopted the name LDPR in April 1992. The contemporary negative, vitriolic, even shocking rhetoric of the LDPR,36 with which the party addressed issues of both domestic and foreign policy, could not fail to attract media attention. Riding a wave of contemporary disillusionment among the important segments of Russian society due to the collapse of the socio-economic certainties hitherto and the disintegration of the Soviet empire, in 1992 the LDPR occupied the space for opposition made available by the failure of the National Salvation Front project, took over the protest electorate and stylised itself as a ‘third force’ (alongside the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the so-called democratic camp). Zhirinovskii did not hesitate to issue threats of violence and war to the West, and he organised a group of volunteers to help Saddam Hussein’s regime—this latter initiative was of propaganda

38  Reflection on a political phenomenon importance only, however (Mareš 2009: 180). Zhirinovskii’s other major slogans addressed the fight against unemployment and criticisms of the government for its lack of interest in both the separatist tendencies appearing in the country and the fate of Russian minorities in neighbouring countries. Together with an adroit neutrality maintained during the dispute between President Yeltsin and parliament in autumn 1993, this laid the foundations of the most successful strategy employed by a Russian party during the first half of the 1990s. It culminated in the victory of the LDPR in the December 1993 parliamentary elections, where the party polled 22.79% of the vote, thus making it a relevant player in the Russian political party spectrum. Evidently, then, the willingness to radicalise was present right across the nascent post-Soviet Russian party spectrum, from the left to the right. Indeed, in his contemporary classification of Russian extremists, V. V. Volkov distinguishes, in addition to the national patriotic outfits, the neo-Communists, anarchists, Cossacks and the movement linked with the LDPR (Volkov 2003: 61–72).37 In the 1990s, St Petersburg became the centre of Russian extreme right nationalism, and the Russian political scientist, A. Verkhovskii, defined its characteristics as follows: (1) a tendency towards political violence and tacit or explicit support for violent methods of conflict resolution (including the real option of forming armed paramilitary units); (2) orientation towards violent change in the contemporary political system (i.e. Boris Yeltsin’s regime); (3) disregard for human rights and promotion of political dictatorship by the Russian nation;38 and (4) chauvinist, racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric, employing notions of an enemy, serving as an important constituent element in the ideology (Verkhovskii 2000). This doctrine, however, was not monolithic, as two currents developed, both featuring links with the militants:39 an ethnic (exclusive) current and an imperial (inclusive) current. This distinction was reflected in contemporary scholarly works. For instance, in his classification of nationalists within Russian parties of the 1990s, Polish political scientist J. Bratkiewicz (1998: 29–59) made the distinction between all-Russian and Great Russian nationalism,40 referencing explicitly R. Szporluk (1990: 17ff.) who distinguished between the so-called empire savers and nation builders. By contrast, Bratkiewicz’s other distinction between national Bolshevik and national anti-Communist currents, viewed retrospectively, was becoming less significant. In other words, the relationship towards the Soviet era was ceasing to be a factor in splitting Russian nationalism (Bratkiewicz 1998: 29–59). The contemporary extreme nationalist entities, which were typically marginal, included the Party of Russia’s Spiritual Revival (Partiya dukhovnogo vozrozhdeniya Rossii, led by L. Makarova, V. Zhirinovskii’s sister); V. Korchagin’s Russian Party (Russkaya partiya); another party of the same name led by V. Miloserdov; N. Lysenko’s Russian NationalRepublican Party (Rossiiskaya natsional’no-respublikanskaya partiya);41 K. Zatulin’s Social-Patriotic Movement ‘Derzhava’ (Sotsial’no-patrioticheskoe dvizhenie ‘Derzhava’); V. Skurlatov’s Liberal-Patriotic Party ‘Revival’

Reflection on a political phenomenon 39 (Liberal’no-patrioticheskaya partiya Vozrozhdenie); H. Sterligov’s Movement ‘Word and Deed’ (Dvizhenie ‘Slovo i delo’); and the bloc of national patriotic, even religious, fundamentalist forces, called the Movement of Patriotic Forces—Russian Deed (Dvizhenie patrioticheskikh sil—Russkoe delo), founded by A. Korzhakov, O. Ivanov, J. Petrov and M. Sidorov.42 Particularly noteworthy were V. Davidenko’s Movement ‘Spas’ (Dvizhenie ‘Spas’), a radical nationalist movement founded by members of the Novosibirsk LDPR organisation in late 1998, which, together with A. P. Barkashov’s Russian National Unity,43 unsuccessfully attempted to establish a broader nationalist bloc in the spring of 1999. According to S. Shenfield, these were the most important examples of Russian fascism (Shenfield 2001).44 From the mid-1990s, there also developed a racist skinhead subculture, ‘imported from the West’. White Power music bands, including Kolovrat (performing under this name from 1997, but originally founded as Russkoe getto, or Russian Ghetto, in 1994), played an important role in the development of militancy among Russia’s youth. Although Nazi skinheads had some disputes in the early 1990s with football hooligans with racist or nationalist leanings, in the second half of the decade the two groups overcame their differences (Kelimes 2012: 78–79). In 1994, foreshadowing future developments, an attempt at extreme-right terrorism was allegedly uncovered when Russia’s law enforcement agencies broke up a cell of the Werwolf 45 organisation in Moscow, discovering explosives and even the body parts of one of its members who had failed to carry out an arson mission on a building where a Judeo-Christian event had been held (Lee 2004: 123). However, the most typical representative of activism among radical nationalists during the 1990s was the National-Bolshevik Party (Natsionalbol’shevistskaya partiya, NBP), which emerged from a rift in the LDPR in autumn 1992. It stood above other parties of its kind, not just because of the numbers of its supporters (estimated by some at up to 15,000 people), but also due to its ability to penetrate regional and local administrations. Furthermore, the case of its leader, the writer Eduard Limonov (real name Savenko), who ended up in prison for four years for possessing illegal arms, filled the pages of Russian newspapers for some time. (Barygin 1999: 99).46 Most importantly, the National-Bolshevik Party later showed an ability to adapt to the changed conditions under the new regime of President Vladimir Putin.

A summary of the historical legacies of the pre-Putin eras Russian militant nationalism has a long tradition. The ideological and strategic points of departure of its various contemporary currents and organisations reference different historical eras. Contemporary imperial movements draw upon the legacy of the Black Hundred and the White Guard with its tendencies towards fascism, whereas those who collaborated with the Axis powers inspire the Russian neo-Nazis of today. Of the transformations that occurred in this segment of the Russian political spectrum, the following have

40  Reflection on a political phenomenon most significantly impacted the development of political violence globally: the Black Hundred’ svigilante terrorism; the brutality of the White Guard during the civil war (of course, the context of the competing Red Terror must not be omitted); isolated acts of terrorism committed by the so-called Russian fascists between the two world wars; and, finally, the appearance of Russian collaborationists on the side of the Axis during World War II. The Cold War period, by contrast, was a period of discontinuity. The groundwork for contemporary extreme Russian nationalism was laid in the closing years of the communist era, and this was followed in the Yeltsin era by the processes in which the various branches of Russian militant nationalism established their profiles. There have also been manifestations of various forms of political violence, which has developed continually (including an open conflict in the shape of the ‘little civil war’, i.e. the fight for parliament in 1993) up to the present day: consider the street violence committed by subcultural gangs, paramilitarism and vigilantism, the phenomenon of foreign fighters, etc. The supporters of this camp have been split over several questions—some symbolic, others practical—which can be expressed as imaginary axes. (1) In terms of their position towards the Russian state and its borders, the groups have oscillated between a tendency to support the enlargement of the borders on the one hand and to consent to the secession of ethnically non-Russian parts of the Russian Federation (in particular the North Caucasus) on the other, the latter position being, in fact, subversive with respect to the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. (2) The second cleavage has been concerned with their positions towards the West, or, expressed differently, in their answers to a question of identity, i.e. whether Russia is part of Europe or should rather accept the challenge of standing as a ‘Third Rome’, as proposed by the so-called neo-Eurasian current in particular, which drew on the legacy of interwar Eurasianism (see above).47 (3) According to the manner and degree in which they have used violence and the nature of the targets of that violence, there has been a split between a variant involving political opposition to the regime and a militant variant; of the latter, some militants have targeted public officials, while others aimed at nonSlavic national minorities and guest workers. Another possible criterion according to which these groups could be classified would be their preferred orientation to, or contacts with, various groups within Russian society: the Orthodox Church,48 neo-pagan movements,49 the Cossack movement, skinheads,50 paramilitary associations and football hooligans.51 Although the extreme nationalists were split along these cleavages, on one issue they were united: their flat rejection of the Yeltsin regime. With the rise of Vladimir Putin to the office of president and the beginnings of the construction of his openly authoritarian political regime, the situation changed. Under Putin’s authoritarianism, Russian militant nationalism would be subject to new potential cleavages, or, expressed more poetically, would face new temptations. This is because there would be the option of

Reflection on a political phenomenon 41 supporting the new regime (and not insisting on an opposition identity), as some of the steps taken by this regime (e.g. its foreign policy turn, its conflicts with Georgia, etc.) would be broadly compatible with the values of the nationalist camp. The events in Ukraine since 2013: Maidan, the annexation of Crimea and the war in the Donbass, would then offer a similar challenge to militant nationalism, a challenge that would be taken up enthusiastically.

Notes 1. For revolutionary terrorism in Russia in 1894–1917, see e.g. Geĭfman (1997). 2. Vladimir Solov’ev read a paper of this title in Paris in 1888, cf. Mchedlov (2003: 282). 3. In addition to the currents of Russian thought that were influenced by Christian catechism, the notion of a Russian soul was also employed by circles close to the social-revolutionary movement. This leftist dreaming about a future Russia contrasted somewhat with Marxism conceived as a science. 4. For more detail on this, see Kirĭanov (2003). 5. Naturally, nationalism also mobilised non-Russian nationalities. For non-Russian nationalist parties in tsarist Russia during 1905–1917, see Zevelev, Shelokhaev and Sviridenko (2000: 260–298). 6. In the Middle Ages, the term was used as an administrative designation for the populations of smaller Russian towns subject to taxation. Despite its pejorative connotations, the movement endorsed the term, cf. Zeveljev, Shelokhaev and Sviridenko (2000: 84). 7. Another impetus was provided by a specific event, i.e. the assassination of Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich in Moscow on 4 February 1905. 8. For the movement’s complete 1905 programme, see e.g. Dmytryshyn (1974: 410–416). 9. For more detail about the second quarter of the nineteenth century and contemporary conservative phenomena, see Riasanovsky (1959). 10. In the 1897 census in Russia, this nationality was claimed by 5.1 million people; see Greenbaum (1965: 84). 11. See e.g. the wave of pogroms in 1881–1882 in response to the alleged participation of Jews in the assassination of Tsar Aleksandr II. For the topic of the relationship between Russians and Jews more broadly, cf. Solzhenitsyn (2008). 12. Known as Protokoly sionskikh mudretsov or Sionskie protokoly in Russian, this was a fabrication purporting to describe a Jewish plot for global domination. For more details, see e.g. Boym (1999). 13. The radical elements within Jewish youth responded in part by participating in the activities of the revolutionary left, for example by identifying with the Zionist movement and frequently by emigration. For more about the cultural and political life of Russian Jewry, see e.g. Aronson (1966: 253–299). 14. This remains true even though the literature (e.g. Pipes 1998: 274ff.) frequently emphasises the contribution made by members of other nationalities (Georgians, Latvians, etc.) towards the establishment of Soviet power. 15. For more cf. e.g. Putna (1993). 16. Its main output was the manifesto anthology, Iskhod k vostoku. 17. For example, L. Gumilev promoted the idea of racial segregation, in which ethnicity is defined biologically and Russians are supposedly biologically different from Western Europeans. And the relationship between Russians

42  Reflection on a political phenomenon















and the eastern nations, including the Tatars and the Mongols, allegedly were better than it would seem today, with positive inf luences on the Russian nation (Bassin 2016). More on early Eurasianism see Laruelle (2008: 16–49). 18. This Russian variant of a utopian isolationism returns repeatedly in Russian thought: for example, D. Mendeleev assumed that the centre of Russia would in the future shift somewhere to the east, into Siberia, somewhere near Omsk. In the 1980s, A. Prokhanov picked up the idea and positively appreciated the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan from a Eurasianist position. 19. In 1925, the Soviet historian V. M. Purishkevich described members of the Union of Russian People as fascists. Noel O’Sullivan has drawn attention to this in connection with the deconstruction of the Marxist interpretation of fascism as an allegedly reactionary bourgeois ideology of late capitalism. His argument agrees with our understanding of the limits of the applicability of the term ‘fascism’ to Russian conditions: on the one hand, there are certain shared traits (anti-rationalism, an interconnection of traditionalism and radicalism); on the other, there was in Russian fascism no fundamental socialist programme, a racial context for the argument, a corporatist vision of society or a dream of a total state. See O’Sullivan (1995: 26 and Note 25). 20. During World War II, Vonyatskii was in the United States of America. He was arrested in 1942, which brought an end to the activities of the American branch; he was released in 1946. 21. For instance, another émigré, Josef Rychkov (born in Khabarovsk) was the leader of the anti-Semitic Black Eagle Legion, which he founded in 1926 in Czechoslovakia. Its five other members were Czechs, some of them active in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, others in the National Fascist Community. When the members of the Legion murdered a Jewish businessman on 10 August 1926, they were arrested (Suchánek 2010: 27–28). 22. Only a small number of Russians served in the Japanese Kwantung Army in Japan, and even fewer were involved in the fighting in the summer of 1945 (Jakovlin 2014). In the Italian army in occupied territories of the USSR, there emerged the Cossack unit Gruppo Autonomo Cossacchi Savoia (Auský 2003: 48–52), and Russians also served in other armies of some smaller Axis satellites, e.g. in the armed forces of the so-called Independent State of Croatia (Andreevič 2015). 23. Sabotage activities behind enemy lines were to be supported by the operation Unternehmen Zeppelin, organized by the Sicherhenstdienst. The results were limited, however (Biddiscombe 2000). 24. Cf., more broadly, Brudny (1998). 25. Of the manifestos by the patriotic cultural front, the ones that played a fundamental role were the Letter of the 74 (Pismo 74-kh) by writers and cultural figures from February 1990 and the anti-reform pamphlet Word to the Nation (Slovo k narodu) dated July 1991; the latter, according to commentators, announcing ideologically the August putsch: its 12 authors included the writers Y. Bondarev, A. Prokhanov and V. Rasputin, Generals B. Gromov and V. Varennikov, and G. Zyuganov and V. Starodubtsev (Laqueur 1993: 330–332). 26. According to Solzhenitsyn, it is the internal (spiritual) freedom that is important to Russia, whereas the West offers an external (material) freedom. Historically, Solzhenitsyn disagrees with Russian imperialism; tsarism certainly was not ideal, but it was a functional model. See Solzhenitsyn (2002). 27. The term was first used by the publisher of the magazine Den’ (Day), Aleksandr Prokhanov.

Reflection on a political phenomenon 43 28. In the early 1990s, Russia also witnessed a wave of interest in pan-Slavism, but the response to the so-called neo-Slavophilia was weak. For the historical tradition of pan-Slavism in the Central European context, see Vlček (2002). 29. For example, Sergei Kurginyan, a critic of Gorbachev and a patriotic technocrat, considered not the nation but the state as the chief value. 30. For more about the intellectual dimension of the new Russian right in the early 1990s, see e.g. Allensworth (1998: 241–286). 31. Walter Laqueur noted in this context that the Russian understanding of the nation is dependent on an Hegelian interpretation: ‘When French people refer to their country, it is usually in terms of la belle France; the English invoke merry old England; the Germans speak of treudeutsch (truly German). Only Russian nationalists invoke an ideal that is not aesthetic or ethical or political but moral-religious, the ideal of “Holy Russia”’ (Laqueur 1993: 132). 32. Lazar Kaganovich was the only survivor of the Stalin-era anti-Semitic campaign targeting Jews in senior Bolshevik party positions (he lived until 1992). This is the reason for his demonising by the Russian radical right, who describe Communism as a Jewish invention, with reference to the essential role played by the Jews in the Bolshevik movement. 33. For this reason, the émigré monarchists rejected the criticism of the Stalinist purges voiced from a liberal position: ‘The liberals do not have a moral right to judge Stalin and Stalinism’ (Laqueur 1993: 215). 34. D. Vasil’ev liked to describe himself as a ‘non-partisan Bolshevik’. 35. His first attempt to gain a toehold in politics was the unsuccessful project of the Social Democratic Party of Russia in May 1988. 36. As an example, consider Zhirinovskii’s ‘poetic’ description of twentiethcentury Russian history: ‘The Lenin period had been a rape, Stalin’s was the era of homosexuality, Khrushchev’s that of masturbation, Brezhnev’s that of group sex, and Gorbachev’s the age of political and economic impotence’ (Laqueur 1993: 256). 37. For the models of behaviour of the contemporary so-called protest electorate, cf. e.g. Nazarov (1998: 140–158). 38. However, ethnic issues continued to intermingle with social issues; consider, for that matter, the willingness of the extreme right entities (especially at the regional level) to enter into so-called red-brown coalitions. 39. Naturally, there were also parties that presented themselves with a patriotism that was traditionally nationalist and respectful of democratic values, one that was variously nostalgic of tsarist Russia and linked to various degrees with the Church. Of the 139 groups registered in 1999 by the Ministry of the Interior, 26 parties could be classified as national-patriotic (Pribilovskii 2000). Throughout the 1990s, this camp was made up of a number of smaller conservative and monarchist groups (Barygin 1999: 128–131), e.g. the Russian Christian-Democratic Party (A. Chuev), the Union of Christian Democrats (V. Bauer and A. Kiselev), the Assembly of National-Democratic and Patriotic Forces (S. Dzoblaev), the Russian National Republican Party (A. Lebed’, A. Klepov) and the Congress of Russian Communities and Yuri Boldyrev’s Movement (Y. Boldyrev, D. Rogozin, V. Glukhikh). 40. Corresponding to this distinction in Russian is the dichotomy rossiiskii vs. russkii. 41. Its predecessor was the Russian National-Patriotic Centre, founded in May 1989 by members of the St Petersburg Pamyat’.

44  Reflection on a political phenomenon 42. Members included the Russian All-National Movement (Rossiiskoe obshchenarodnoe dvizhenie), the Union ‘Christian Rebirth’ (Soyuz ‘Khristiyanskoe vozrozhdenie’) and the Union of Compatriots ‘Otchina’ (Soyuz Sootechestvennikov “Otchina”). 43. The Rossiiskoe natsional’noe edinstvo was founded in October 1990 and throughout the 1990s it organised paramilitary training for its members, among other things; it was behind many acts of violence (Likhachev 2002: 20–21). 44. Unlike some instances seen in post-communist Central Europe or the Balkans, the overwhelming majority of Russian nationalist organisations did not draw upon the legacy of classical fascism. Indeed, as has been noted, even the Black Hundred was not a fascist group, but rather a militant monarchist and anti-Semitic organisation. 45. According to some reports, members of the Werwolf fought on the Croatian side in the war in Yugoslavia, but this has not been confirmed (Laryš and Mareš 2011). 46. In April 2003 he was released from custody, where he had spent two years during the investigation of the case, and hence a remission application could be filed (signed by, among others, V. Alksnis, V. Zhirinovskii and A. Mitrofanov). 47. Their main argument continued to be that the current superiority of the West, which results in its attempts to liberalise everything, and hence to eliminate cultural differences between civilisations, poses a threat to the whole of humanity. By contrast, Russia was a ‘citadel’ of the spiritual world. It had been so even during the Soviet era, because behind the exterior façade of Bolshevism (i.e. its atheism and materialism) one could uncover the Russian soul. In this sense, Soviet Russia had the right to be the geopolitical successor to the tsarist empire, just as the contemporary Russian Federation naturally draws on the legacy of the Soviet era. Soviet patriotism, however, expressed the national idea in terms of class, and therefore insufficiently. Hence, a synthesis is needed. For that reason, the contemporary task of Russia, in the spirit of the idea of Moscow as a Third Rome, is to understand its own role as a vanguard of civilisation. The main enemy has been and continues to be the United States of America and a unipolar arrangement of international relations broadly; by contrast, in Western Europe one can find partners (e.g. Germany). All of this must be accompanied by the renewal of the traditions and values of the Russian nation, specifically, the universal must be given precedence over the individual, and politics must be made compatible with the Orthodox religious teachings about humanity. In the economy, neo-Eurasianism stressed that, given that economic models are less important than strategic or social tasks, any liberal solutions remain alien from, and even hurtful to, the Russian reality. The neo-Eurasianist ideal of Russians was full of pathos: they were to be strong, healthy, sensitive and beautiful, prepared to sacrifice themselves for their country and ready for great love and family happiness. During the 1990s, the organisational platform of neo-Eurasianism was the All-Russian Political Movement ‘Eurasia’ (Obshcherossiiskoe politicheskoe dvizhenie ‘Evraziya’), with a programme of Eurasian federalism, consisting in an strategic cultural, civilisational, economic and ethnic partnership between Russia and Asia and allowing a dialogue amongst creeds in religious matters and a process of strategic integration in foreign policy. It assumed the creation of a Eurasian Council and the creation of a Moscow-Teheran-Delhi-Beijing axis, as well as allowing Russia to access the ‘warm’ seas (on the basis not of conquest, but of partnership).

Reflection on a political phenomenon 45 48. See the group around K. Dushenov’s magazine Pravoslavnaya Rossiya and the Sergius of Radonezh and Seraphim of Sarov Brotherhood. Of the figures associated with this movement, N. Filimonov and S. Belavenets are noteworthy for defending the idea of ‘Orthodox tsarism’. 49. In Russian, neoyazychniki; e.g. the group Soyuz Venedov. 50. For example, groups such as Moskovskii skinlegion, Blood and Honour, Russkaya tsel’ and Russkii kulak. 51. On the cultural ‘front’, they were supported by, for example, the group Slavic Legion (Slavyanskii legion), the magazines Russkaya pravda and Rusich, and the publishing houses Ad Marginem and Ultra Kultura.

3

Militant right-wing extremism from the beginning of the Putin era to the war in Ukraine (2000–2018)

Over recent years, there has been an upsurge in militant right-wing extremist activities in Russia. However, since 2015, right-wing extremist entities have proved unable to attract any significant following. The key reason for this was the war in Ukraine and state repression of militant extremist groups. The war split the right-wing extremist camp into two groups (i.e. those who supported the annexation of Crimea or the war in Donbass and those who sided with Ukraine and faced state repression), which weakened any further right-wing extremist actions. This chapter gives a detailed overview of the development of militant right-wing extremism in Russia from the beginnings of the Putin era until the elimination of the main opposition nationalist organisations in 2017–2018.

The most important militant extremist organisations in Russia The ‘Russians’ movement and its main organisations From its inception, the ‘Russians’ movement (Etnopoliticheskoe obedinenie ‘Russkie’) was an important coalition of extremist organisations from various ideological backgrounds (from Orthodox-monarchist nationalism to neo-Nazism) and was the main force of Russian right-wing extremism from 2011 to 2015. Its two main components, the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (Dvizhenie protiv nelegal’noi immigratsii, DPNI) and Slavic Union/Slavic Power (Slavyanskii soyuz/Slavyanskaya sila, SS), led by Aleksandr Belov and Dmitrii Demushkin, respectively, espoused an ideology of radical ethnic nationalism (‘Russkie’ refers to ethnic Russians, as opposed to ‘Rossiyane’, which means citizens of Russia), rejected Russian imperialism and Orthodox Church fundamentalism, and assumed a negative stance towards immigrants and non-Slavic ethnic minorities, especially those from the Northern Caucasus. Of the whole coalition, the ideology of Belov’s DPNI was the closest to classic European extremist organisations, with an emphasis on opposition to immigration (in this case from the Causasus and Central Asia).

Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era 47 The Movement Against Illegal Immigration The Movement Against Illegal Immigration (Dvizhenie protiv nelegal’noi immigratsii, DPNI) was founded in July 2002 by brothers Aleksandr Belov (real name Potkin) and Vladimir Basmanov (real name Potkin) following an anti-Armenian pogrom in Krasnoarmeisk, Moscow district. Prior to the founding of the DPNI, Aleksandr Belov (born 29 April 1976 in Moscow) was long active in the anti-Semitic extremist organisation Pamyat’, as was his brother, Vladimir Basmanov (born 10 May 1980), who left Russia in 2010. The strategy of this movement until it was banned by the authorities in August 2011 was to mobilise supporters by inciting ethnic riots. Between 2003 and 2005, the movement attracted significant media attention in Russia and, following disorders in Kondopoga (see below for details), gained significant influence among Russian right-wing nationalists (Publichnaĭa biblioteka Vladimira Pribylovskogo undated). Initially the movement focused on small-scale public protests and demonstrations attended by members of other nationalist groups under banners such as ‘terrorism has a nationality and you know what it is’, ‘suitcase-railway station-Caucasus’ and ‘Moscow is a Russian city’. At those rallies the DPNI combined social justice issues with xenophobia, Caucasophobia and opposition to immigration from nonSlavic post-Soviet countries. It also sought to attract neo-Nazi skinheads to its ranks, who were the dominant subculture within right-wing extremism in Russia, with the exception perhaps of South Russia, where Cossack groups were also the perpetrators of violence against ethnic minorities. The DPNI did not commit political violence in its own name, but quite openly invited other groups to incite violence, such as the skinheads and the Cossacks, for whom violence was a common modus operandi. A focus on anti-immigration and anti-Caucasian moods in Russian society gradually helped the DPNI gain leadership among the right-wing radical nationalist movements. Its strength relied not so much on its relatively small core of active members as on the masses of its supporters. Over the course of several years, Aleksandr Belov became one of the best-known figures of Russian right-wing nationalism, and thanks to his rhetoric skills he managed to push other less charismatic leaders of smaller organisations off the centre stage (Kozhevnikova 2006). At that time, Belov was also aided by the so-called Russkii marsh (or Russian March) held on 4 November 2005 to celebrate the country’s new national holiday, National Unity Day. Since 2005, this holiday has enabled right-wing nationalists to organise their biggest annual rallies, and for all intents and purposes Belov was their leading public spokesman (Kozhevnikova 2005a). The violence that erupted in the Karelian town of Kondopoga in September 2006 between Russian inhabitants and Caucasians (especially Chechens), with state security forces having no control over the situation in the town for several days, marked the notional peak of DPNI activities. During these events, the DPNI leadership (with Belov at the forefront) showed an ability to

48  Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era respond quickly through fluidity in their exploitation of ethnic quarrels, the effective coordination of activities using the internet, and an ability to organise information campaigns in the media, ‘supporting events’ in other Russian towns and street campaigns. The success in Kondopoga also had a dark side for Belov, in that he came into the spotlight of Russia’s law enforcement agencies. Thanks to that success, Belov lowered his guard and organised a string of provocations which led to the DPNI’s first confrontations with state power. In the meantime, Russian Marches were organised in other towns in the country (Kozhevnikova 2007). In the first half of 2006, the DPNI sought the support of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) by participating at its rallies, but the DPNI failed to achieve significant success and Belov soon abandoned this tactic. Subsequently there were also largely unsuccessful attempts to establish an alliance with Dmitrii Rogozin, who was renewing his Congress of Russian Communities (Kongress russkikh obshchin) following the disintegration of the Rodina party. In 2007, the organisation of the Russian Marches started to splinter; several were held in Moscow, with the most successful being one organised by the DPNI (with the participation of supporters of other organisations). In 2008, the DPNI reached a crisis point: first there was a minor rift in the organisation, followed by a serious skirmish with police forces at the Russian March in November, and some members left for competing groups, especially the Russian Image (Kozhevnikova 2010). The rift occurred in May 2008 when the Potkin brothers (Belov and Basmanov) decided to reorganise the DPNI, giving it a party structure rather than a network structure. Some of the members under the leadership of the Moscow organisation’s head, Aleksei Mikhailov, did not support the decision and left the organisation. The part of the DPNI led by Bryansk area leader Dmitrii Zubov, who insisted on radicalisation and on preserving the network structure, likewise seceded. The dissenters also objected to the alliance with moderate nationalists (such as those from the National Russian Liberation Movement, Natsionalnoe russkoe osvoboditelnoe dvizhenie NAROD movement) whom they deemed too liberal. The Mikhailov- and Zubov-led wings left the DPNI, where Belov prevailed. Though the DPNI was weakened by the conflict, it did not significantly diminish its activities. The discord was fully evident in November 2008, when no fewer than three Russian Marches were organised in Moscow (Kozhevnikova 2009a). At the July 2009 congress of the DPNI, the decline in its membership was noticeable. The congress formally confirmed the change of leadership: Aleksandr Belov, under prosecution, voluntarily resigned, to be replaced by the inexperienced Vladimir Ermolaev. Belov’s departure, though formal only (he remained in charge of the DPNI) was a great loss for the public image of the sorely tried organisation, because the ostensible DPNI leadership, consisting of Vladimir Tor (real name Vladlen Kralin), Vladimir Basmanov and Vladimir Ermolaev, were unable to replace Belov in the role of a charismatic speaker at public rallies (Kozhenikova 2010). In the autumn of 2009, the Kremlin-backed

Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era 49 youth organisation Nashi sought to appropriate the Russian March banner. Their idea was to organise an alternative event under the same name but without the xenophobic slogans; yet they proved no serious competitor to the then-dominant DPNI and Russian Image (Kozhevnikova 2010). In August 2011, following an appeal, the DPNI was definitively declared an extremist association and banned throughout Russia. Slavic Union/Slavic Power Slavic Union/Slavic Power (Slavyanskii soyuz/Slavyanskaya sila, SS), an extremist organisation with neo-Nazi leanings, emerged in 1999 under the leadership of Dmitrii Demushkin from the fragmenting Russian National Unity organisation (Russkoe natsional’noe edinstvo, RNE) led by Aleksandr Barkashov, which Demushkin said he joined in 1996. Dmitrii Demushkin was born on 7 May 1979 in Moscow. During the 1990s he was a member of the skinhead gang White Bulldogs in central Moscow and later joined United Brigades-88 (Obiedinennye brigady-88, OB-88). Demushkin was also involved in the National-Sovereign Party of Russia (NDPR)—which later disintegrated—as well as other organisations (Lenta.ru undated, a). In 2000– 2001, there were disputes between Demushkin and Dmitrii Rumyantsev, the editor-in-chief of the publication Stenka, after which Rumyantsev left the SS and with his adherents founded the National-Socialist Society (NSO). Initially, Demushkin maintained links with relatively pro-Kremlin nationalist leaders such as Sergei Babushkin, and somewhat later he claimed to have the Kremlin’s support, announcing an ‘intransingent struggle against the orange revolution that is being prepared in Russia’ (Belov 2006). At that time, Demushkin sought to establish relationships with the ruling circles and to prove useful to them as a fighter against the ‘colour revolutions’. Around 2004, the Slavic Union claimed responsibility for relatively simple hacking attacks that targeted the websites of Jewish, left-wing and humanrights organisations (e.g. the Moscow Helsinki Group), and Demushkin’s opponents argued that state security agencies were using him as a cover for their own activities (Dmitriev 2005). This brought media attention to the SS, and its activities gained momentum. Demushkin appealed to SS members to arm themselves with legally-held weapons and organised smallscale training camps, including knife-fighting practice sessions. Demushkin sought to recruit members from skinhead groups and, in Southern Russia, from the Cossacks and in 2005, he allegedly became the honorary ataman of the Great Kuban Army (Kozhevnikova 2005a). In 2006, he was arrested by the police on suspicion of being involved in a bomb attack against a mosque in Yakhroma (Moscow Oblast’), but he was later released after Nikita Korolev’s group was found to be responsible for the attack. In the same year, Demushkin secured legal representation for Aleksander Koptsev, who committed a knife attack on people attending a service at a Moscow synagogue, even though Demushkin denied Koptsev’s membership in the SS.

50  Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era Demushkin and other activists got into Russia’s TV stations, which made them a source of topical news (Kozhevnikova 2007). In 2006, State Duma deputy Nikolai Kuryanovich, expelled from the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (Liberal’no-demokraticheskaya partiya Rossii, LDPR) for extremism, had links to the SS (Publichnaĭa biblioteka Vladimira Pribylovskogo undated). Indeed, Demushkin was Kuryanovich’s parliamentary assistant. Kuryanovich was not the only State Duma deputy to embrace extremismatthe time.1 Like the NSO, around 2007, the SS started to openly demonstrate its links with Russian Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) through attending their tournaments, which gained them popularity after President Putin visited one of the tournaments in April 2007 (Kozhevnikova 2008). In the mid2000s, the SS spread the ideology of National Socialism, understood as a religious-spiritual teaching. Its members committed hate crimes, but without using the organisation’s name. Demushkin feared repression by law enforcement agencies and always publicly distanced himself from any member prosecuted for politically or racially motivated violence. On the other hand, the SS looked up to and defended the best-known Russian neo-Nazis, who gained notoriety among their peers for their violent acts. Examples include Nikolai Korolev (see below), the chief defendant in the prosecution of the Cherkizovskii market bombing of 2006, whom the SS has called the ‘Russian David Lane’ (the U.S. terrorist and ideological guru of neo-Nazis worldwide). Before 2006, Demushkin’s many competitors from the militant nationalist camp—e.g. People’s National Party (Narodnaya natsional’naya partiya, NNP), NSO and former RNE activists—accused him of being an agitator whose aim was to disintegrate the nationalist movement, and all major organisations distanced themselves from him. Nevertheless, Demushkin emerged as one of the organisers of the Russian March in November 2006 (Lenta.ru undated, a). Subsequent SS rhetoric adopted an increasingly anti-state content, until Demushkin appeared at the Russian March in November 2009 with a speech that virtually called for an armed uprising against Putin’s regime. He apparently relied on persecution by state authorities to grant him the ‘halo’ of a political prisoner, and on the loyalty of more radical activists; however, this strategy failed (Kozhevnikova 2010), except perhaps for the fact that, in 2010, the judiciary banned the SS as an extremist organisation. Demushkin sought to circumvent the ban by renaming the Slavic Union as Slavic Power, but this was duly banned in 2014. At the same time, Demushkin sought to shed the neo-Nazi label. In a 2015 interview for the liberal website Meduza, he admitted that his movement’s initials—SS—were deliberately chosen, but that he would not adopt them today. He added that in 1999, when the Slavic Union was founded, the situation was entirely different: ‘There was no Article 282 of the Criminal Code and the percentage of Germanophiles in the movement was very high, whereas today there

Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era 51 are hardly any. The situation changed and nationalism evolved from “Chernaya sotnya”-style monarchism to radicalism and back again. I’ve worked with the radicals for 11 years and distanced myself from them intentionally. I’ve not brought the leading members of the Slavic Union into the “Russians” movement, because I wanted no National Socialism or Hitlerism. That’s a dead end. […] Now I consider myself a traditional nationalist, not a national socialist. […] I won’t deny that there were times when we celebrated Hitler’s birthday, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Western anti-globalists wear Che Guevara T-shirts. That’s how Hitler has always been understood—Hitler T-shirts were worn as an expression of resistance to all. The punks on the Arbat wore them first—only later the skinheads’ (Azar 2015a). The leader of the St Petersburg branch of the SS was the well-known activist Dmitrii Evtushenko, who received a prison sentence of three months in April 2015 for inciting disturbances and racial hatred. Together with Nikolai Bondarik, a former leading activist of the SS, Evtushenko became notorious in St Petersburg for the project of the Russian purge (Russkie zachistki). The two men organised pogroms of market stalls manned by non-Russian immigrants, which they presented as a move against illegal street trade (Stekolstchikova 2013). Activists met at metro stations and sought out shops, stalls and cafés employing shop assistants of ‘non-Slavic appearance’. They often upturned the goods, attacked the stallholders and demanded to see their papers and medical books. If the papers were not in order, the activists called the police. Many of those participating in these raids were armed with baseball bats and wore balaclavas. Upon seeing them, stallholders often fled, leaving their goods to their fate. Eventually the ‘purge’ was terminated by law enforcement authorities. The perpetrators’ VKontakte social network profile had 6,000 followers, most of whom were not involved in extremist circles (Judina and Alperovitch 2014a). The origin and evolution of the ‘Russians’ movement coalition in 2011–2015 The ‘Russians’ movement was founded in May 2011 as a coalition of the DPNI (at that moment in the process of appealing a verdict that banned the movement), SS, Dmitrii Bobrov’s National-Socialist Initiative (Natsional’nayasotsialisticheskaya initsiativa, NSI), Stanislav Vorob’ev’s Russian Imperial Movement (Russkoe imperskoe dvizhenie, RID), Aleksandr Turik’s Union of Russian People (Soyuz russkogo naroda, SRN), Igor Artemov’s Russian All-National Union (Russkii obshchenatsional’nyi soyuz, RONS), Georgii Borovikov’s RFO Pamyat’ (Russkii Front Osvobozhdeniya Pamyat’) and National Democratic Party (Natsional-demokraticheskaya partiya, NDP). These organisations all together had an estimated few hundred members (Verkhovskii 2012). The coalition unsuccessfully sought political party

52  Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era registration as the Party of Nationalists (Partiya natsionalistov) v roce 2012. Its leaders quickly concluded that, in Putin’s increasingly authoritarian regime, power could not be won in elections. The ‘Russians’ mainly drew on the legacy of the DPNI, the main force of ethno-nationalism in the second half of the 2000s, and even between 2011–2015 it continued to attract significant attention and draw in young activists (Judina, Alperovitch and Verkhovskii 2013). In July 2011, Demushkin and Belov caused a rift in the nationalist camp by journeying to Chechnya, where they met the local absolute ruler, Ramzan Kadyrov. Since then Demushkin has been to Grozny several times (Petkova 2017). Allegedly, the purpose of his trips has been to establish common mechanisms for preventing physical conflicts between Russians and Chechens in Russia itself, and to obtain legitimacy for himself by showing that he is able to resolve such issues directly with Chechen leaders. Demushkin also sought to win over Kadyrov and his circles as allies to pursue Demushkin’s old political dream: to adopt constitutional changes that would define the Russians as the constituent nation of the Russian Federation. He blamed Russia’s authorities for intentionally setting Russian nationalists against the peoples of the Caucasus and vice-versa because it is advantageous for the powers that be to create tensions in society. Overall, Demushkin viewed Ramzan Kadyrov’s political activities and his style of governance very positively (APN 2012). Many of the movement’s leaders were opposed to the Putin regime and maintained contact with liberal anti-Putin forces. In 2014, there was a split over their differing views on Ukraine (Demushkin, Basmanov and Belov were against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine), and the NDP left the coalition for that reason. In September 2014, the NSI and RID also left the coalition over Belov’s and Demushkin’s allegedly ‘anti-Russian and openly Russophobic’ position. With RID and NSI withdrawing, the disintegration of the coalition was complete; earlier in 2013, some Pamyat’ activists had left in protest of their leader Borovikov’s removal from the coalition. Rather than a broad coalition, after September 2014 the ‘Russians’ consisted of the DPNI and SS alone. Immediately thereafter, in October 2014, Aleksandr Belov was arrested on the rather absurd charges of participating in the embezzlement of US$5 billion from the Kazakh BTA bank and attempting to overthrow Nursultan Nazarbaev’s regime in Kazakhstan (Baklanov 2014, Dzanpoladova 2016). He was later also charged with having founded an extremist organisation,2 and in August 2016 Belov was given a custodial sentence of seven and a half years.3 Between 2014 and 2016, Dmitrii Demushkin also attracted increased attention from the police: he was repeatedly arrested, interrogated and subjected to house searches. He was not allowed to participate in rallies, was repeatedly held in custody for several days and fined, as well as being sentenced to 15 days in custody for reposting an excerpt from a movie about Nazi zombies on the internet, in which a character had a swastika on his hand. In December 2015, after the movement had already been judicially banned due to its extremist

Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era 53 nature, a criminal prosecution against Demushkin was launched for using slogans at Russian Marches in 2013 and 2014, and ultimately, in April 2017, he was sentenced to two and a half years for sharing two pictures on the VKontakte social network (Judina 2017). In St Petersburg, all right-wing militant nationalist opposition leaders have been prosecuted or sentenced: Dmitrii Evtushenko, Dina Garina, Maksim Kalinichenko (given a two and half year sentence for creating a Russian Right Sector group on the social network VKontakte), Nikolai Bondarik and Dmitrii Bobrov (Judina and Alperovitch 2016a). Between 2011 and 2015, the ‘Russians’ movement represented the most important example of Russian ethnic radical nationalism among the rightwing extremists in the country. According to experts of the SOVA association, the movement originally embraced a ‘catch-all’ strategy, seeking to attract extremists of all ideological leanings; hence the name of their movement and the choice of the imperial flag as its emblem. Each of the ideologically distinct organisations continued to appear under its own name to retain existing members and to gain new supporters from ‘their’ ideological camp. The St Petersburg-based NSI attracted the most radical segment of the extremists; RID attracted the nationalists of Orthodox and imperialist persuasion; and the National Democrats the more moderate nationalists, who could not be considered part of the radical nationalist right. An idiosyncratic division of labour was at work among the Moscow leaders: Belov and Demushkin sought to win the sympathies of the ordinary citizen with xenophobic tendencies and to participate in legal political processes. This tactic failed to bring much success, however, largely due to the leaders’ participation in public events organised by opposition liberals. This distanced them from the rank-and-file radical nationalists, whose trust in the movement’s leadership was already low (Judina, Alperovitch and Verkhovskii 2013). Other organisations forming part of the ‘Russians’ coalition Before Euromaidan4 got underway in Ukraine, the coalition ‘Russians’ expelled Georgii Borovikov, the leader of RFO Pamyat’, because of his damaging activities. Although not well known in militant circles, within the coalition Borovikov concentrated on Moscow’s militant youth and sought to broaden the movement’s social base. Back in 2010, Pamyat’ came up with an initiative to establish ‘protection squads’ for the Russian March. After being expelled from ‘Russians’, in June 2014 Borovikov was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for physical assault on a member of the movement and other related offences (such as infringement of personal liberty).5 Vladimir Komarnitskii (Ratnikov) succeeded Borovikov as Pamyat’ leader. Komarnitskii later led the Black Bloc with its anti-immigration project, Citadel. At the 2017 Russian March, Vyacheslav Dobrov represented RFO Pamyat’ (SOVA 2016b, Borg undated). RFO Pamyat’ was a direct

54  Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era continuation of the well-known National-Patriotic Front (NPF) Pamyat’ of the late 1980s. When its leader Dmitrii Vasilev died, his position was taken up by Oleg Kassin (formerly Barkashov’s deputy in Russian National Unity and then leader of one of its splinter groups) and then, after July 2005, by Georgii Borovikov. Under Borovikov’s leadership, the movement increased its activities and participated in Russian Marches. In 2009, the NPF was renamed the Russian Liberation Front (RFO) and declared a closed club. In December 2017, the VKontakte social network profile of RFO Pamyat’ (https://vk.com/rfopamyat)—with its slogan Faith! Race! Tradition!—had about 3,500 followers. In the conflict between the Party of Nationalists and the Nation and Freedom Committee (see below), RFO Pamyat’ sided with Basmanov and his committee due to Komarnitskii’s links with that organisation. The St Petersburg-based NSI attracted the city’s most radical nationalists. It was led by Dmitrii Bobrov, who had previously gained notoriety by founding the skinhead organisation Schultz-88 (the term was also his nickname). In December 2005, he was sentenced to six years in prison. The main expert witness at his trial was ethnologist Nikolai Girenko; in 2004, Girenko was shot dead through the door of his flat by members of the Combat Terrorist Group (Boevaya terroristicheskaya organizatsiya), the founders of which were members of Schultz’s group. After his release in 2011, Bobrov founded the NSI, which was declared extremist and banned in September 2015. After May 2016, Bobrov was investigated under Article 282 for his publication of the text ‘Racial Doctrine’. In September 2017, he was sentenced in absentia to two years in prison and went into hiding (Judina and Alperovitch 2016b, SOVA 2017a). RID had as its aim to bring Orthodox-monarchist nationalists into the fold of the ‘Russians’ movement. Based in St Petersburg and led by Stanislav Vorob’ev since its founding in 2002, it was not a very large nationalist group. It attracted most attention by founding the Imperial Legion, a unit that for several months fought on the separatists’ side in Donbass. Indeed, RID’s position on Ukraine was the reason that RID left the ‘Russians’. RID takes part in ‘alternative’ Russian Marches in St Petersburg and Moscow; its branch in the latter city is led by Pavel Vasil’ev. In a public speech at the 2017 Russian March, he called for the restoration of rights to the Russian Orthodox Church and the renewal of tsarist autocracy and territorial administration. Since December 2014, RID has been a member of the Orthodox-monarchist coalition, the Russian National Front. Whether the RONS movement was a part of the ‘Russians’ coalition is debatable, as the latter was founded in May 2011, and in June 2011 RONS was banned by the judiciary for being an extremist society. Its leader, Igor Artemov, was prosecuted. Given the important position of RONS in the militant nationalist camp, however, it deserves a note here. RONS was first established in 1990 under the leadership of former deputy to the Vladimir Oblast’ Legislative Assembly Igor Artemov, who was a historian by training

Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era 55 and organised military-style camps for youth. Later, in 2005–2006, RONS systematically collaborated with National-Socialist skinheads. At that time, RONS was the leading group focussing on Moscow’s militant-nationalist youth, organising concerts for football hooligans and attacks on homosexuals and advocates of marihuana decriminalisation. The organisers of the bomb attack on the Cherkizovskii market had links with RONS, though the organisation had nothing to do with the actual attacks (allegedly, though, Nikita Korolev led a RONS summer camp in Vladimir Oblast’ where knife-fighting, grenade-throwing and sub-machine-gun-handling skills were taught). Due to a subsequent increase in pressure from law enforcement agencies, RONS lost its position among the radical nationalists, to the benefit of DPNI (Maltsev 2017). In spring 2010, a prosecution of Igor Artemev was launched over his articles on religious themes (he was charged with ‘Orthodox religious exclusivist propaganda’). Artemov went underground and turned up in Kiev, where the U.S. embassy granted him a visa. He emigrated to New Jersey, in the United States of America, where he was given political asylum in 2013 (Artemov 2016). Ideologically, RONS provided a link between ethnic nationalism and Orthodox fundamentalism (opposed to the Russian Orthodox Church). Aleksandr Turik’s Union of Russian People (Soyuz russkogo naroda, SRN) and the various organisations that appeared under this heading will be analysed later in this book. The organisation called the National Democratic Party (NDP) is not a militant nationalist group. By inviting it into the coalition, the ‘Russians’ hoped to attract more moderate nationalists. NDP emerged in 2012 out of the Russian Social Movement (Russkoe obshchestvennoe dvizhenie, ROD) led by journalist Konstantin Krylov6 and the Russian Civic Union (Russkii grazhdanskii soyuz). They aimed to establish a Russian nation-state, and they posed as nationalist democrats of the European type. The founders and leaders were Vladimir Tor (formerly a DPNI leader) and Konstantin Krylov (a philosopher by training who worked as a journalist and was formerly linked with Dmitrii Rogozin’s organisations, was involved in organising the Russian Marches and also appeared during opposition demonstrations in Bolotnaya Square in 2011). The NDP is an ethnic-nationalist party that opposes immigration from countries of the Caucausus and Central Asia. The war in Donbass meant a turning point in the organisation’s development: it sided with the separatists, which was also a reason it left the coalition. During the war, its members sent humanitarian aid to the Donetsk People’s Republic (Donetskaya Narodnaya Respublika, DNR), specifically to the humanitarian battalion organised by Ekaterina Gubareva, the former ‘DNR minister of foreign affairs’. Krylov was also involved in Girkin’s 25 January Committee. The NDP had few members and did not command militants ready to commit political violence. It was largely geared towards intellectual activities (e.g. conferences, round tables, exhibitions and publishing).

56  Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era Successor organisations emergent since the ban on the ‘Russians’ coalition In autumn 2015, the former member of the DPNI leadership and brother of Aleksandr Belov (Potkin), Vladimir Basmanov, founded the Nation and Freedom Committee (Komitet Natsiia i svoboda, KNS) from the wreckage of the ‘Russians’ movement to unite through a network all opposition radical nationalists who ‘survived’ the 2014–2015 repression by Russia’s security forces. Throughout 2016, the KNS was unable to revive the regional cells of the ‘Russians’, which started to die out. Basmanov decided to cooperate with ‘non-system’ liberal opposition, using their media for self-propaganda and intending to be politically active in their ranks. More recently he became noteworthy for his plea to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to have Vladimir Putin tried for war crimes. However, a rapprochement with the liberals did not gain Basmanov many supporters among right-wing extremists (he represents only a small section of the movement and lives in exile). During the winter of 2015–2016, a small group entitled Free Russia (Svobodnaya Rossiya) seceded from the Nation and Freedom Committee, led by Denis Romanov-Russkii, an activist of the Russian Joint National Alliance (Russkii obedinennyi natsionalnyi alyans, RONA) (Judina and Alperovitch 2016b). He later joined the Party of Nationalists. In spring 2017, the KNS founded a youth branch, the National Organisation of Russian Youth (Natsionalnaya organizatsiya russkoi molodezhi, NORM), but that has produced no activity so far and the KNS has not been very successful overall. Since the ban on the ‘Russians’ movement, it has been the Party of Nationalists rather than the KNS who emerged as pretender to leadership of the nationalists (Alperovitch 2017). Given that Basmanov is in exile, the Moscow branch of the KNS is led by Vladimir Burmistrov, and the ‘Northern Brigade’ (by which they largely mean the St Petersburg branch) is led by Georgii Shishkov. In 2015, Basmanov founded an exiled nationalist organisation named Forces of the Good (Sily dobra), together with Dmitrii Savvin (who lives in Latvia and prior to emigrating was the head of the St Petersburg branch of the organisation New Force, Novaya sila), Aleksei Kutalo (former RONS activist and ideologist of the Nation and Freedom Committee), Aleksandr Valov (former leader of right-wing extremists in Murmansk, a volunteer in the Azov regiment, since March the leader of Forces of the Good in Ukraine), Tatyana Kungurova (a former RONS activist) and Sofia Budnikova (former member of the Movement ‘Russians’ and of the DPNI). The movement For Honour and Freedom (Za chest’ i svobodu) emerged at the same time in 2015. Ideologically close to the Belov-Demushkin coalition and led by the ex-chair of the Ryazan’ branch of the ‘Russians’, Aleksandr Samokhin, and former RFO Paymat’ leader Vladimir Ratnikov (real name Komarnitskii), it sought to take over the remaining membership of the banned movement. In 2016, it split into two parts. Ratnikov took

Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era 57 the National-Socialist movement Black Bloc, incorporating the Citadel anti-immigration project out of the movement and Samokhin renamed what remained as Honour and Freedom (Chest’ i svoboda). The discord was a logical corollary of what was an alliance between national-conservative democrats (Samokhin) and right-wing radical nationalists (Ratnikov), which represented a compromise from the outset (Judina and Alperovitch 2016b).7 Beyond participation in some protest rallies, the National-Socialist movement Black Bloc also sought new ways of recruiting supporters. It organised lectures, seminars and competitions and started its own radio station, but has proven unsuccessful in enlarging the membership. It largely seeks to recruit militant nationalists. Aleksandr Samokhin’s Honour and Freedom has not started any new project since winter 2016 and only revived itself in late spring 2017, which might be connected with Samokhin’s car accident from which he took some time to recover (Alperovitch 2017). Since 2015–2016, there have been notable attempts by opposition nationalists to become part of the all-out movement protesting the Putin regime. The situation changed when a Saratov-based right-wing populist blogger, Vyacheslav Maltsev, entered the scene, standing for election to the State Duma on behalf of the liberal Parnas party. During the campaigning ahead of the September 2016 parliamentary elections, the contacts between the nationalists (supporting Maltsev), liberals and civic activists became more systematic, causing several organisational innovations in the nationalist camp, including the Artpodgotovka project, initiated by Maltsev, and the New Opposition movement (Novaya oppositsiya), founded by Maltsev’s staff—Mark Galperin, Ivan Beletskii and others. Most important was the effort by the radical-nationalist segment of New Opposition—figures such as Ivan Beletskii, Yurii Gorskii and Denis Romanov-Ruskii (though Demushkin was also formally a member of the leadership)—to create a new outfit, the Party of Nationalists. In 2012, the leaders of the ‘Russians’ movement attempted to register a political party of the same name, and the project was now revived. From late 2016, these three projects—Artpodgotovka, New Opposition and the Party of Nationalists—sought to present a united front and offered a choice to potential supporters: Artpodgotovka for Maltsev’s adherents, the Party of Nationalists for radical nationalists, and New Opposition for everyone else (liberal activists willing to cooperate with nationalists). This sometimes makes it difficult to see where one ends and the next begins. In terms of their preferred ways of coming to power, New Opposition prefers a ‘democratic revolution’ (i.e. street protests), whereas the Party of Nationalists plans to contest elections, and Artpodgotovka is somewhere in between: Maltsev has demonstrated his readiness to take part in elections, but he also argues that revolution is inevitable.8 The leadership of the Party of Nationalists consists of new and not very well known faces: Ivan Beletskii, Denis Romanov-Russkii, Andrei Petrovskii, Valentin Alekseev, Konstantin Filin and the press officer, Dmitri Golikov. Their chances of obtaining political registration, for which they applied in

58  Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era February 2017, are considered nil, but their aim in taking these steps is to at least attract attention. In spring 2017, a conflict over leadership style flared up in both the Party of Nationalists and New Opposition; it focused on Yurii Gorskii, and personal animosity between Beletksii and Gorskii also played a role. Gorskii then left both the Party of Nationalists and New Opposition and in May 2017 founded his own project, New Right-Wing Alternative (Novaya pravaya alternativa). He then emigrated to Lithuania, where he applied for political asylum. Since his departure, the New Right-Wing Alternative group has been led in Moscow by Anton Burtov (who was involved in organising the November 2017 Russian March). At the turn of 2016–2017, the Party of Nationalists actively built up regional party cells (the leadership of the party is largely made up of supporters and collaborators of Dmitrii Demushkin), and in doing so found itself in conflict with Vladimir Basmanov’s Nation and Freedom Committee, which strives to do the same. In an interview, Beletskii accused Basmanov of seeding discord into the movement and refusing cooperation. Indeed, Basmanov had previously announced that he did not intend to participate in a party organised by Demushkin’s supporters, with whom he was in conflict prior to Demushkin’s arrest, and Basmanov asked his sympathisers not to participate in his competitors’ rallies. The disputes between Basmanov and Demushkin also affected the organisation of the 2017 Russian March, which ended badly for the supporters of opposition ethnic nationalists. Nor was their situation helped by the fact that in summer 2017 (i.e. prior to the March), Ivan Beletskii emigrated to Ukraine, and the two feuding leaders of militant ethnic nationalists thus now wage their battles across the border. According to Beletskii, Demushkin continues to be the formal leader of the Party of Nationalists, even though he is currently serving a prison sentence (YouTube 2017b). In winter 2016–2017, there also appeared a coalition of nationalist movements, called the Coordination Council of National Forces (Koordinatsionnyi sovet natsional’nykh sil, KSNS), proposed by the National Union of Russia (Natsional’nyi soyuz Rossii, NSR) and led by Votalii Goryunov, Maksim Vakhromov and others. This organisation, which is not primarily Moscowbased, calls for the unification of all nationalist forces, irrespective of their position on ‘Novorossiya’ or religion (Alperovitch 2017). The National-Socialist Society Ideology The ideology of the National-Socialist Society (Natsional-sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo, NSO) is based on neo-Nazism and intense biological racism with the aim of provoking racial war in Russia by means of street terrorism targeting non-Russian citizens. The draft NSO programme stated that Russians are the main nation throughout the territory of Great Russia, into which all ‘Russian territories’ must be integrated. Only Russians do have the

Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era 59 right to make decisions in the government and legislative bodies. Migrants must live in special camps without the right of free movement in the country. Only Russians may serve in the army. Foreign businesses must be nationalised. Only Russians may serve as editors in the Russian-language media. Evolution and leadership The NSO was established in 2004 by splitting off from Dmitrii Demushkin’s Slavic Union (see above). Its founders were Dmitrii Rumyantsev and Sergei ‘Malyuta’ Korotkikh, a former activist of the Belarus branch of the Russian National Unity and former chief of intelligence in the Ukrainian Azov regiment. Born in Moscow in 1965, Rumyantsev was an activist of Barkashov’s Russian National Unity. In 2000 he co-founded Demushkin’s Slavic Union. He was an assistant to State Duma deputy Sergei Ivanov (LDPR) and, prior to that, to Soviet General Albert Makashov (KPRF), who in August 1991 supported the anti-Gorbachev putsch of hardline communists. Rumyantsev knew him from Lev Rokhlin’s Movement in Support of the Army (Dvizhenie v podderzhku armii, DPA), which was an ephemeral nationalist-communist political organization founded by KGB agents and former members of the military who took part in defending the Russian White House during the constitutional crisis (Reszka and Holcova 2017). NSO’s first public act was to deliver a letter to the Czech embassy in Moscow protesting the imprisonment in the Czech Republic of Denis Gerasimov, the front man of the Russian White Power band Kolovrat (Telegina 2013). The NSO was allegedly financed by the businessman Maksim Gritsai, the president of the All-Russian Public Organisation of the Disabled, ‘Fakel’ (meaning Torch). Gritsai was involved in unlawful financial dealings with cards for resettled disabled Russians and laundered the proceeds with the help of NSO members. In September 2007, Format-18, a group of neo-Nazi skinheads led by Maksim ‘Tesak’ Martsinkevich, briefly joined the NSO. Martsinkevich later led the organisation Restrukt! (see details below). In summer 2007, there was a schism in the NSO: Rumyantsev had accused Korotkikh of financial fraud and of seeking to take over the leadership of the organisation. Korotkikh, meanwhile, claims that the reason for the schism was Rumyantsev’s willingness to cooperate with Russia’s security forces, the leaders of which he allegedly knew from the Movement in Support of the Army (Reszka and Holcova 2017). Supported by Format-18, Korotkikh launched an alternative NSO, which soon ceased public activities. In 2008, Rumyantsev was given a one-year suspended sentence for extremist rhetoric (Publichnaĭa biblioteka Vladimira Pribylovskogo undated). During the trial Rumyantsev called on his comrades to use legal methods of struggle, but they did not support him; Rumyantsev left the NSO and subsequently retired. After his departure, Maksim ‘Adolf’ Bazylev became the leader; at an April 2008 meeting, he declared that the path of legal political struggle was not the right one and that the only way for the NSO to gain power

60  Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era would be via direct street terrorism (Falkovskii and Litoj 2013). According to Rumyantsev, Bazylev called on his supporters ‘to cover this country with corpses’ and declared: ‘the NSO must become the most radical organisation that will set the direction of all national and national socialist movements, it must become an example worth following, it must ignite a total terrorist war’. In March 2009, Bazylev was arrested on suspicion of being involved in eight murders. According to the official version, he shortly thereafter committed suicide in custody. Many doubt the official version and believe that people connected to the businessman Gritsai may have eliminated Bazylev because 200 million roubles (about US$7 million at the time) were allegedly found in his bank accounts, about the origin of which Bazylev did not live long enough to testify. The rank-and-file of the organisation received between 2,000 and 25,000 roubles per month in their bank accounts. Bazylev argued that active steps must be taken, i.e. the movement must kill non-white people (Caucasians, Blacks and Asians). Only when the situation in the country was unstable, under a situation involving mass unrest, largescale murder and terrorist acts, Bazylev claimed, would it be possible to take over power. Murders and bombings were necessary to force state authorities to resign (Falkovskii and Litoi 2013). In February 2010, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation banned the NSO, describing the group as extremist. The most notorious section, known as NSO-Sever, was led by Lev Molotkov. He was born on 22 November 1981 in what is today Sergiev Posad near Moscow. He graduated in geodesy and cartography from the Moscow State University. He then found a job as an information technology administrator; at the time of his arrest he worked in several businesses in Moscow. In 2005 he joined Aleksandr Barkashov’s Russian National Unity. Later he switched allegiance to the Russian National Front, and in 2007 he joined Dmitrii Rumyantsev’s NSO. Violent activities of NSO-Sever Molotkov started in the NSO by distributing leaflets and propaganda, and as chief of a cell he was responsible for organising events and collecting membership fees. He was personally not involved in any murders. Molotkov’s brigade operated illegally and had various safe houses. According to data from the investigation, they committed more than 50 physical assaults and killed 28 people between February 2007 and July 2008. Police tracked them down in summer 2008. According to members of NSO-Sever, the police were informed by Nikolai Melnik, a traitor planted by the police, whom the militants killed and dismembered in a bathroom, taking a video of the whole grisly crime. Molotkov and his comrades-in-arms, Vladislav Tamamshev, Sergei Yurov and Konstantin Nikiforenko, were arrested in their flat on 22 July 2008. Tamamshev resisted arrest and wounded an FSB officer with a knife. When the flat was searched, components of a detonating mechanism were found, prompting FSB Spetsnaz (Special Forces) to close off a section

Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era 61 of a nearby highway. Tamamshev is the son of a GRU (military intelligence) colonel. He was born and raised in the far eastern Russia, in Khabarovsk. Since childhood, his father took him to the taiga, taught him how to survive in nature and cultivated in him a cult of physical force (this background is similar to BORN’s Nikita Tikhonov, whose father was a colonel in the Foreign Intelligence Service). Before he left for Moscow, Tamamshev threw Molotov cocktails at the Khabarovsk synagogue. He arrived in Moscow in 2007 at the invitation of Bazylev, with whom he became acquainted on extremist forums. He said to the court: ‘I consider myself a human god, I cleanse the country of dirt’. According to some witnesses, Tamamshev was the real leader of NSO-Sever, whom Molotkov feared and obeyed. He has been convicted of nine murders. There was one woman in the group, a journalism student at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Vasilisa Kovaleva, who ‘celebrated’ her 21st birthday by a double murder of Uzbek guest workers (Telegina 2013). She was the last to be arrested, in May 2009, because she had managed to flee to Moldavia (Gerasimenko and Shmareva 2011). NSO-Sever members chose their victims of non-Slavic appearance at random in housing estates in the Moscow suburbs and throughout Moscow Oblast’, usually stabbing them dozens of times. In July 2011, five of the 13 defendants were given life sentences—Molotkov, Tamamshev, Mikhailov, Appolonov9 and Rudik—and the rest received long prison terms. That same month, in the Butyrka prison, the five sentenced for life, together with Nikolai Korolev and Oleg Kostarev, the members of the military-patriotic club SPAS, released the following proclamation: ‘We declare our determination to fight. The ZOG [Zionist Occupation Government] will not see us repent. There is no compromise, there is no fear and there is no despondency. There is only faith in future Victory and Love for our relatives, our nation and our race, and the best reward for us in these uneasy times is your support, friends, and your acts for the good of the future White Victory. We are together! Long live the Aryan conspiracy’ (Falkovskii and Litoi 2013: 118). Mikhailov was another key thug in NSO-Sever. At the outset he murdered on his own and, rather than targeting guest workers, he attacked well-dressed Caucasian youths. Once he killed a police major. He became acquainted with the neo-Nazi Vasilii Krivets (sentenced for life in 2010 for 15 murders), who convinced him to embrace a healthy lifestyle and fight against the ‘Untermenschen’. Together they joined the NSO. Former leader Dmitrii Rumyantsev last met with members of NSO-Sever in April 2008, when they rejected his plea to fight by legal means, and they had already committed a string of murders. Whether Rumyantsev was aided by intuition or links in the security forces is unclear, however he only appeared at the trial as a witness and was not himself a defendant. Other extremists repeatedly accused Rumyantsev of collaborating with the FSB. Many assumed that the NSO was controlled by the security forces from the outset and Bazylev’s suicide in a cell only deepened their mistrust of the state organisations (Gerasimenko and Shmareva 2011).

62  Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era Russian Image/BORN Ideology Russian Image (Russkii obraz) was a right-wing nationalist organisation that combined a radical rhetoric with de facto support for Vladimir Putin, seeking to cooperate with the state establishment. Its ideology consisted of strong anti-liberalism and a mix of Russian ultranationalism, ultraconservatism, Orthodox fundamentalism, support for the current regime and political violence. BORN (Combat Organisation of Russian Nationalists, Boevaya organizatsiya russkikh natsionalistov) often added racism and open neo-Nazism to the mix; the bulk of its membership originated from the legendary Moscow neo-Nazi skinhead organisation OB-88 (Korshunov, Volkov and others). Evolution and leadership In 2002, the founders of what would be the Russian Image, Nikita Tikhonov and Ilya Goryachev—then students at the Faculty of History at Moscow State University—visited Serbia. They initially drew on the legacy of the Serbian Orthodox and monarchist-nationalist Nebojša Krstić (who died in a traffic accident in 2001) and of the Serbian organisation Obraz, founded in 1994. This organisation took part in pogroms on lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender people and attacks on the offices of their political opponents (in 2012 Obraz was banned by Serbia’s judiciary). From November 2004, Goryachev and Tikhonov published Russkii obraz magazine, but they also planned the creation of a political entity. They approached organisations providing legal and financial aid to neo-Nazis who were prosecuted, and the project Russian Verdict (Russkii verdikt) was created to facilitate this (Publichnaĭa biblioteka Vladimira Pribylovskogo undated). This effort was led by Aleksei Baranovskii who broke with Russian Image in 2010. Through the figure of its front man, Sergei Erzunov, the White Power band Right Hook (Chuk sprava), founded in 2005–2006, was also connected with Russian Image. Goryachev planned to make use of some of his contacts with the state authorities and create a legal political party (Russian Image), while Tikhonov was to lead an underground terrorist organisation, the Combat Organisation of Russian Nationalists, based on the model of the IRA and Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland (Svetova 2014). This started around 2007–2008. Political violence committed by BORN peaked between 2008 and 2010, as did the political activities of Russian Image, which first made itself known in 2008 and started to poach DPNI members. More radical and aggressive than the DPNI, Russian Image also declared its ability to lobby in the State Duma (something that the DPNI could not do after 2007) and established itself on the turf of the DPNI and Limonov’s National Bolsheviks, mixing anti-capitalist and extreme-right slogans (Kozhevnikova 2009c).

Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era 63 In 2009, Russian Image combined its links with politicians and radical nationalist groups. Russian Image representatives made public appearances from ‘patriotic’ positions, within the limits set by official propaganda, while also being active in the subculture, organising concerts, graffiti and xenophobic marches and cultivating links with the most radical groups, including National-Socialist Straight-Edge. Cooperation with Roman Zentsov’s Resistance (Odpor) was a success. Known as a trainer and supporter of Demushkin’s SS, Zentsov’s sporting activities in martial arts was a sufficient reference for officials who did not know his political background. Thus, he could sponsor various tournaments under the banners of fighting alcoholism and the promotion of a healthy lifestyle, i.e. as part of the state’s official campaign against alcohol consumption. Zentsov proved an excellent recruiter for right-wing nationalist organisations, as he had access to young people from various social strata (Kozhevnikova 2010). Russian Image’s greatest success was organising a Kolovrat band concert in the very centre of Moscow on the National Unity Day, 4 November 2009 (Kozhevnikova 2010). Russian Image spawned more and more regional branches, usually to the detriment of other extremist organisations, especially the DPNI and SS. The pro-Kremlin youth organisation Young Russia (Rossiya molodaya), led by then-deputy of United Russia Maksim Mishchenko, known for his financial and other support of radical nationalists, cooperated with Russian Image. In 2009–2010, Russian Image and Young Russia organised several rallies and other events, and they planned to launch the ‘Ermolov’ project10 to monitor the activities of ethnic diasporas and national minorities, which was ultimately dropped (Prusenkova 2015). The political rise of Russian Image was radically curtailed by the arrest of the murderers of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasiya Baburova. Baburova was long active in the Russian anarchist movement and worked for the liberal newspaper Novaya gazeta. Markelov was a well-known Russian lawyer, acting as counsel for prosecuted anti-fascists. He criticised Russian judiciary for lacking consistency when prosecuting violent acts committed by neo-Nazis and war crimes perpetrated in the Chechen wars. Nikita Tikhonov and his girlfriend, Evgeniya Khasis, were accused of the murders. During their trial, Ilya Goryachev, Sergei Erzunov and the chief of the Russian branch of Blood and Honour, Sergei ‘Oper’ Golubev, testified against Tikhonov. Golubev and Goryachev fled the country around 2012, fearing neo-Nazi vengeance for their ‘betrayal’ of Tikhonov as well as further prosecution. Still in 2012, Goryachev was one of the founding members of the Right-wing Conservative Alliance (Pravo-konservativny alyans, PKA), before he fled to Serbia, where he was arrested by the police in May 2013 and extradited to Moscow. He was tried and in July 2015 sentenced to life, like Tikhonov, who had been back since May 2011. Both serve their sentences in a penal colony for lifers in Kharp, beyond the Arctic Circle, between Salekhard and Vorkuta. Other members of BORN, Baklagin and Isaev, were likewise given life sentences, and Volkov received 24 years (Prusenkova 2015).

64  Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era Ilya Goryachev was born in 1982 in a family of Moscow intelligentsia and leaned towards intellectual activity, with the idea of creating a strong nationalist organisation. He mixed in Orthodox circles and maintained contact with people involved in pro-Putin youth organisations and the establishment, especially the president’s administration, which after the Orange Revolution sought to establish a ‘dirigiste nationalism’ led by Surkov, i.e. to create radical nationalist organisations or, at least, to keep them under control, with the aim of exploiting them for their own purposes (especially physical assaults on the political opposition). With Markelov murdered, this practice came to an end, as they feared that the extremists were getting out of control (Prusenkova 2015). According to Goryachev, Russian Image was not intended to be an opposition party. Most likely, he sought to exploit concerns among the establishment about right-wing radical nationalists, to establish relations with state authorities, and to gain a seat in the State Duma if not a higher office (Litoi 2015). BORN to be wild BORN was founded by Nikita Tikhonov, and this group was responsible for ten murders. Tikhonov already had a police record as a football hooligan supporting FC Spartak Moscow, and he spent his leisure time in brawls with Antifa. From 2006, he went underground, as he was suspected of murdering Antifa’s Aleksandr Ryukhin (whom he and OB-88’s Aleksandr Parinov did indeed kill, the latter now allegedly serving as a volunteer in the Ukrainian regiment Azov). Tikhonov left for Kiev, but in summer 2008 he returned to Moscow at Goryachev’s insistence and started to prepare BORN activities (Svetova 2014). According to BORN members, the first victim was to be the ultra-conservative Orthodox dignitary Vsevolod Chaplin, who, Tikhonov and Goryachev alleged, represented the ‘Jewish lobby’ within the Russian Orthodox Church. Having acquainted himself with Chaplin’s radical rhetoric, Tikhonov abandoned the plan and focused his attacks on leading members of the ultra-left Antifa movement instead. While planning the first murders in autumn 2008, Tikhonov organised the admission of new members into BORN, in which he was aided by a neo-Nazi, Aleksei Korshunov, who had been acquainted since 2004 with one of the leaders of the legendary organisation OB-88, Mikhail Volkov. Through Volkov, who spent five years in prison for participating in and co-organising a pogrom at the Tsaritsynskii market in Moscow, Tikhonov and Korshunov came to know the so-called ‘Northerners’, the neo-Nazis from Dubna and Dmitrov in the north section of the Moscow region, Yurii Tikhomirov, Maksim Baklagin and Vyacheslav Isaev (Tumanov and Kozlov 2014). The most important figure in BORN apart from Tikhonov was the already-mentioned militant neoNazi and former FSB intelligence service warrant officer, Aleksei Korshunov. Following police raids on BORN members, Korshunov hid for some time in Zaporozhe, Ukraine, until he was killed by his own grenade. In October 2011,

Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era 65 he went for a jog with a grenade in his backpack, which exploded. It was Korshunov who taught other BORN members the rules of conspiracy, communication and camouflage (Svetova 2014). He was previously active in the old Moscow skinhead group OB-88, along with Tikhonov, Golubev, Volkov, Parinov and other BORN members or their close friends. BORN members committed their first murder in October 2008, when Tikhonov and Volkov beat to death the militant anti-fascist and extreme-left activist Fedor Filatov. In December 2008, BORN decided to avenge the rape and murder of a 15-year-old schoolgirl by a guest worker from Uzbekistan in the Mozhaiskii district of Moscow. They chose a Tajik guest worker as their victim; Korshunov cut off his head, and Parinov put it in a black bag that they placed in front of the Mozhaiskii district government offices. The gang’s murders that attracted most media attention were perpetrated by Nikita Tikhonov. In January 2009, in broad daylight in central Moscow, he shot dead the lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasiya Baburova. In June 2009, BORN members Timokhirov and Baklagin killed Ilya Dzhaparidze, a militant anti-fascist. In September 2009, Rasul Khaliov, a member of the group Black Hawks (a radical Caucasian nationalist group) was murdered. In November 2009, the leader of militant anti-fascists Ivan Khutorskii11 was shot dead, most likely by Korshunov, on the ground floor of the prefabricated apartment block where he lived. In December 2009, the Caucasian Muslim Abdullaev, Thai boxing world champion, was murdered. In April 2010, there was another high-profile murder when the judge of Moscow City Court, Eduard Chuvashov, was shot dead near his house. Chuvashov had presided over the trials of some neo-Nazi gang members, including the White Wolves, and Korshunov was again responsible for the act. BORN’s last murder was perpetrated in September 2010. The victim was an Armenian taxi driver, whom the propaganda website Life News accused (falsely, as it later transpired) of having beaten a pregnant Russian girl. According to the records of investigators, Goryachev maintained contacts with Tikhonov only; the other BORN fighters did not know him personally. Goryachev kept his distance for reasons of conspiracy; he proposed victims to BORN members via Tikhonov and allegedly handed over to the latter the weapon with which Tikhonov then shot Baburova and Markelov. In 2010, Goryachev proclaimed: ‘We do not struggle for power with the Kremlin, but with ideological opponents in our own environment, with leftist liberals. The struggle is for future rule within our generation. […] The left-liberal camp, the Antifa—these are our main competitors’ (Litoi 2015). According to Tikhonov, Goryachev considered Markelov one of the most promising political figures of the ‘enemy camp’ and incessantly demanded his elimination. Goryachev helped to collect information about the victims, handing their personal data to Tikhonov, and based on this they were followed by BORN members. Apparently he obtained this data from corrupt police officers (Litoi 2015). The role of some state authorities in the case, especially of persons then involved in the presidential administration, is unclear

66  Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era (Svetova 2014). BORN was different from other organisations and gangs, such as NSO-Sever, in that it carefully selected its victims. They included leaders of the militant Antifa, judges who tried extremist gangs and troublesome political activists (Tumanov and Kozlov 2014). Unlike other militant right-wing extremist groups or organisations, BORN members did not commit random knife attacks on immigrants at metro stations or housing estates—attacks typical of Russia at the time. In most cases, they were not motivated by racial hatred; but they sought to unleash political terror by sending a message to Russia’s authorities and society. Also unlike other extremist groups, BORN members usually had university education and did not come from poverty in Moscow’s housing estates (Prusenkova 2015). The links and supporters of Russian Image/BORN In several testimonies, Goryachev has spoken of cooperation with the presidential administration of the Russian Federation, namely mentioning Pavel Karpov, an aide to Nikita Ivanov, chief of pro-Kremlin youth organisations in the presidential administration. In 2007, Goryachev became acquainted with Leonid Simunin, a former member of criminal groups and then-leader of the Lyuberetskii section of the youth movement ‘Locals’ (Mestnye), who in 2014 became deputy energy minister of the separatist DNR, a post he obtained thanks to his acquaintance with Aleksandr Borodaev, the DNR’s first ‘prime minister’ and pro-Kremlin political consultant in Moscow. He and Igor Girkin subsequently left the DNR. Goryachev sought protection (krysha) among state authorities and security forces, for whom a deal with Russian Image might have been useful in 2008–2009, as Image was a competitor to Belov’s popular DPNI group. According to Basmanov, Russian Image obtained money and various bonuses from certain state officials. The organisation started to poach DPNI’s members with good prospects, offering them good pay and other benefits. This peaked, according to Basmanov, in 2008, when Russian Image organised the authorised Russian March, whereas the original one led by the DPNI was banned. The Russian neo-Nazi Roman Zheleznov also claims that one of Goryachev’s comrades-in-arms, who was, like him, assistant to Nikolai Kuryanovich (LDPR deputy until 2007), visited police stations and bought personal data of militant anti-fascists who had been apprehended. Surprisingly, police operatives from the centre ‘E’ (anti-extremism section) were not allowed to investigate BORN; rather the whole process was overseen by the FSB. Allegedly this was because the anti-extremism section had so many informers among right-wing radical nationalists that its participation in the inquiry might have disrupted the network of informers and infiltration. Virtually all nationalist leaders mention the links between Goryachev, Russian Image and state authorities. On this matter, Demushkin added: Ilya decided to play big politics. He was given a task—to fight Demushkin, Belov and Russian March—and he started to achieve it.

Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era 67 But Ilya had neither the options nor the authority to hire ordinary people, so he recruited radicals. They were tightly knit, but had one fault: they would occasionally kill people. When they killed the wrong ones— the lawyer, Markelov, and the journalist, Baburova—the whole process shifted to a higher level and harsh retaliation followed. In doing so they practically sold Russian nationalism down the river (Azar 2015b). For Russian Image, nationalism was more important than racism (though for BORN such a statement is questionable). They believed that Ukrainians and even Poles were really Russians who broke away. In 2010, a Russian Image branch was founded in the Donetsk districtunder the name of Image (Obraz). Registered in Makeevka, its membership overlapped with that of the youth organisation of the neo-Eurasianist and separatist organisation, Donetsk Republic (see Chapter 7 on pro-Putin right-wing nationalism for more detail)—a movement that contributed to the Donbass separatism and the start of the war in spring 2014 (Litoi 2015). The Donetsk Republic youth organisation was led by Image member and Donetsk neo-Nazi Aleksandr Matyushin (also known as ‘Varyag’ and ‘Aleksandr de Krog’). According to Goryachev’s testimony, Donetsk Republic activists visited him several times in Belgrade, and he planned to go to Ukraine in early 2013 (he was, however, arrested and extradited to Russia). In late 2013, Matyushin created Varyag Crew, a combat wing of the Donetsk Republic, which after 2014 transformed into a separatist rebel group fighting against the Ukrainian army. Aleksei Baranovskii, the main coordinator of Russian Verdict to help jailed extremists, left in autumn 2013 for Ukraine, where he worked as a journalist for Kommersant-Ukraina until March 2014 when the Ukraine branch was closed, at which point he worked on the news website Delo.ua. He filed reports from the voluntary regiment Azov and appeared as a witness in the BORN trial. Egor Gorshkov, another figure from the BORN circle, organised knife-fighting training sessions for Russian Image. Now Gorshkov heads the ‘security service’ of the pro-Kremlin radical left movement Essence of Time (Sut’ vremeni), led by the propagandist Sergei Kurginyan, whom he accompanied on his tour of the Donetsk People’s Republic publicised in the media, during which Kruginyan sharply attacked Igor Girkin (Strelkov). Another well-known figure from the Goryachev–Tikhonov circle was the former member of the Russkii Obraz editorial board, Dmitrii Steshin, later to become one of the main journalists to follow the Kremlin’s line concerning the war in Donbass for the tabloid Moskovskii komsomolets (in May 2014, the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, banned him from entering the country). Steshin allegedly took part in the interrogations of captive Ukrainian soldiers and supposedly acquainted Tikhonov with people from whom BORN obtained firearms. Steshin was called to Tikhonov’s trial as a witness, as well as to Goryachev’s, who was the godfather of Steshin’s children. Later he was given a medal for aiding Russian propaganda efforts

68  Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era during the annexation of Crimea (Prusenkova 2015). Evgenii Valyaev, the former press officer of Russian Image, was one of the few to stay loyal to Goryachev. Today he is one of the leaders of the Right-wing Conservative Alliance (PKA) and heads the nationalist think-tank Modus; he maintains contact with several deputies of the State Duma (Skovoroda and Klimova 2015). Currently other former Goryachev collaborators work in the pro-Kremlin media or analytical units, and various coalitions and organisations supporting Orthodox fundamentalism, pro-Russian separatists in Donbass and the contemporary Putin regime (Litoi 2015). Stanislav Byshok, a colleague of Goryachev in Russian Image for many years, now calls himself a ‘political expert’ and is involved in the pro-Putin People’s Diplomacy (Narodnaya diplomatiya) organisation and in the CISEMO International Election Monitoring Organisation. In both organisations, they are not the only ones with a background in radical nationalism. People’s Diplomacy formerly focused on maintaining Russia’s links with Pridnestrov’e and subsequently also with Novorossiya. CIS-EMO has traditionally secured the ‘friendly international observation of elections’, in which right-wing extremists and populists from Europe are regularly invited. Former Russian Image activists were also among the organisers of a series of rallies in Moscow of the coalition ‘Battle for Donbass’, a partner of the Anti-Maidan. There have been rumours about cooperation between Russian Image and Igor Girkin, but these have not been confirmed and probably originated with Vladimir Basmanov of the former ‘Russians’ movement (Litoi 2015). Raids as a strategy of right-wing extremism Over the past several years, raids inspired by various ethnic and ‘social’ issues have been an important part of the activities undertaken by extremist groups, with the aim of demonstrating their active ‘civic’ position to the public. Only a few years ago, aggressive raids on illegal migrants, paedophiles and drug dealers were particularly popular among the extreme right, but since late 2013 such attacks have dwindled steadily, largely due to repression from the security forces and the changes in agenda prompted by the war in eastern Ukraine (Judina and Alperovitch 2016b). Thanks to these activities, many nationalist leaders, including Nikolai Bondarik, Dmitrii Bobrov, Dmitrii Evtushenko, Aleksei Kolegov and Maksim Martsinkevich, were investigated, and some of them were imprisoned. Previously popular raids on localities where immigrants stay have practically ceased, and similar raids aiming to uncover illegal marketplaces (the nationalists being particularly drawn to the presence of stall-holders of ‘non-Slavic’ appearance) have become much rarer. In 2016, Valentina Bobrova’s NationalConservative Movement organised such raids—which have since ceased—as did the leader of the banned NSI, Dmitrii Bobrov. The Black Bloc and its project Citadel rarely organise such events (Alperovitch 2017).

Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era 69 Restrukt! The Restrukt! movement was founded by well-known neo-Nazi Maksim Martsinkevich, who had founded Format-18 in 2005, which recorded videos of its members’ physical assaults on non-Slavic victims and ideological opponents and posted them on the internet. In 2007, Format-18 was briefly linked with the NSO, and in December 2010 it was banned by the judiciary for being an extremist organisation. Pavel Bardin’s movie Rossiya 88 was inspired by Format-18. Martsinkevich, born 8 May 1984 in Moscow, has played an important role in promoting neo-Nazism among young supporters and is a substantial figure in neo-Nazi circles. He has been tried several times. Formerly a leading member of Semen (‘Bus’) Tokmakov’s neo-Nazi skinhead group Russian Goal (Russkaya tsel’), until 2003 he was a member of the People’s National Party (NNP). In 2011, Martsinkevich founded the organisation Restrukt!, which was intended to give a new form to the nationalist movement, and whose main focus was not on politics or physical assaults on immigrants, but on the ‘conservation of traditional values’, homing in on alleged drug dealers, homosexuals and ‘paedophiles’ (Lutych 2017). Having fled via Belarus to Cuba, from where he was extradited back to Russia, Matsinkevich was sentenced in August 2014 for incitement of ethnic hatred and threats of violence. The sentence was reduced to two years and ten months (Judina and Alperovitch 2015). The first congress of Restrukt! in July 2014 was interrupted when police stormed the hall in which it was held and arrested several activists. The organisation had two subsidiaries named Okkupai-pedofilyai and Okkupainarkofilyai. These groups focused on sexual delinquents (a category which included gays) and drug dealers by arranging to meet their victims as ‘clients’, then beating them and recording the whole event on video, which they subsequently posted on the internet (Vershov 2015). Police were spurred into action by a fatal assault on an Azerbaijani drug dealer. In January 2015, more than 20 Restrukt! participants were charged. Some of them were minors, often from well-heeled families. Neither was the movement helped by the fact that one of its leading activists, Roman Zheleznov, fled to Ukraine to fight in the Azov regiment. Restrukt! had foreign branches in Belarus, Ukraine and Germany, but they did not perpetrate violence in these countries, restricting itself to distributing extremist propaganda connected with the promotion of a healthy life-style (Melnikov 2014). Martsinkevich himself called Okkupaipedofilyai ‘a social project intended to promote National Socialism, uncover the essence of liberal opinions and bring attention to these issues.’ People wishing to participate in the ‘hunt for paedophiles’ (‘safari’), had to send a certain sum of money to Martsinkevich, for whom this generated a handsome income because these projects were very popular. Okkupai-pedofilyai, for instance, had 220,000 followers on the VKontakte social network. Restrukt! gained popularity in the Russian provinces and attracted a number of supporters who often perpetrated physical violence in the organisation’s name,

70  Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era thus exposing themselves to prosecution (Judina and Alperovitch 2014a). When extradited from Cuba to Russia, Martsinkevich was arrested and in June 2017 was given a ten-year custodial sentence for crimes committed as part of his ‘project’. His accomplices—a total of nine people—were given sentences ranging from three to ten years (SOVA 2017b). For Martsinkevich, Restrukt! was also a business project that—via a Ponzi scheme called ‘Tesak money’—provided him with finances. Atakaand other organisations Unhappy that Restrukt! was primarily a device for Martsinkevich’s self-aggrandisement, several activists left the movement and in June 2014 founded Ataka (Attack). The founders, led by Vladimir Kudryashev, announced that they intended to continue with National-Socialist propaganda and to become more involved in ‘social’ projects such as Okkupaipedofilyai and Okkupai-narkofilyai. Ataka members took part in raids on immigrants, of which at least one was organised in cooperation with the police. They spread propaganda on social networks and posted bills and stickers inciting hatred and violence. In autumn 2014, a prosecution was launched against the Ataka leadership, including the bosses Stanislav Mityaev and Vladimir Tkach from Moscow region, as well as other leading members. In May 2016, they were given short, suspended sentences ranging from ten months to two-and-a-half years. Former Ataka leaders Maksim Yaryshkin and Vladimir Kudryashev had been sentenced previously. Kudryashev was apprehended in the separatist Luhansk People’s Republic and extradited to Moscow, where he was sentenced to one year in a penal colony (Judina and Alperovitch 2016a). In 2016, Ataka was classified as an extremist organisation and banned. The group Northern Frontier (Rubezh severa), based in Syktyvkar in the Komi Republic in northern Russia, was a regional imitation of Restrukt! Its leader, Aleksei Kolegov, was arrested in 2015 and charged with assaulting homosexuals. To signify their support for Maidan, members of Northern Frontier repainted Syktyvkar’s statue of Lenin in the blue-and-yellow colours of the Ukrainian flag. Subsequently, in December 2015, Kolegov was sentenced to four years in prison (for torture, making death threats, vandalism and other offences); five of his supporters were each given sentences of several years. Kolegov the ‘businessman’ operated in ways largely similar to the methods used by Restrukt!: posing as a variety of minors on the internet, he arranged dates with targets, whom his adherents would beat, tie up, demean, threaten and accuse of paedophilia. All of this would be recorded on camera and posted on the organisation’s website. At the trial, the perpetrators described themselves as ‘paedophile hunters’ (BNKomi 2016). The trend among extremist organisations to commit aggressive raids on immigrants, on those who drank alcohol in public, on drug dealers, etc., buckled throughout 2013 under the measures taken by Russian law

Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era 71 enforcement agencies, which would not tolerate these organisations usurping what was properly their own public role. The organisations Sober Cities (Trezvye dvory), Rostislav Antonov’s Civic Patrol (Grazhdanskii patrul’), Lion Against (Lev protiv), People’s Squad (Narodnaya druzhina) and others on an ad hoc basis fought against public drinking. Previously, Igor Mangushev’s organisation Light Russia (Svetlaya Rus’) and Ulyana Sporykhinova’s relatively well known project Guestbusters, linked at the time with the ‘Russians’ coalition movement, organised raids on immigrants.

Pogroms on Caucasians and Central Asians: The ‘Kondopoga Technology’ An important form of activity by right-wing extremists is their attempt to publicise violent incidents involving people from the Caucasus and Central Asia. This is done to mobilise their followers, gain new supporters and attract media attention to their activities, thus hoping to create the impression of being an important element of Russia’s political and social life. The objective is to gain as much political capital from these events as possible. From 2002 to 2011, it was the DPNI that particularly benefited from these attempts to destabilise the political situation in Russia by stirring nationalist passions and conflicts. Any conflict involving Russians and persons of another ethnicity was exploited to this end. Any such brawl was presented as ‘inter-ethnic conflict’ or ‘licence on the part of foreigners who hate Russians’. Spotting an opportunity, DPNI activists would arrive in a town and distribute provocative leaflets discriminating against the target group (Caucasians, immigrants in general, etc.). A ‘people’s meeting’ would be organised, which, unlike a rally, could legally be called without authorisation by government officials. The event would be coordinated over the internet. The ‘meeting’ would adopt a resolution, and skirmishes with the police and attempts at pogroms would follow. Table 3.1 provides an overview of these violent clashes and the role that extremist organisations played in them from 2006 to 2015. The turning point in incitement to riot came with the events in Karelian Kondopoga, after which the political technology of right-wing nationalists was revealed. It was on the back of these events in September 2006 that the DPNI established a media presence and Belov became notorious nationally. The events also made the police realise they should not underestimate such threats, as a situation where the security forces lose control over the situation was entirely unacceptable to the Putin regime. According to Vladimir Basmanov, officials of Putin’s presidential administration began to fear that Kondopoga was merely the beginning of something ‘coming to Russia from abroad with the aim of destabilising Putin’s regime’ (Volchek 2016a). The Kondopoga scenario was never successfully repeated, however, because law enforcement agencies have been aware of these plans and are able to prevent the spread of violence (Kozhevnikova 2008). However, attempts

Table 3.1  Violent clashes instigated by Russian extremist organisations 2006–2015 Date and place

Cause, progress and consequences of unrest

Role of extremist organisations

September 2006, Sal’ske (Rostov Oblast)

A brawl between Russians and Dagestanis; one person dead and several seriously injured. There was no pogrom. The police immediately arrested those suspected of murder.

DPNI activists arrived relatively late, the emotions having calmed down in the meantime and there was merely shouting of xenophobic slogans.

September 2006, Kondopoga (Karelia)

A brawl between Russians and Caucasians in a pub developed into a mass affray during which two Russians were killed and six persons were injured. When a mob assembled, a pogrom was started, which caused large-scale property damage that Russian law enforcement agencies were unable to prevent.

DPNI managed to encourage violence. It called a ‘people’s meeting’ on 2 September 2006 in which about 3,000 people participated, followed by pogroms on the property of Caucasians in the city (looting and arson attacks) and calls for deportation. The police were unable to control the situation for several days. DPNI recorded its greatest-ever success, which it sought to repeat over the following years.

May–June 2007, Stavropol

A brawl between Russians and Caucasians, larger skirmishes on the edge of town and the spreading of panic rumours. Shortly thereafter two Russian students were brutally murdered, with the deaths ascribed to Chechens. Disturbances resulted in one person dead, several injured and material damage, as well as attempted arson.

Belov immediately travelled to Stavropol for a ‘people’s meeting’, which ultimately took place without him as he was detained when entering the city. RONS leader Igor Artemov was present; the police foiled an attempt to destabilise the situation.

July 2007, Kharagun (Zabaikalsky Krai)

A brawl between Russians and Azerbaijanis resulted in a pogrom that left one dead, four injured and caused substantial property damage. All suspects were arrested and subsequently sentenced.

The attempts of local DPNI activists to take matters into their own hands under the guise of a ‘national-liberation struggle of the Russian people against occupiers’ was thwarted by the district prosecutor’s office.

January 2008, Belorechensk (Krasnodar Krai)

A brawl between Russian and Armenian youths at a discotheque, in which one Russian youth died. Local authorities denied the incident took place, and activists who decided to investigate on their own were arrested by police.

The DPNI joined the conflict, distributing anti-Caucasian leaflets in the city; DPNI activists from Moscow came too late (a month after the incident), and the situation quieted down in the meantime.

August 2008, Karagai (Perm Krai)

A bar brawl developed into mass clashes between Russians and Chechens. Police ended the clashes, but there was a further brawl in the hospital where the injured were treated.

The DPNI sought to exploit the situation. Local NGOs informed the population about the situation and prevented the extremists from asserting an information monopoly.

September 2009, Lunevo (Moscow Oblast’)

A brawl between locals and immigrants from Central Asia; three locals were knifed (two died). Suspects were arrested, but the situation was so tense that local building companies had to evacuate their guest workers.

DPNI and RONS activists got involved in the conflict, which did not develop further thanks to the security measures taken (reinforced police patrols and the evacuation of guest workers from building sites).

July 2010, Moscow

Yurii Volkov, a football hooligan of FC Spartak Moscow, was killed in a brawl with Caucasians near a metro station.

1,500–3,000 football hooligans participated in protests against ‘ethnic crime’, which were anti-Caucasian in character. Police kept the situation under control.

October 2010, Khot’kovo, Moscow Oblast’

In a brawl between locals and Tajik guest workers, one local was killed and another seriously injured. Ethnic hatred on the part of the Tajiks was the most likely cause of the assault.

Suspects were arrested and the police informed the locals. Several days later, nationalists helped organise a ‘people’s meeting’ demanding deportation of the guest workers, who were taken away from the town; one dormitory burned down. After another ‘people’s meeting’, the protesters succeeded in having the guest workers moved out of town. (Continued )

Table 3.1  Violent clashes instigated by Russian extremist organisations 2006–2015 (Continued ) Date and place

Cause, progress and consequences of unrest

Role of extremist organisations

July 2012, Demyanovo (Kirov Oblast)

Following a brawl between a Russian and a Dagestani, dozens of people arrived on site. The place was cordoned by the police, who prevented large-scale clashes but not small conflicts. There was a rally (about 300 people).

Nationalists spoke about inter-ethnic conflict and sought to escalate the situation by spreading disinformation, but the situation calmed down and the nationalists lost interest in the developments in Demyanovo.

December 2012, Nevinomyssk (Stavropol Krai)

Two Chechens murdered a Russian youth in a bar.

A ‘people’s meeting’ was called and attended by 300, including far-right activists, mobilised through the internet. Some nationalists attempted to block a major road, and several people were arrested. Later, another assembly was held (of about 300 people); frictions arose between the locals and the nationalists. On the basis of the event, a rally in support of the town’s inhabitants was held in January 2013, under the banner of ‘Stavropol region is not the Caucasus’.

March 2013, Rostov-on-Don

Aleksandr Terekhov, football hooligan supporting FC Rostov, was killed in a brawl with Caucasians.

An event dubbed the ‘Day of Russian Wrath’ was held in at least ten cities, but was of significance only in Moscow (attracting about 200 people). The initiative was relatively successful, showing that nationalists in the regions were able to organise themselves even outside important anniversaries.

June 2013, Udomlya (Tver Oblasť )

Locals had a fight with Caucasians.

Nikolai Bondarik organised a ‘people’s meeting’; 300–400 nationalists arrived in town. There was no escalation of the situation, which soon quieted down.

July 2013, Pugachov (Saratov Oblasť )

Paratrooper Ruslan Marzhan was killed in a brawl with a Chechen. Unauthorised protests followed, with demonstrators repeatedly seeking to block the Volgograd-Samara highway and organise pogroms on a housing estate where Chechens lived. Local government officials sought to stabilise the situation and to calm down the protesters, who demanded that the Caucasians be moved out of town; the authorities were initially unsuccessful, but the situation later calmed down.

Unlike in Udomlya and elsewhere, in Pugachov the nationalists did not have to incite locals to march under xenophobic banners (they usually did so, but were largely unsuccessful). Nationalists attempted to enter the town, but the police prevented them from doing so. The only one to get through was the former chief of the Kaluga branch of the ‘Russians’ movement, Shishkin, who appeared in front of the locals. Nationalists sought to keep their supporters highly mobilised, and there was scaremongering on the internet. The situation in the town quieted in a matter of days. Following the events, nationalists led rallies ‘against ethnic crime’, hoping to keep the issue of inter-ethnic conflict topical.

October 2013, BiryulevoZapadnoe suburb (Moscow)

When an Azerbaijani killed a young man, there were immediate protests under xenophobic banners, which quickly developed into open pogroms. The locals had long complained about vegetable storehouses and shops where a number of criminal incidents occurred. Substantial numbers of extreme-right supporters lived among the locals (e.g. the group Biryulevo Front (Biryulevskiy front) had about 100 members).

The ‘Russians’ movement helped organise a ‘people’s meting’ that developed into riots with local nationalist participants. Biryulevo pogroms were reported in main news bulletins, and nationalist websites started to mobilise supporters. A few days later, nationalists called up a large mob, which was blocked by the police; 276 were arrested. Police also prevented other attempted rallies (arresting about 100). Nationalists played an important role but were unable to ignite mass protest in other Russian towns or cities.

(Continued )

Table 3.1  Violent clashes instigated by Russian extremist organisations 2006–2015 (Continued ) Date and place

Cause, progress and consequences of unrest

Role of extremist organisations

November 2013, Omsk

Murder of boxer Ivan Klimov in Omsk, allegedly knifed by a Roma criminal gang.

Local protest largely concerned with the ineffectiveness of the police, right-wing nationalists rather lukewarm (more vocal on the internet); they did not seek to enter the city and lead the protests.

December 2013, Arzamas (Nizhegorod Oblasť )

Conflict between customers and waiting staff in a restaurant; the brawl resulted in stab wounds, and one youth died.

Around 50 people demanded that markets be closed to non-Russian stallholders. There was further assembly (300–1,000 persons) and pogroms in town, and some people were arrested by the police. These events did not gain much interest among the nationalists, who did not attempt to exploit the situation for political purposes.

January 2014, Astrakhan’

A young girl committed suicide; she was allegedly abducted by a Dagestani and held in slavery.

Local branches of ‘Russians’ and the NDP organised a rally against ethnic crime; about 50 activists showed up, and the locals ignored the rally.

May 2014, St Petersburg

Death of Leonid Safyannikov, a football hooligan supporting FC Spartak Moscow, in a brawl with Uzbeks.

The largest event of 2014, a rally of football hooligans (300–500 people). Police apprehended 60 people who were damaging the stalls of non-Russian stallholders.

January 2015, Mineral’nye Vody (Stavropol Krai)

Armenians murdered an army contractor in the Opera café.

Participants of a ‘people’s meeting’ (about 150 persons) attempted to block the main road, but there were no arrests. The event was reported in the media, but did not satisfy nationalists, as it was not nationalist in character. The slogans were not concerned with Armenians, but with incompetence and corruption in local government and the police. Nationalists attempted to call another ‘people’s meeting’, but that did not take place and the nationalist internet channels where the call was posted were blocked.

February 2015, Moscow

Murder of a student of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University.

The ‘Russians’ movement called a ‘people’s meeting’, which was peaceful despite the organisers’ efforts. Several dozen people arrived and placed flowers at the place of the murder.

DPNI: Dvizhenie protivne legal’noi immigratsii (Movement Against Illegal Immigration); RONS: Russkii obshche natsional’nyi soyuz (Russian All-National Union); NGO: nongovernmental organization; FC: football (soccer) club; NDP: Natsional-demokraticheskaya partiya (National Democratic Party). Sources:  Judina and Alperovich 2013, 2014a, 2014b; Kozhevnikova 2009b; Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2011.

78  Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era to repeat Kondopoga are occasionally accompanied by inflexible and unprofessional police action and a lack of credible information about what is happening where the unrest takes place. Thanks to this, ordinary conflicts may develop into larger clashes; if culprits are not punished (due to corruption, for instance), people are fuelled by righteous anger, and an information vacuum facilitates the spread of rumours, myths and conspiracy theories, which the nationalists like to exploit, turning ordinary conflict into inter-ethnic clashes (Judina, Alperovitch and Verkhovskii 2013). Fearing a negative image of their district or village, local government and law enforcement authorities seek to block any information from the location, thus giving a media monopoly to nationalist organisations, and even official media then sometimes draw on information provided by nationalists (Kozhevnikova 2009a). An essential part of this strategy is the nationalists’ claim that the Russian government and police are always on the side of the non-Russians. Beyond hooligan affray in Manezhnaya Square in Central Moscow in December 2010, another milestone in the history of these conflicts was passed with the riots in the Biryulevo-Zapadnoe suburb, after which ethnic xenophobia increased, anti-immigration discourse became more widespread, and state officials considered introducing visas for people from Central Asia and Southern Caucasus. The events have also shown how effective pogroms can be for the nationalists; they are portrayed as the best and quickest solution to any local issue which, the nationalists allege, the government has been ignoring for years (Judina and Alperovitch 2014a). Due to police repression of both the leaders and the rank-and-file of nationalist organisations, these attempts were thwarted and no such events had occurred at the time of this writing (December 2017).

Conclusion Over recent years, militant right-wing nationalism in Russia has seen some turbulent developments and ended very much on the defensive against repression by the state. As late as 2013, the main activities of most militant right-wing nationalist organisations included various attempted raids, most often based on anti-migrant rhetoric, especially employed by opposition right-wing nationalists who dominated this political camp at the time. Police forces, however, demonstrated that they would not tolerate the provoking of open pogroms. The situation changed after the eruption of war in Ukraine, which split the radical nationalists’ camp and was one of the reasons why the ‘Russians’ coalition fell apart. At that time, the police increasingly targeted opposition right-wing radical nationalists. Furthermore, since 2015, militant nationalist entities seem unable to gain support: their public events are sparsely attended, there is much less racist violence, and there has not been a single conflict that would give them hope of repeating the Kondopoga scenario. Against the background of the conflict with Ukraine, pro-Putin nationalist associations have taken

Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era 79 centre stage (they largely rely on Orthodox and Imperial rhetoric, support for Novorossiya, resistance to the West and the ‘fifth column’). Opposition right-wing nationalists have assumed an entirely defensive position, limiting their attempts to point to repression of their right-wing leaders. At present, they have no central organisation or coalition able to regain their previous status, and they alienate their core membership of National-Socialist autonomists by siding with the anti-Putin liberal opposition (Parnas and others). In St Petersburg, the supporters of ‘Russian Spring’ face no real competition, and only a small group of those who do not support the official propaganda remains—a small fraction of Demushkin’s Slavic Power. A major problem of contemporary militant ethnic nationalists is their lack of leadership. After the first generation of leaders in the 1990s (Vasilev, Barkashov), the second generation (Belov, Demushkin) was still capable in organisational terms and were publicly known, but the present third generation (Basmanov, Beletskii, Gorskii) feud among themselves and live in exile. Thus, the militant camp presently lacks leaders and ideologues. For that reason, activists who are close to nationalism but operate within the non-militant, democratic camp, such as Vyacheslav Maltsev and Aleksei Navalnyi, are among those who court the militants.

Notes 1. Viktor Cherepkov (Rodina party) attended several rallies organised by rightwing extremists and appointed a neo-Nazi skinhead from the SS as his assistant. Sergei Ivanov (LDPR) cooperated with the NSO at the time. Andrei Savelev, the ideologist of Rogozin’s Rodina, joined the DPNI in 2006. Sergei Baburin collaborated with the extremists in organising the 2006 Russian March, which was registered on his political entity (Kozhevnikova 2007). In December 2007 only two deputies cooperating with extremists were voted in to the State Duma, both on a LDPR ticket: Sergei Ivanov (who cooperated with the NSO) and Ivan Musatov (member of the 2006 Russian March organisation council). The radical nationalists lost the opportunity to lobby for their interests at the national level. However, the importance of the Duma as an independent legislature gradually decreased in parallel with these developments (Kozhevnikova 2008). 2. In February 2012 in Kazakhstan, Belov allegedly met representatives of Kazakh and Cossack organisations and proposed to establish a training camp in Kyrgyzstan. Subsequently he led closed training sessions for nationalist Kazakh youth. By doing so, it is alleged, he sought to destabilise state power in Kazakhstan and introduce chaos to the country, discredit the Kazakh government, etc. (Judina and Alperovitch 2015). 3. Belov’s colleagues claim that he knew what was in store for him and was preparing to leave Russia. Before his arrest, Belov was allegedly visited by FSB officers who offered him the option of ‘redeeming himself’ by organising the transfer of Russian extremists into Ukraine, where they would fight in voluntary battalions or the National Guard. The aim was supposedly twofold: first, the FSB would be rid of these people or could prosecute them, and second, it would broaden its agency network within these structures. Belov allegedly rejected the offer and was then arrested (Tumanov 2014a).

80  Militant right-wing extremism in Putin era













4. Euromaidan (or the Revolution of Dignity) were mass protests of Ukrainians against the corrupted and authoritarian regime of Victor Janukovich in the Ukraine. These started in Kiev’s Independence Square (in Ukrainian Maidan Nezalezhnosti) in the autumn of 2013, after Janukovich refused to sign an Association Agreement with the EU, which the Ukrainian public felt as the country becoming a Russian satellite. These protests finished in February 2014 when Janukovich was deposed and fled to Russia. 5. Allegedly suspected of grassing on fellow members (i.e. informing law enforcement), a member of the movement from Ulan-Ude was held in Borovikov’s flat; for several days he was physically tortured and his papers and money were taken away from him. 6. ROD presented itself as a human-rights organisation and it defended persons charged with racially motivated attacks (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2011). In these efforts it was joined by the Moscow Defence League (its leader, Daniil Konstantinov, was prosecuted on a trumped-up murder charge, but after two and a half years in custody he was released and later emigrated to Thailand). At the time, many organisations focused on providing aid to imprisoned activists, most notably ROD, Russian Verdict in connection with Russian Image, Aleksei Samsonov’s Right-Wing League, Maksim Martsinkevich’s Phoenix, the NSI and the former P.O.W. Centre of Sergei Golubev (Blood and Honour). 7. Police repression continued to target these groups. Before the September 2016 parliamentary elections, Ratnikov called on his supporters to vote for the liberal opposition party Parnas, after which he was abducted by plain-clothes police officers and given a one-year suspended sentence for having put several songs by White Powerbands Kolovrat and Moscow Band on his VKontakte social media wall back in 2011 as a minor—the bands were only subsequently deemed extremist by the judiciary (Mediazona 2016). 8. On 5 November 2017, there were mass detainments in Moscow, ahead of an event planned by Vyacheslav Maltsev’s Artpodgotovka, who in 2013 had designated 5 November 2017 as the day for a quiet revolution: he appealed to people to come to cities’ central squares and remain there until the country’s government resigned. Meanwhile, he himself left Russia. Arrests started as early as mid-October in many cities (up to 500 people nationwide), but it is unclear how many of them were actual Artpodgotovka members or sympathisers (SOVA 2017c). 9. A sales assistant at a bookshop, at the trial he let it be known that his aim was fighting Jewish oligarchs and ‘he had merely trained himself on the biomass— the immigrants’. 10. General Aleksei Ermolov led the first part of the Russian campaign of conquest in Northern Caucasus during the first half of the nineteenth century. He became notorious for his brutal methods, which according to some bordered on genocide. Thanks to this he is a hero for many Russian radical nationalists and serves them as an example of how North Caucasian nations should be treated. 11. Nicknamed ‘Vanya the Bonebreaker’, as this was what he sought to do to when fighting with neo-Nazis.

4

Right-wing extremist subcultures in the Russian Federation

National-Socialist skinheads Skinheads (britogolovye, skinkhedy) first appeared in Russia in the early 1990s. During the first half of that decade, there were between 150 and 200 skinheads in Moscow, mostly working-class individuals and in part recruited from criminal gangs on housing estates (Belikov 2011: 25). In the second half of the decade, their numbers grew to thousands throughout Russia. Russian neo-Nazi skinheads adopted neo-Nazi ideas and (mostly) neo-pagan symbolism. Biological racism and the rejection of ‘foreign’ elements, especially non-Slavic ethnicities, were usually of primary importance. During the second half of the 1990s, skinheads started to replenish the ranks of certain marginal militant nationalist organisations. In Moscow, the pioneer of this cooperation was the Russian National Socialist Party (Russkaya natsional’nayasotsialisticheskaya partiya, RNSP), formerly the Russian National Union (Russkii natsional’nii soyuz), led by Konstantin Kasimovskii, and the neo-Nazi organisation National Front led by Ilya Lazarenko.1 Some skinheads joined Barhashov’s Russian National Unity (Russkoe natsional’noe edinstvo, RNE) and organisations that emerged from it after 1999, such as Dmitrii Demushkin’s Slavic Union and the NationalSocialist Society (Natsional-sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo, NSO). After 2000, Aleksandr Ivanov-Sukharevskii’s People’s National Party (Narodnaya natsional’naya partiya, NNP) intensively courted the subculture; IvanovSukharevskii was joined by the leader of the skinhead group Russian Goal (Russkayatsel’), Semen Tokmakov. In St Petersburg, Yurii Belyaev’s Party of Freedom (which had been, until 2001, the National-Socialist Party of Russia) was particularly active. In the late 1990s, the media started to report violent acts committed by neo-Nazi skinheads, most often physical assaults against people of nonSlavic appearance. The assaults were occasionally fatal but not as frequently as those that were committed about 10 years later. After 2000, as the number of supporters of this subculture grew, and as it became more popular the violence increased, sometimes erupting into pogroms. Skinheads largely targeted marketplaces and living spaces of non-Russian workers.

82  Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation Among the largest and best-known pogroms of this time was that against the Yasenevo market on 21 April 2001 (about 300 skinheads were involved; 10 people were wounded, and 50 were arrested). It was organised by Andrei Semiletnikov, deputy editor of the nationalist newspaper Russkii Khozyain, who was later acquitted of charges connected with the attack. In October 2001 there was another pogrom at the Tsaritsynskii market (300 people were involved; four peoped died, and 22 were injured). Mikhail Volkov, a leading member of United Brigades-88 (Obiedinennye brigady-88, OB-88) who later became a major figure in the Combat Organisation of Russian Nationalists (Boevaya organizatsiya russkikh natsionalistov, BORN), was subsequently sentenced for organising the pogrom. Many skinhead leaders of the late 1990s and the early 2000s later appeared as leaders of influential and sometimes internationally known groups, including members of OB-88 in BORN and Blood & Honour; Dmitrii Demushkin as the founder and leader of the Slavic Union and Slavic Power; Dmitrii Bobrov and Aleksei Maksimov as leaders of the National-Socialist Initiative; and Maksim Martsinkevich as the leader of several organisations. United Brigades-88 OB-88 was a legendary skinhead organisation of the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was a large and well-organised group, estimated to have up to 200 members who met largely at concerts of White Power bands in Moscow. OB-88 was created in 1998 through a merger of smaller skinhead groups such as the White Bulldogs (Belyebuldogi) and the Lefortovo Front. Having energised its activities, OB-88 assumed a leading position among skinhead organisations in Moscow (Tarasov 2004), and membership was considered a matter of prestige in Moscow’s skinhead circles. OB-88 took part in pogroms (e.g. Yasenevo and Tsaritsynskii markets in 2001) and unrest in central Moscow’s Manezhnaya Square in 2002, as well as in numerous attacks on immigrants. It did not have an official leadership, though at one time the 18-year-old Mikhail ‘Patrik’ Volkov was a pretender to the role of leader. He was subsequently arrested as the organiser of the Tsaritsynskii market pogrom and sentenced to nine years in a penal colony (the sentence was later commuted to five years, but he was released after three-and-ahalf years). He later joined BORN. When the trial of BORN leaders was launched, he fled to Kiev, where he worked in a number of advertising agencies; he was later extradited to be tried in Russia (Litoi 2015). Other BORN members were also formerly involved in OB-88: Aleksandr ‘Romanian’ Parinov, Aleksei ‘Korshun’ Korshunov, Mikhail Kudryavtsev (subsequently a witness in the Goryachev trial, a member of the pro-Kremlin movement Young Guard of United Russia) and Aleksei Mitryushin. Mitryushin was allegedly tasked with preparing contacts with the presidential administration in the Russian Image, and formerly the chief of the headquarters of the pro-Kremlin youth organisation ‘Locals’ (Mestnye). Mitryushin

Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation 83 had previously been the leader of the FC CSKA hooligan ‘firm’ known as the Gallant Steeds, and later he allegedly gave Goryachev the task of discrediting Aleksandr Belov of Movement Against Illegal Immigration (Dvizhenie protivnelegal’no iimmigratsii, DPNI). After Volkov, Sergei ‘SS’ Nikulkin came into OB-88 leadership; he later joined the pro-Kremlin youth organisation ‘Locals’. He maintained contact with Goryachev, allegedly giving him money and managing certain matters for nationalist circles (e.g., obtaining a permit for a concert by the band Kolovrat in central Moscow in 2009, etc.). He also cultivated contact with some state officials. Traces of Nikulkin disappear around 2009 (Prusenkova 2015). Other members of OB-88 included the leader of the Russian branch of Blood & Honour, Sergei ‘Oper’ Golubev, and Nikita Korolev, who organised the bombing of the Cherkizovskii market in 2006. Other skinhead organisations In the late 1990s Semen Tokmakov founded the Russian Goal (Russkayatsel’). At the outset, this group comprised about 25 people, but after an attack on an African-American security guard at the U.S. embassy—an act that attracted media attention and earned Tokmakov a prison sentence of several years, during which he became acquainted with NNP leader Ivanov-Sukharevskii—the membership expanded to between 80 and 90. Later, in 2001–2003, Tokmakov served as representative of the NNP (the youth section was led by Andrei Kail) and joined the editorial team of the party’s publication Ya-Russkii (‘I am a Russian’). In 2003 he left the NNP and accused its leader of being homosexual. From 2003 to 2007 Tokmakov served as assistant to Rodina deputy Nikolai Pavlov. Later in 2003, Ivanov-Sukharevskii lost an eye in a bomb attack, and NNP activities declined substantially. After a pause of several years, the party renewed its activities (Kozhevnikova 2009a). In December 2014, NNP entered a coalition named the Russian National Front. In St Petersburg, the skinhead group Schultz-88 was founded on 20 April 2001, Hitler’s birthday, by 25-year-old Dmitrii Bobrov, who also used ‘Schultz’ as his nickname. Although not very large (50 members at most), the group attracted substantial media attention. It published a magazine, Made in St Petersburg. The prosecution files of the group’s members detailed more than 15 assaults, many of which involved iron rods and knives (Terentev 2006). The group organised several concerts by the neo-Nazi bands Svarog, Pozitsiya and Kolovrat. In 2003 the police arrested the group, and Bobrov was subsequently given a six-year custodial sentence. When released in 2011, he founded the National-Socialist Initiative (Natsional’naya-sotsialistichesk ayainitsiativa, NSI), well known in the St Petersburg neo-Nazi community (it was banned by the judiciary in September 2015). Aleksei ‘Fly’ Maksimov, who in 2002 was sentenced to nine years for murder, was a co-founder of the NSI. Earlier Maksimov was the leader of one of the oldest skinhead groups in St Petersburg, Totenkopf. He used to travel to Ukraine

84  Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation for marches celebrating the Ukrainian SS division ‘Galicia’ (Maltsev 2016). Out of this group emerged members of the neo-Nazi gang Combat Terrorist Group (Boevaya terroristicheskaya organizarsiya), including its leader Dmitrii Borovikov, a cult figure in Russia’s neo-Nazi circles (see Chapter 6 for details). Another St Petersburg group, Solstice (Solntsevorot), was led by Artem Talakin, considered one of the founders of the skinhead movement in St Petersburg who was sentenced in the 1990s to several years for assaulting an Azerbaijani. Talakin later left the movement and began to style himself as an expert on extremism and social psychology. The evolution of neo-Nazi skinhead subculture since 2005 and White Power music Around 2005, it was not just right-wing extremist organisations that sought to win neo-Nazi skinheads to their side, but Kremlin youth organisations, particularly Nashi, also attempted to enlist such groups to use them in their fight against potential manifestations of ‘colour revolutions’ in Russia. There were also close links between a small number of skinheads and the organisation Marching Together (Idushchievmeste). Vasilii Yakemenko, the leader of a number of Kremlin youth organisations, spoke many times about their readiness to ‘work’ with skinheads with the aim of their ‘re-education’ (Kozhevnikova 2006). With the change in methods and techniques of racist violence around 2006 (e.g. the emergence of racist neo-Nazi gangs and an increasing number of hate murders and attempts at terrorist activities), there was a substantial transformation within the skinhead movement. This subculture had historically consisted largely of youths aged 13–19 years from large-city housing estates. Around 2006, members began staying in the movement into their 20s. Furthermore, the ‘veterans’ of the skinhead movement began to return from jail. Emergent militant sports clubs transformed packs of underage, housing-estate skinheads into prototypical attack squads, sought after by radical nationalist organisations. This ‘ripening’ of the subculture brought an increase in its intellectual and social capabilities, thus facilitating its penetration into schools, cultivating links with the police, finding new options of financial and legal aid from nationalist groups, etc. (Kozhevnikova 2007). By 2009–2010, however, the subculture was going out of fashion and was replaced by interest in autonomous radical nationalists like the subcultural movement National-Socialist (NS) Straight-Edge. ‘Autonomous neo-Nazis’ became an umbrella term for non-organised young neo-Nazis, but it did not define a particular subculture. As in the late 1990s with skinheads, right-wing nationalist organisations now sought to win support among the autonomous neo-Nazis. The so-called White Power(WP) music, which emerged from the skinhead subculture in the mid-1990s, has maintained its popularity. The Russian WP scene began to develop around 1994 (until then there were the unsuccessful, and not fully formed, groups Totenkopf from St Petersburg and Crack

Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation 85 from Moscow). In 1994 the band Russian Ghetto (Russkoegetto) was formed; the band changed its name to Kolovrat in 1997. Another Moscow-based WP band called Shturm appeared in spring 1996, and a third, Radegast, emerged in early 1997. The first WP concerts in Moscow were organised by Shturm in 1996. The most influential regional WP band was T.N.F. (Terror National Front) from Yaroslavl, later based in Moscow under the name Ataka 28. Since then the WP scene has mushroomed in Russia. In 1998–1999, new bands appeared: Ultra (Ivanovo), Vandal and Ultimatum (later known as Banda Moskvy) from Moscow. Today, several dozen WP bands exist in Russia, ranging generically from the traditional Rock Against Communism (RAC)2 style through hatecore,3 NS black metal and other forms of metal,4 including ambient, industrial and darkwave,5 rap and even techno (Oleg SS, DJ Kholokost: 88). The best-known WP band is certainly Kolovrat, which made the Russian WP movement famous on the international scene. Blood & Honour Russia The Russian branch of the transnational neo-Nazi network Blood & Honour (B&H), known as Blood & Honour Russia (Krovi chest’ Rossiya) emerged from the skinhead subculture. It was allegedly founded in 1995 following a meeting in Budapest between Russian neo-Nazis and B&H Berlin. Blood & Honour was originally founded in the 1980s in the United Kingdomby Ian Stuart Donaldson, front man of the neo-Nazi band Skrewdriver. This group initially commanded significant authority in Russian neo-Nazi circles and organised concerts of WP bands such as T.N.F. and Vandal.6 It had branches in Ryazan’, St Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don. Around 2003, after several of its leaders were arrested, the movement stagnated. The radical branch in Ryazan’, led by Maksim Makienko, joined the then-emergent NSO. Belarusian Sergei ‘Oper’ Golubev (born on May 1983 in Minsk region), member of WP bands T.N.F. and Ataka 28, gradually achieved a leading position in B&H Russia, which was allegedly previously led by another member of T.N.F. Golubev also controlled the label BHR Records, which issued about 10 CDs and was present at overseas concerts that celebrated Ian Stuart Donaldson. He was also involved in organising the youth section, known as BH Supports, and the Internet project Pravoe radio. Yurii Karlash, one of the co-founders, was later tried for murder. In 2008 Golubev founded P.O.W. Centre and started to cooperate with Russian Image. The B&H leader became famous for seeking to sign as many Russian WP bands as possible to the B&H brand. Although he managed to sign Vandal, T.N.F., Ataka 28 and some less well known bands from Kuban’ region (thanks to the B&H branch in Rostov and links with hooligan bands Division 600, Radikal’nyigolos Dona and GR.OM), he failed to monopolise the production of Russian WP music. Golubev collected money to aid jailed neo-Nazis, under the heading of P.O.W. Centre, from various activists and shops selling neo-Nazi insignia and clothing (he helped to develop the chain

86  Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation of Thor Steinar shops), allegedly using methods of persuasion bordering on a protection racket (Blog Ilya Goryachev 2015). Although the organisation probably never had more than 30 members (mostly older skinheads), its reputation was strong. Thanks to personal links with Kuban’ hooligans from the Wild Legion firm, B&H had branches in Novorossiisk and Rostov-onDon. The alleged leader of the Rostov branch was an inspector of the Federal Immigration Service (and former member of Spetsnaz, Russian special forces), Dmitrii Fedorushkin, who was also involved in the hooligan firm Wild Legion of FC Rostov. He was a B&H member from 2006. In 2010 Fedorushkin was arrested for attempting to bomb a Federal Immigration Service office, where he himself worked, and he was subsequently sentenced to 17 years in prison. Golubev cultivated neo-Nazis from the city of Orel, including the ‘Orel Partisans’ (see Chapter 5). From 2008 Golubev was increasingly inspired by the radical Islam (Salafism) of the insurgent group Caucasus Emirate. At the time, Golubev wrote to Goryachev: ‘Many NS and skinhead-jamaats support Doku’ (meaning the former leader of the Caucasus Emirate, Doku Umarov). Goryachev also sent word to a friend to the effect that Golubev was preparing jihad in Russia: ‘His base is in Orel … the local tyros plus “Novoross” (the B&H ‘division’ in Novorossiisk. They do not even conceal their contacts with the Chechens …’ (Maltsev 2016). He admired the ideology of the Kavkaz-tsentr website Movladi Udugov and other Islamist insurgents in the Northern Caucasus. At that time he began to talk about the supremacy of Islam and the ‘conception of Russian jihad’, which was to consist of a combination of Caucasus jihadis’ efforts with Golubev’s own objective of overthrowing the regime. Before a concert in Orel in January 2009, Golubev announced that in Russia ‘a true war against the Russian nation has flared up’, which he described as genocide. ‘The youth resists this and the state power jails them for it. […] Nationalist movements must consider Russia a battlefield, and in this struggle priority must be given to the destruction of foreign elements and their businesses, as well as the elimination of members of the state security forces. The main means of this struggle must be bomb attacks.’ Golubev described North Caucasian jihadis as a real force because they actually fought the government. After the concert he once again spoke about the jihadis, describing their ideologist Movladi Udugov as the best propagandist since Goebbels. To his friends he sent links to lectures by Said Buryatski, urged them to read books by Sheikh Mansur (an eighteenth-century Chechen leader) and claimed that he had funds to create an underground organisation similar to the Caucasus Emirate (Falkovskii and Litoi 2013: 176–177). At this time B&H rhetoric changed profoundly: the Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Security Service (Federal’naya sluzhba bezopasnosti rossiyskoy federatsii, FSB) were now its main enemies. Golubev established contacts with the National Organisation of Russian Muslims (NORM), which was created in 2004 by ethnic Russians who converted

Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation 87 to Islam, of whom the overwhelming majority had been previously active in radical nationalist organisations. The movement was founded by former nationalist activist Vadim Sidorov (‘Kharunar-Rusi’), who emigrated from Russia in 2009. His deputy was Denis Mavrov (‘Amir Khamdani’), formerly a member of Barkashov’s Russian National Unity. NORM was subsequently dispersed by the Russian police, its activists emigrated and in 2014 entered into a coalition with the Ukrainian Muslim Centre (Ukrainskii musulmanskii tsentr); one of its co-founders was Odessa neoNazi Aleksandr Ogorodnikov (Maltsev 2016). Golubev visited Chechnya in March 2009. This move generated resentment among many Russian nationalist leaders who saw this as the gradual Islamisation of B&H (Maltsev 2016). B&H Russia provided practically no information about its activities and the bands operating under its brand (e.g. Ataka 28 and T.N.F.), and they gave only two interviews to Russian and Lithuanian neo-Nazi magazines (Pravye novosti 2011). From 2010 onwards, B&H largely ceased it activities due to Golubev’s prosecution in connection with the BORN case, for which he allegedly provided compromising information to the prosecution on BORN’s Tikhonov and Khasis. Ultimately the B&H website was shut down; in its place a message was posted that claimed the organisation had never existed (Litoi and Evstifeyev 2011). In the end, the judiciary declared the Russian branch of Blood & Honour extremist and banned it. According to available information, Golubev has been hiding abroad for the past several years, most likely in Belarus.

Radical autonomous nationalists (NS autonomists) Like the skinheads, radical autonomous nationalists (NS avtonomy) also emerged from a subcultural environment. They are one of the main bases of militant nationalism in Russia today (see Chapter 3 for details), who form small groups of usually five to ten members, most often unnamed, and focussed on street violence. Beyond traditional hooligan and skinhead subcultures, they style themselves alternatively as NS Straight-Edge (a hardcore punk subculture espousing an ascetic life-style), ‘people-haters’ or anarchist neo-Nazis (several groups under the heading of NS/WP and the band Volnitsa). Their ideology consists of biological racism and the emotionally motivated hatred of ‘foreign elements’, especially Caucasian ethnicities (while anti-Semitism is de rigueur for these groups, it rarely serves as a motive for physical violence). Aversion to other ethnicities, understood as ‘foreign’ or non-white, is usually linked with their cultural differences. Economic arguments and the connection of the North Caucasus with terrorism are secondary. In most cases, autonomous neo-Nazis view historical fascism and Nazism positively as a source of their opinions. However, they argue that, due to the time elapsed since their heyday, fascist political ideologies are now out-dated.

88  Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation They believe the ‘white revolution’ to be a panacea; race provides the supreme criterion and everything else—religion, form of government, the economic system and even the frontiers of the Russian Federation— are secondary details. In theory, their aim is to turn against the ‘system’, i.e. the government and its security forces, but in practice the realisation of these precepts is problematic and so actual violence is, as before, used against visually-different minorities (e.g. people from Central Asia and the Caucasus), left-wing anti-fascists, lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender activists and others (Verkhovskii 2012). Within the overall tendency to simplify their ideology, autonomous neoNazi groups create a cult of ‘white heroes’, narrowing their vision of the world into a rhetoric of war in which there are enemies, their victims and heroes. ‘War’ is understood in a literal, not figurative, sense of the word. Images of ‘victims and heroes’ are contrasted with images of the enemy, the state and its agents, especially police officers. The slogan ‘war in your town’ reflects not just a militarised vision of ethnic relations but a militarised conception of social life overall. This is why the cult of ‘white heroes’— sentenced or prosecuted neo-Nazis—is so popular in both the ‘fighting’ and the ‘political’ sections of the militant nationalism. ‘Instructional’ letters, spread in the heroes’ names (e.g. in the name of Nikola Korolev) are very popular in this environment (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2011). Some of these young neo-Nazis tend to be racist rowdies. They do not recruit solely from deprived strata of society, and they are only partially under the influence of right-wing nationalist political organisations or subcultural currents. The ties that Russian neo-Nazis maintain with their Western counterparts are not essential for the growth of the young autonomous NS movement. According to Aleksandr Verkhovskii, there has been a stronger interest in Orthodox religion recently, previously virtually absent in the neo-Nazi environment (its early days this subculture was dominated by neo-paganism or religious indifference, as well as occasional sympathies with Islam). This autonomous neo-Nazi environment is very critical of public politics. Although racist football hooligans constitute a separate environment from the autonomous neo-Nazis, there is some overlap between the two in terms of personnel and groups (Verkhovskii 2012). Political rightwing nationalists seek to attract these young people to their groups, as they did previously with skinheads. This is largely because they have no other constituency from which to draw. Towards the end of the 2000s, a segment of violent autonomous neo-Nazis grew up and acquired technical and organisational skills; now, they tend not to act openly and not to trust nationalist politicians. According to them, these political leaders have repeatedly compromised themselves and are suspected of opportunism or collaboration with the security forces. Furthermore, young autonomous neo-Nazis do not believe public political action to be effective. The experience of the NSO has shown that it is impossible to bring together public activities and systematic racist violence, as

Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation 89 the perpetrators face police action. It is precisely the young autonomous neo-Nazis who are the main asset at the Russian marches and First of May celebrations (Russkii pervomai), in which thousands took part, as opposed to the attendance of classic meetings of political extremists, which do not exceed a few hundred (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2011). The attendance of these events has declined even more dramatically recently. Sports events and tournaments are popular among the autonomous neo-Nazis, and this is something the right-wing nationalist organisations are able to exploit (in such projects as Russian runs, Resistance, etc.), ideally in conjunction with a fashion brand (e.g. White Rex). Events are held in gyms with the aims of promoting a healthy lifestyle in nationalist movements and attracting new sympathisers. Most active in this respect was Roman Zentsov’s Resistance (Soprotivlenie). Having previously cooperated with Russian Image, around 2013–2014 Resistance reactivated by organising competitions and training sessions aimed at developing combat skills, including knife-fighting techniques. Since 2014, training in knife fighting, martial arts (especially mixed martial arts), urban and field warfare, shooting and arms handling has been increasingly popular. Thanks to the war in Donbass and the militarisation of Russian society overall, some clubs openly declare that they are preparing fighters to go to Donbass on the separatists’ side (Judina and Alperovitch 2015). This does not mean that most autonomous neo-Nazis would sympathise with the Donbass separatists or the idea of ‘Novorossiya’; it is simply that it would not be safe to organise in Russia the training of fighters destined for Ukrainian voluntary battalions. Since about 2012, autonomous neo-Nazis have been particularly close to Restrukt! and Wotan Jugend; with the former dispersed by the police and the leadership of the latter having emigrated to Ukraine, they have lost their potential leaders. Most recently there has been a noticeable decrease in violence committed by autonomous neo-Nazis because they face escalating police action. As a result, their willingness to participate in public events has decreased. As just two examples, the November 2015 Russian March attracted only about one-sixth the number of autonomous neo-Nazis who attended in previous years, and the Russian First of May celebration was likewise a failure, as many wished to avoid attention from the police.) This provoked the further radicalisation of an environment that was already extremist, and there is again talk of provoking a ‘white revolution’ and encouragement to direct violent action (Judina and Alperovitch 2016b). As of December 2017, the fight for the sympathies of autonomous neo-Nazis has unfolded against the background of the overall struggle among organised militant nationalists. In 2014, the police started to repress the autonomous neo-Nazis, and several groups sought to gain influence among these circles. Before and after the November 2017 Russian March, there were disputes between Basmanov’s Nation and Freedom Committee and the Black Bloc led by Vladimir Komarnitskii on the one side, and on the other side the Party of Nationalists, with which the following have

90  Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation been allied or at least expressed support: autonomous neo-Nazis around the Intransigent League, Wotan Jugend and the exile organisation Russian Centre, the latter being for the most part made up of people who emigrated to Kiev after 2014. Also showing support for this side is the Russian Human Rights League, led by Vladimir Istarkhov.7 In this contest, the side centeredon the Party of Nationalists and the autonomous neo-Nazis who sympathise with it (e.g. Intransigent League, Wotan Jugend, Russian Centre) has the upper hand. The Intransigent League emerged around autonomous neo-Nazis who took part in Russian Marches. Initially, at the 2015 Russian March, they called themselves the Intransigent Column and were joined at the March by Slavic Power–North-West, who arrived from St Petersburg (SOVA 2015a). The Intransigent Column, then renamed the Intransigent League, was represented at the 2016 Russian March by the Saratov-based activist Ilya Sotnikov from the Party of Nationalists. In 2017, Ivan (Nyrkov) Noviopov led the Intransigent League at the Russian March. On its social-network profile, where it has the same logo as the Russian Centre (only the colour is different), the Intransigent League explained its attendance at the 2017 Russian March with reference to the following list of demands: the renewal of Russia’s statehood, total lustration (vetting) of Russia’s authorities, full de-Sovietisation of society, an end to the persecution of right-wing activists and leaders of the nationalist movement, abolition of ‘anti-extremist’ legislation and the ‘ending of criminal wars against our European brothers’. With the Russian Centre, they share the same slogan: ‘Glory to Russia, we’ll capture the homeland’ (Neprimirnaĭaliga 2017). Outside Moscow, the Intransigent League has an active branch in Samara. As part of its anti-communist activites, it organised there in June 2017 under Andrei Pershin’s leadership a tribute to Czechoslovak legions to highlight their ‘important role in the anti-Bolshevik movement’ (Russkiitsentr 2017a). As of December 2017, Noviopov is allegedly subject to prosecution. Looking now at the numbers of their followers on the Russian social network, VKontakte—which is essentially the most important indicator of their popularity—we see the following. The Party of Nationalists, which seeks to act as a patron to autonomous neo-Nazis (although the latter have reservations about the new leadership of the former and seem to recognise Demushkin primarily),8 has 21,500 followers, whereas the Nation and Freedom Committee have fewer than 9,000 followers. Of those VKontakte profiles that target autonomous neo-Nazis, the Black Bloc has 350 followers (https://vk.com/black88block) and Komarnitskii’s parallel profile, Autonomous NS of Moscow (https://vk.com/blacknsblock), has 1,700. Wotan Jugend boasts 7,100 fans, whereas the Intransigent League has fewer than 1,200 members (https://vk.com/rev_league) and the exile Russian Centre has about 3,700 followers. The kernel of the dispute between autonomous neo-Nazis siding with Wotan Jugend and the Intransigent League and those supporting the Black Bloc centres on the figure of Black Bloc leader

Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation 91 Vladimir Komarnitskii, who is accused of cooperating with the secret services. Specifically, the leadership of the Party of Nationalists has claimed that, in autumn 2016, Komarnitskii and Dmitrii Makarov were expelled, on Demushkin’s and Beletskii’s initiative, from the committee organising the Russian March because they were suspected of having links with the secret services, bringing discord into the nationalist camp and organising a physical assault on Ivan Noviopov (of the Intransigent League). The Party of Nationalists, Wotan Jugend and Russian Centre argue that the original Black Bloc (which always participated in Russian Marches) was disbanded by the authorities and what currently poses as Black Bloc is fraudulent: ‘the freed space that appeared among right-wing political radicals in Moscow was filled by people who are not in direct relationship with the radicals’. According to Andrei Petrovskii, the secretary of the Party of Nationalists in Moscow, Black Bloc ‘is a “fake project” that was created in order to control the radical youth of Moscow’ (Wotan Jugend 2017). White Rex Certain clothing brands are popular in autonomous neo-Nazi circles. Connected with martial arts and tournaments organised by the neo-Nazis, these brands also aid in maintaining contacts abroad. Most popular is White Rex, a Russian clothing brand specialising in combat sports. White Rex was established by Denis Nikitin in 2008 for the purposes of clustering people with similar opinions and beliefs, and to make money to support imprisoned neo-Nazis, called the ‘prisoners of conscience’. One of the major public activities of the White Rex organisation is to sponsor combat sports (especially mixed martial arts) tournaments. Since 2009 it has supported several Russian tournaments organised by the local organisation Resistance as well as concerts in Russia of German neo-Nazi bands such as Brainwash and Moshpit, as well as the Russian band You Must Murder (Antifa.cz 2015). In 2011, White Rex put on a series of its own tournaments under the name DukhVoina (Spirit of the Warrior). Even though neo-Nazis are not the only people to participate in the tournaments, they make up most of the fighters. For example, Wotan Jugend has regularly entered teams into the tournaments, which provide opportunities for open neo-Nazi propaganda. ‘Spirit of the Warrior’ started expanding to the West in the same year. The first event outside Russia was a tournament in Kiev, and in 2013 the first tournament took place in Rome, at the grounds of the Casa Pound neo-fascist movement. The event in Rome was repeated in 2014, and the following week the first tournament in France took place in Lyon. It was co-organised by the local branch of Blood & Honour. It is now established practice that a neoNazi band concert follows the fights. These include Kategorie C, Moshpit, Brainwash, Prezumptsiyanevinovnosti (Presumption of Innocence) and, most commonly, You Must Murder. Attendance at ‘Spirit of the Warrior’ events has lately become a matter of prestige for representatives of various

92  Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation neo-Nazi organisations from across Europe. For example, in 2013 a tournament in Moscow was attended by a group of German neo-Nazis led by Daniel Weigel, who is one of the leading figures of the Freie Netz Süd organisation and stands behind the Final Resistance distribution company and the Wallhall Athletik brand. Andreas Kolb from the innermost leadership of the National Democratic Party of Germany (National demokratische Partei Deutschlands, NPD) youth organisation has appeared in the support team for the German fighters in 2013 in Ekaterinburg. Czech Nazis also attended the first tournament in Rome in large numbers (Antifa.cz 2015). It is, perhaps, through this particular activity that fighters affiliated with White Rex provided fitness sessions to British neo-Nazis at training camps in Wales, where Denis Nikitin was the key trainer. Nikitin was one of the speakers at the far-right Iona London Forum meeting held by the Traditional Britain Group. Nikitin’s presentation at the Iona London Forum meeting was entitled ‘White Rex: The Warrior Spirit of Russia’s Street Activists’. White Rex is also closely cooperating with Sergey Badyuk, a former KGB/FSB operative who became a businessman in the 1990s but still provides training to the special forces of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) (Shekhovtsov 2014d). Zentsov has presented several White Rex tournaments, which seek to project to the outside world an image of a purely professional sporting event, promoting a healthy lifestyle, patriotism and sport, and thus to avoid the unwelcome attention of Russia’s security forces (Tumanov 2013).

Football hooligans This movement in Russia has its roots (albeit without the radical nationalist ideology) in the Soviet Union, when many fans wore the scarf of their football club at games and travelled for away matches. When the Soviet Union disintegrated, the hooligan movement stagnated until about the mid-1990s, when the hooligan groups Flint’s Crew and the Red-Blue Warriors, associated with two major Moscow football clubs, Spartak and CSKA, respectively, entered the arena. Inspired by their skirmishes, similar groups have formed around other football clubs. The first (and now legendary) hooligan groups emerged in Moscow and St Petersburg in the mid-1990s around Russia’s major football clubs (Shnirel’man 2007). In the second half of the 1990s, hooligan groups, or ‘firms’, as they call themselves, also appeared in Russian provincial towns. Russia’s hooligans first attracted wide attention after the lost match against Japan in June 2002: in the disorder that followed in central Moscow’s Manezhnaya Square, two people died, 73 were injured and there was large-scale property damage. Allegedly up to 8,000 people participated in the disturbance (Mareš, Smolík and Suchánek 2004: 124–125). Later, as living standards improved, Russian football hooligans began to travel abroad, where they sought to stir up nationalist passions at sports events, especially in the Balkans (supported by Serbs) and the Baltic countries.

Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation 93 Football hooligans are not politically organised; the earliest hooligan ‘firms’ were initially apolitical, and it was only later that extremist ideas and slogans penetrated into the subculture, accompanied as they are by racist chants at stadia in Russia and abroad, for which Russian clubs are sanctioned and fined. Hence hooligans are rarely members of political parties or organisations, with the exception of a very small segment who hire themselves out or, on their own initiative or through opportunism, participate in Kremlin-backed projects, especially in youth organisations. For the most part, however, hooligan groups sharply reject cooperation with Kremlinbased organisations (some ‘firms’ related to FC Spartak Moscow are an exception to this). Hooligans do not form violent gangs who aim to kill their enemies as racist gangs do; they do, however, become involved in violent clashes, especially with Caucasians, which occasionally end in fatalities on either side. Particularly popular are physical skirmishes with fans of local clubs (such as Makhachkala and Nalchik) during away matches in the Northern Caucasus. The climax of football hooligans’ public activities was their mass protest at Manezhnaya Square in December 2010, inspired by the death of Spartak hooligan Egor Sviridov during a brawl with Caucasians, after which some of the attackers were released by the police (bribery was probably involved). The hooligans first blocked the Leningrad highway and later assembled in Manezhnaya Square on 10 December 2010. Extremist political organisations recognized this as an opportunity and became involved in the event. Leaders of hooligan groups called on their followers to avoid participating in such activities, which was enough for the police to desist from taking firm measures; nevertheless several thousand hooligans assembled on Manezhnaya, chanting racist and anti-police slogans. The police were unable to assert control, and some of the demonstrators started to attack random passers-by whom they took to be Caucasians, and the subsequently attacked Otryad Mobilniy Osobogo Naznacheniya (OMON) riot police as well (OMON). Later the hooligans went to nearby metro stations, where they continued to attack people of non-Slavic appearance. Ultimately one person was killed and 40 were injured. Memorial marches marking Sviridov’s murder also took place in other Russian cities and towns (e.g. Syktyvkar, Kaliningrad, Voronezh, Tomsk, Samara, Volgograd, Kirov, Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don), often with the involvement of right-wing nationalists. In St Petersburg as many as 2,000 people had assembled and were dispersed by riot police; Dmitrii Bobrov’s National-Socialist Initiative was one of the organisers. The rally in Manezhnaya Square was an unexpected success for these groups, as never before had they managed to assemble so many people under nationalist banners right next to the Kremlin’s walls, let alone to deploy violence, without any of the organisers being held responsible. Thus, the ‘Kondopoga scenario’ was partially repeated, not in a provincial backwater, but right next to the Kremlin. The Russian government appeared to be taken by surprise. President Dmitrii Medvedev limited himself to

94  Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation a statement that the perpetrators of the unrest must be punished, while Vladislav Surkov, responsible in the presidential administration for internal policy, sought to blame democratic opposition. Putin, then prime minister, suggested a tougher immigration policy and visited Egor Sviridov’s grave. The protesters’ main supporters were not political organisations but autonomous groups able to mobilise several thousand people. They proved relatively effective against hooligan leaders in the competition for the sympathies of young football hooligans (a large section of organised hooligans espousing nationalist views remained aloof from the event). Public nationalist politicians did not seek to control the autonomous movement at the time, but rather sought to avoid being left out. Attempts were made in the second half of December 2010 to repeat the events, but the police were prepared and the Maneznaya Square scenario could not be repeated. The strongest attempt was made on 15 December, when Russian and Caucasian racist youth groups mobilised; there were smaller brawls, and 1,300 were arrested throughout Moscow. Thanks to these events, issues of radical nationalism and xenophobia briefly became one of the main topics of public debate (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2011). Many Russian hooligans support pro-Russian separatists, and, unlike Ukrainian hooligans who as one stood behind the Euromaidan and Ukraine’s voluntary battalions (including hooligans from Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea), there are no known cases of Russian hooligans fighting on Ukraine’s side or showing serious support for Ukraine or the voluntary battalions, although slogans to this effect do occasionally appear at stadia (they tend to be intended as provocations rather than seriously). According to Aleksandr Verkhovskii, football hooligans have significant potential for racist violence, given the popularity of nationalist and racist ideas in their ranks. Their ‘firms’ are very well organised structures (much better than the bands of autonomous neo-Nazis), and they are also much better prepared for street fighting. However, as a whole football hooligans keep their distance from nationalist organisations, prizing their independence and apolitical character. Nor do they much respect extremists as a street-fighting force. Obviously, many fans are involved in various nationalist groups as a matter of personal preference, and there are racist hooligan ‘firms’ (Verkhovskii 2016: 85). In February 2016 the first information surfaced that certain ‘firms’ such as Yaroslavka or Union might be banned, allegedly as part of the preparations for the 2018 FIFA World Cup to be held in Russia. Mass arrests and house searches were carried out among Spartak and CSKA hooligans in connection with their mass brawl in central Moscow (Vashchenko 2016). Football hooligans and pro-Kremlin organisations The revelation of cooperation between Gladiators, which is one of the largest hooligan organisations, and the pro-Kremlin movement Nashi shortly after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine has met with significant media response.

Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation 95 The leaders of Gladiators, Vasilii Stepanov (nicknamed Vasya Killer) and Roman Verbitskii (Roma Kolyuchii), conferred on members of the group the role of security guards for the Nashi movement (Popkov region 2016). Under the cover of pro-Kremlin youth associations, they organised attacks on political opponents (the main foes at the time were Eduard Limonov’s National Bolsheviks who temporarily moved into the liberal camp).9 This was part of Surkov’s plan for suppressing any nuclei of a potential ‘Orange Revolution’ in Russia (i.e. the energising of a political opposition made up of liberals, the anti-Putin left and the National Bolsheviks). In 2004–2005, the Putin regime began to view political opposition and any social forces not controlled by the regime as agents of an external enemy (be it Western Europe, the United States of America or someone else). As a defence against the ‘orange contagion’, the Kremlin started to create pseudo-social structures as a specific ‘people’s immune system fighting external interference’. Also used to this effect were certain hooligan leaders, serving in the role of a fighting wing of pro-Kremlin youth organisations, then led by Vasilii Yakemenko, with the aim of cleansing the street of opposition (Popkov 2016). Later, organisations such as the National Liberation Movement, led by United Russia deputy Evgenii Fedorov, also started to fulfil this role. After the 2014 revolution in Ukraine, Russia’s authorities took note that hooligans played an important role in skirmishes with the police. It was decided, therefore, to renew the focus on hooligans and to consolidate them under the watchful eye of the authorities. Vasilii Stepanov (‘Vasya Killer’) has since then more than once called for solidarity with the Donetsk People’s Republic (Donetskaya Narodnaya Respublika, DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (Luganskaya Narodnaya Respublika, LNR), and these ‘pro-state’ hooligans (largely connected to Spartak Moscow) have carried out provocations at anti-war rallies, throwing raw eggs at participants (Tumanov 2015b). Pro-separatist activism is only marginal among the pro-state hooligans, and DNR/LNR flags are otherwise hardly seen at the stadiums. Hooligans tend to eschew voicing their opinions on this matter and instead seek to remain neutral. The organisation of humanitarian aid to the Donbass separatists has been limited to groups supporting Moscow’s Lokomotiv, Spartak and Dinamo and St Petersburg’s Zenit football clubs (Sobeskii 2016). Several members of hooligan groups fight or have fought on the DNR/LNR side. Another effort to strengthen the Kremlin’s control over football hooligans was the creation of the All-Russia Supporters Union (Vserossiiskoe ob’edinenie bolel’shchikov, VOB) in 2007. Aleksandr Shprygin, leader of the VOB since its inception, attracted particular media attention during the Euro 2016 tournament in France when he was arrested by French police on suspicion of organising attacks by Russian hooligans on England’s fans, which ended in the death of one Englishman. Shprygin was linked with FC Dinamo Moscow and did not hide his nationalist positions; he also maintained contact with the radical nationalist heavy metal band Korroziya Metalla.10 He is alleged to have become head of the VOB thanks

96  Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation to his friendship with LDPR (Liberal’no-demokraticheskaya partiya Rossii) chair Vladimir Zhirinovskii. Beyond leading the VOB, Shprygin is now also an assistant to State Duma deputy chair and Zhirinovskii’s son Igor Lebedev, who has supported Russian hooligans, as have several other official representatives of the state (Gordon 2016). VOB had previously helped organise certain provocative actions, such as a 2009 ‘Russian March’ in the streets of Helsinki, Finland, attended largely by hooligans supporting St Petersburg’s FC Zenit. The march ended in physical skirmishes. In January 2012, Putin visited leaders of hooligan groups in St Petersburg and promised them free air travel to Euro 2012 to be held in Poland. Russia’s Football Association allocated 6,000 tickets to the VOB, which organised another ‘Russian March’ in Warsaw that ended in mass brawls (Gordon 2016). During previous European football championships (Portugal in 2004, Austria in 2008), there was no Russian hooligan violence (Rufabula 2016) (Table 4.1).

National-Socialist Black Metal/Pagan Metal During the 1990s, a National-Socialist Black Metal (NSBM) wave swept across Eastern European countries, resulting in attacks against ‘JudeoChristianity’ and contemporary ‘denationalised’ society on the basis of Slavic or German mythology. NSBM supporters often view National Socialism as a universal political concept. Given the dominance of pagan themes, a new branch of heavy metal music, known as pagan metal, has appeared, and it is often linked with racism and anti-Semitism. A precise boundary between NSBM and pagan metal is often difficult to establish (Mareš 2003: 441–442). In Russia the focus is largely on the music scene, less so on ideological outputs such as websites, books and other publications. Ideologically it is often a tangle of Slavic and German myths, racism and ethnic nationalism. Members of NSBM/pagan metal bands11 and supporters of the subculture are often involved in neo-pagan nationalist organisations such as Soyuz Venedov, Severnoe Bratstvo, Soyuz slavyanskikhobshchin and Velesovkrug. Particularly noteworthy is Severnoe bratstvo, originally NORNA (Natsionalnoe osvobozhdenie russkogo naroda), which, although marginal as a neo-Nazi neo-pagan organisation, has attracted significant media attention in Russia. Northern Brotherhood NORNA emerged in 2006 by seceding from the radical neo-pagan wing of DPNI and subsequently renamed itself the Northern Brotherhood (Severnoe bratstvo). Petr Khomyakov (dubbed Dr. Evil), a professor of the theory of systems analysis, was the main ideologist of NORNA. In March 2009 Khomyakov was expelled from the Northern Brotherhood, and the organisation came closer to Yurii Belyaev’s Party of Freedom (Partiya svobody) in

Table 4.1  Russian football clubs and hooligan groups Football club

Hooligan groups (date of inception in brackets)

Notes and curiosities

Spartak Moscow

Mad Butchers Hard Gang Gladiators Firm (1996) Fratria (2005), incorporating ‘firms’ Gladiators, Flint’s Crew (1994), Union (2000) and others Shkola (2005) Ultra Incognito Team The Aliens Red-White Devils Band Wild Boars (1998) North-West Side (2001) Clench Fist (2003) Clockwork Orange (1998) Strong Active Group (1997) West End (1998)

Spartak Moscow has the greatest number of ‘firms’ and hooligans (CSKA is second). Fratria is very business-oriented: it seeks to establish relations with state power, sells tickets for matches and season tickets, and has a shop selling football memorabilia. Fratria is twinned with hooligans of Crvenazvezda Beograd, Lech Poznań and Jagiellonia Białystok. The Aliens is a St Petersburg group supporting Spartak Moscow, which also includes hooligans from other cities supporting the Moscow club. The oldest Spartak ‘firm’ is Flint’s Crew, which has a youth section – Young’s Crew. Union is allegedly the strongest ‘firm’.

CSKA Moscow

K.I.D.S. Gallant Steeds (2000) Red-Blue Warriors (1993) Yaroslavka (1996) Einfach Jugend (2001) Shady Horse Jungvolk

Yaroslavka is considered the ‘best’ group, but Red-Blue Warriors (RBW) are the main ‘firm’ and was the first to print a magazine. Yaroslavka is sometimes considered by other hooligans to be a regional branch of RBW.

(Continued)

Table 4.1  Russian football clubs and hooligan groups (Continued ) Football club

Hooligan groups (date of inception in brackets)

Notes and curiosities

Dinamo Moskva

Blue-White Dynamite (BWD) Patriots Capitals (2000) Top Lads Jokers

The hooligan movement around this club, in the contemporary sense of the word, started to emerge in the mid-1990s when the Blue-White Dynamite (BWD) group was formed. Patriots appeared later as an alternative. Dinamo’s greatest rival is Spartak Moscow. BWD is twinned with groups supporting WidzewŁódź. BWD used to maintain contact with Zhirinovskii’s LDPR, who helped them publish the magazine Wild West Stories. When BWD declined, its role was taken over by Capitals.

Lokomotiv Moskva

Funny Friends (2006–07) Red-Green Vikings (1998–89) Mad Dobermans

Zenit St Petersburg

Snake City Firm Veselyerebyata (2011) Koalitsiya (1999) Music Hall (2004) Nevskiisindikat Brigadiry Z-44 (1998) Gremlins (1998) Old City Firms

Veselyerebyata organises mixed martial arts tournaments. Music Hall and Koalitsiya are the most influential groups in St Petersburg and have a nationalist orientation. They often lead smaller groups.

FC Orel

Orel Butchers (1996) Orel Jokers (2004)

The presumed leader of Orel Butchers is Dmitrii Trokha. It used to publish a magazine, Testosteron. The group was actively involved in brawls with England fans at Euro 2016 in France. It maintains close links with Orel-based bands Stone Faces and YaitsY Faberzhe. Many view Orel hooligans as the strongest after those from Moscow and St Petersburg.

Luch-Energiya Vladivostok

Luch-Ultras

Torpedo Vladimir

Sturdy Fighters (2003) Troublemakers

Rotor Volgograd

Stalingrad Ultras (1998) Rebels (2000) Miollnir

Ural Ekaterinburg

Steel Monsters

Vyksa Metallurg

463

FC Rostov

PTF (1999) Wild Legion and youth brigades Provincial Town Firm and South West Youth West Band City Lads Unity

FC Kaluga

Kaluga Lads

Fakel’ Voronezh

White Crows Iskra Yunost’

Rubin Kazan

Cage Crew (2004)

Saturn Ramenskoe

Hollywood Crew

Allegedly one of the ten strongest hooligan groups from Russia’s regions.

(Continued)

Table 4.1  Russian football clubs and hooligan groups (Continued ) Football club

Hooligan groups (date of inception in brackets)

Avangard Kursk

Legion 46

Kubaň Krasnodar

Peppers Band

Shinnik Yaroslavl

Yaroslavskayadruzhina (1997) East Side MOD 213

Krylyasovetov Samara

Winged legion Senators T.O.Y.S. – The Opposition Young Supporters (2003) Novosamara Shadows

Amkar Perm

Molotov Coctail’s [sic] Firm Riot Firm Zakamsk

Notes and curiosities

In November 2017, Evgeny (‘Gavr’) Gavrilov was given a suspended sentence of six-and-a-half years for founding an extremist organisation (in April 2017, a court declared T.O.Y.S. an extremist association).a

a Similarly, in 2013 a court declared a hooligan group in Kirov extremist and banned it (Lenta.ru 2013). Some of these hooligans then supported Praviisektor and chanted slogans supporting Ukraine in stadiums. It is perhaps not coincidental that some of the leadership of Wotan Jugend and the exiled Russian Centre in Kiev come from Kirov (i.e. Mikheev and Tyukin). Sources: http://ofnews.info/; http://wiki.footballtop.ru/; Sport.rbc.ru 2010; Kompromat.ru 2010; Sports.ru 2013; Ria.ru 2016.

Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation 101 St Petersburg.12 In addition to Khomyakov, businessman Anton Mukhachev and publisher Oleg Troshkin were involved in the Brotherhood. In August 2009 the FSB arrested Mukhachev and he was charged with an attempt to overthrow the constitutional system, which was indeed part of their ideology. The aim of the Northern Brotherhood was to establish a mono-ethnic, neo-pagan technocratic nation-state called Svetlaya Rus’. The Northern Brotherhood attracted particular attention for its ‘Great Game’, an internet project that gave players various tasks including arson attacks on police cars and the stalls of non-Russian market traders. A specific point of the Brotherhood’s ideology was ‘Russian separatism’, expressed in its slogan ‘Rus’ against Russia’. Rus’, in the sense of the historical Kievan Rus’ or Novgorod Rus’, was viewed by the brotherhood as a purely Slavic, historical European state. Novgorod Rus’ is often idealised as a prototype for Russian cultural orientation towards Europe, which was destroyed by the ‘oriental, barbaric Grand Duchy of Moscow’, i.e. later multi-ethnic Russia. The movement’s ideologists argued for the separation from Russia of the Northern Caucasus and other regions with a majority of non-Russian population and fiercely attacked Russian imperial nationalism. The organisation developed a network structure consisting of independent cells. Like many other Russian nationalists, Khomyakov had been hiding in Ukraine (and before that in Saakashvili’s Georgia), and in 2011 he attempted to return.13 Back in 2008, Khomyakov established active contact with Ukrainian nationalists, and with other supporters he founded a project called the Confederation of Equal and Free Eastern Slavic Countries (Konfederatsiyaravno pravnykhisvobodny khvostochno-slavyanskikhzemel), headquartered in Kiev. In October 2008 he was elected to the chair of the virtual movement ‘Russians for UPA’ (Russkieza UPA, UPA being the Ukrainian Insurgent Army) (Shnirel’man 2015: 172–176). Khomyakov was arrested in September 2011, and in October 2012, Khomyakov was sentenced to four years in a Russian penal colony, where he died in 2014 (Tumanov 2014b). In August 2012 the Northern Brotherhood was declared extremist by the authorities and banned. In 2014 Valerii Vdovenko, a leading member of the Northern Brotherhood (who was probably a secret service handler), former KGB officer and co-founder of the pro-Kremlin left-nationalist party Rodina, was sentenced in Moscow to 2.5 years in prison (Judina and Alperovitch 2015). Wotan Jugend The neo-Nazi organisation Wotan Jugend (WJ) has much stronger links with the NSBM subculture than the Northern Brotherhood. WJ’s prehistory reaches back to the attempt to establish a Russian branch of the transnational organisation Pagan Front, headed by Hendrik Möbus of the German band Absurd. The branch allegedly appeared in 2003–2004 among the fans of NSBM, but around 2007 its activities ceased. In its time, the Pagan Front

102  Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation supposedly had two centres, one in Moscow oblast’ and the other in the city of Tver’. The former was concentrated around Ilya ‘Gorruth’ Babin’s label Stellar Winter, which issued records by the bands Forest, Branikald and Temnozor, as well as publishing the magazine Brangolf (Babin himself performed in Temnozor). The Tver’ centre of the Pagan Front was much more active. Its leader, Aleksei Levkin, and successfully combined propaganda and other activities: his band had its own website, organised concerts and issued a pilot issue of the magazine Black Corps (Chernyi korpus) (Sobeskii 2014a). Levkin was also the frontman of the Tver’ NSBM band, M8l8th (Moloth). It performed from 2003 and also had side-projects, like Shepot run and Adolfkult. Closely associated with M8l8th was the music publisher Lost Reich Rex, which released records of other related projects such as Nezhegol and Hagl. In October 2006, Levkin and several other people were taken into custody on suspicion of robbery and murdering three immigrants; some of them were members of Pagan Front Russland and were ultimately given sentences ranging from three-and-a-half years to life. Versions of what followed differ: according to nationalist sources, Levkinwas set free in December 2007 for lack of evidence; according to his adversaries, he was declared insane and sent to a psychiatric hospital. Levkin continued to coordinate the activities of his label, Lost Reich, which cooperated with the media, Winter Attack Zine and Total War Commando (Sobeskii 2014a). It was out of his label that Wotan Jugend emerged, as an informal association with the aims of organising concerts by bands sympathetic to Levkin’s cause, disseminating propaganda and helping ‘prisoners of conscience’. It only became a political organisation in 2012 thanks to the consolidation of a coalition of musicians playing NSBM and pagan metal. Beyond Tver bands M8l8th, Kodekschesti and Shepot run, the following also joined the coalition: Nezhegol (Belgorod), Velimor (Tula) and the hatecore band Trezvyizaryad (‘Sober Charge’, from Penza).14 After disagreements with Ukrainian music labels over funding, Levkin approached the Kaluga label 7.62 Productions run by Konstantin Sapozhnikov, an activist of Russian Image and Union of Slavs of Slavic Belief (Soyuz slavyanslavyanskoi very). Sapozhnikov was a witness at the Tikhonov and Khasis trial (Sobeskii 2014a). Wotan Jugend promoted classic Nazism, including veneration of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, as well as ideas of white supremacy. They styled themselves as an elite neo-Nazi avant-garde, which was to ensure the return of Nazism. Even the logo of the organisation has discernible roots in Nazi symbolism: the warrior rune, or ‘Tyr-rune’ (which looks like an arrow) was used by the Hitler Jugend as well as SA and SS units. The ‘Wotan’ of the organisation’s name refers to Germanic mythology (Wotan is an Old Germanic god known elsewhere as Odin), but WJ ideology is also partially influenced by Slavic mythology. It is not, however, connected with panSlavism (Antifa.cz 2013). WJ first appeared in public at the 2012 Russian March in Moscow. Restrukt! activist Roman Zheleznov (now a volunteer

Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation 103 in Azov) was allegedly the link between WJ and other neo-Nazis. At the November 2013 Russian March, their column was dispersed by the OMON riot police because of their use of Nazi slogans, and WJ was banned from future Russian Marches. At the First of May demonstration in 2013, WJ members took photographs of themselves with the flag of Stepan Bandera’s Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists. WJ established cooperation with the nationalist clothing brand White Rex, co-organising Asgard Reich (Asgardareikh) festivals15 and Price of Freedom (Tsena svobody) festivals in support of jailed neo-Nazis. Since 2013 WJ has spread into other Russian cities, including Kirov, Belgorod, Penza, Vologda, Cherepovets, Kaluga, Tula, Vladimir and Ivanovo. Wotan Jugend attracted members of neo-Nazi subcultures who were not previously politically organised. In Moscow, Belogorod, Penza and Kirov, WJ organised fighting tournaments called The Call of Youth (Klichmolodosti), and in Tver forests they organised knife-fighting training. In Tver, WJ cooperated with Anton Baranov’s small group TulaSkins, which was established in 2008. Baranov was tried several times for brawls motivated by racial hatred. Recently he was arrested again due to his contact with the Right Sector and the Azov regiment, which he allegedly intended to join. In July 2015, Tula Skins was banned as an extremist organisation. Wotan Jugend had a strong position in Kirov, the home city of one of the movement’s ideologists, Ivan Mikheev, who after 2014 fled to Ukraine where he co-founded, together with Levkin and Tyukin, the exile organisation Russian Centre (Russkiit sentr). In Moscow WJ maintained contacts with Restrukt!, as well as White Rex and another clothing brand, Beloyar, which like the former organises sports tournaments. WJ’s activities also focused on aid to sentenced neo-Nazis, in connection with the Association of White Political Prisoners (Assotsiatsiya belykh politzakl yuchennykh), in which the following figures were involved: Nikolai Korolev (Spas), Viktor Appolonov (NSO-Sever), Lev Molotkov (NSO-Sever), Oleg Kostarev (Spas), Vasilii Krivets and others. WJ allegedly funded about 20 nationalists to the tune of several thousand roubles a month each, thus winning recognition from the sentenced neo-Nazis. A branch of Wotan Jugend was established in 2013 in the Czech Republic. It was organised by Russian citizen Sergei Busygin; the other members were Czechs. The police terminated their activities in 2014.16 Wotan Jugend supported the Euromaidan and the Ukrainian voluntary battalions fighting separatists and Russian troops in Donbass. Its members established contact with the Right Sector (Pravii sector), the Patriot of Ukraine (Patriot Ukrainy) and the Social-National Assembly (SotsialNatsional’na Asambleya) of which the Patriot of Ukraine was a part; the Azov battalion was subsequently formed out of the members of these organisations. Individual members of WJ were prosecuted, such as Anton Pugovkin, editor of Natsional’noe soprotivlenie (National Resistance), for promoting Nazism, and Vladimir Smirnov for his intention to join Azov.17

104  Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation In July 2014 it launched a website, linked with the VKontakte social network, which was particularly popular among Russia’s neo-Nazis. In late 2014 the WJ leadership (Levkin and Mikheev) moved to Ukraine, and the Russian organisation broke apart due to internal dissent and, most likely, action by Russia’s security forces. The FSB allegedly changed WJ’s profile on VKontakte from pro-Ukrainian to anti-Ukrainian (the website, however, continued to be pro-Ukrainian, supporting Azov, etc.). In early 2015 the website ceased to exist, and when the group’s administrators were changed, its propaganda in social media made a U-turn and started to oppose the Ukrainian side in the conflict, alleging that ‘power in Ukraine has been seized by Jews’ and citing the alleged Jewish ancestry of Ukraine’s political leadership (Gonta 2015). Later, commentaries on the renewed VKontakte profile claimed that it had been hacked in October 2014 and existed in that form until spring 2015. Subsequently, it was renewed by WJ. The contents, which as of 2017 had reverted to the original version, seem to bear this out. Levkin and Mikheev continue to be active in Ukraine (including the Russian exile organisation Russian Centre) and, via social networks, continue to support relations with White Rex, which organises the ‘Hammer of Will’ (Molotvoli) tournaments, and other organisations and individuals in Russia.

Notes 1. From 2005, Lazarenko had begun to repent his anti-Christian position and returned to Orthodox religion. In 2006–2009 his political position developed towards ‘white libertarianism’ and ‘national democracy’ (i.e. informed by immigration-phobia, democracy is to be solely for ‘native’ inhabitants). Today Lazarenko is the deputy chair of the National-Democratic Alliance (NDA), opposing Russian imperialism. The other founders of the NDA in 2010 were Aleksei Shiropaev and Mikhail Pozharskii. In summer 2011, as a member of an NDA delegation, Lazarenko visited Israel’s parliament. He also participated in liberal protests at Bolotnaya square in 2011–2012. 2. The following bands play in the RAC style: RoSSiya, T.N.F., Vandal, Gorynych, Division 600, Belyi krai, Bad to the Bonehead, CG Bros, CWT, Eva Braun, Hook sprava, K-88, Kiborg, Kranty, NS kontrol, Labarum, Narodnyi otpor, Pozitsiya, Protest, Russkii korpus, Severnyi voin, Zheleznyi poryadok, Ataka 28, Antisystem, Sadko, M.D.P., Pryamyi podkhod, Tsiklon-B, Russkii styag, KhorSS, Instruktsiia po vyzhivaniiu, Trezvyi zariad, P.S. 7,62, SSD, Yarovit, RGD 88, GR.OM, Ogon i led, Russkii medved, Belyi terror, ApartheiD, 25 region, Sibirskii kulak, Doberman, Shtandart, Gipotalamus, RONA, Miusik kholl, Hydraulic miollnir, Hakenkreuz, Molodezh Tule, S.o.P., SS-18, Separatist, Psychoment, Belyi orel, NS britva, Ermolov, Simargl, Truvor, 14 divizia and Uran. 3. For example, Death Penalty, Head Shot, Insurgent, Marginal 282, Nuchtern Reich, Outlaw Heroes Standing, TB-18, Vernost, You Must Murder, xDASSLERx, Black Point, BlokChaos, Dumb Down, Right Choice, Prezumptsianevinovnosti, Zhivoi!, Hate Time, Surround Xenemies, Shoot on Sight, CG Dolls, Golos Rusi, Nevograd, Xterror WaveX, Yashchik Pandory, Clownsball, Jedem das seine and Vtora.

Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation 105 4. Their number is estimated at several dozen. Temnozor is the most famous, but there are many others, e.g. Helengard, Holdaar, Wolfmare, Scharfrichter, Aufschwung, Slavia, Asmund, Nezhegol, M8l8th (Moloth), Navjarmaahr, Puru, Bloodpride, Velimor, Ariiskiishturm, Karakondjo, Northstream, Vargleide, Jotungheim, Godcider, Doomsday Cult, Svartskog, Liuten, Hagl, Variag, Kharza, Synysevera, Diur, Raven Dark, Nitberg, Volkoten, Endlosung, Morbus Mundi, Wewelsburg, Branikald, Chvareno, Chernyeozera, Blok, Forest, Arkanum Krieg, Eisigwald, Gromaglas, Rundagor, Krada, Na rasputie, Rodovest, Deplored, Zlaiastaia, Femegericht, Mehafelon, Kraftfaghrkorps, Winterkriege, KrovReikha, Funeral Wind, Tevred and Mor. 5. Examples include Autumn Tales, Orchid, Murohamma, Surovalamia, Belun, Sieg, Ritual Front, Ryr, F.M.S.41, Wolfsblood, Stalnoipakt, Transistorwald, Likholesie, Bunker, Temnoiar, Gorngoltz, Schattenspiel, Gromoslaw, Fear & Hate, Ultrapolarnoevtorzhenie, Erdlicht, Tivaz, Vesnitrav, Svetlolesie and S.B.P. 6. Vandal’s singer Vsevolod Merkulov later become a historian and an author published by the Orthodox Church journal Russkii dom. 7. Istarkhov is an anti-Semitic pagan ideologist, who in 1999 wrote the book Udar russkich bogov (The Strike of Russian Gods). He is also linked with the Party of Nationalists and has led the Russian National Party since 2014, which he later renamed the Russian Human Rights League. The profile of the Russian Centre says the following about him: ‘Thanks to his works, the Russian movement received a new, unifying impulse, and thousands of young people have joined its ranks […] as far as the Russo-Ukrainian conflict is concerned, Istarkhov assumed the right position by rejecting the Putin provocations in which the role assigned to Russian nationalists is that of foot soldiers condemned to death. This […] in many respects predetermined our successes in the information war waged against Girkin’s supporters and, perhaps, saved a few people from unnecessary death’ (Russkiitsentr 2017c). 8. The Russian Centre website says that ‘in independent nationalist circles, the opinions concerning Demushkin are, of course, very ambiguous, but it is impossible not to admit that he, like Aleksander Belov and unlike many opportunist political prostitutes, did not start to voice their support for the Kremlin’s adventurism in Donbass, for which their freedom was ostentatiously taken from them’ (Russkiitsentr 2017b). 9. After the annexation of Crimea in February-March 2014, Limonov and the National Bolsheviks definitely sided with the Kremlin. When war erupted in Donbass, they even had their own fighting unit on the separatists’ side. 10. Korroziyametalla has been playing since 1982 and enjoyed significant popularity in Russia; however, since the mid-1990s it started to shift towards neo-Nazism and its front man, Sergei ‘Spider’ Trockii became a respected authority among Moscow’s skinheads. Later he attempted unsuccessfully to enter politics. 11. The best-known NSBM bands include Temnozor (founded in Obninsk in 1996), Oprich Velimor, Nitberg, M8l8th (Moloth), Adolf Kult, Stella Arya, Endlosung, Oskal, Nevid’, Volkoten, Swastica, Grom, Woods of Fallen, Varyag, Na raspute, Sieg, Volkolak, Wewelsburg, Nord´n´Commander, Svetloyarsk, Synysevera, Hvangur, Rodovest and Holocaust SS (Encyclopaedia Metallum– Russia). 12. This group itself was created by secession from the National-Republican Party of Russia and in 2001 unsuccessfully attempted to register as a political party. Around 2005 it sought to establish a paramilitary wing, White Watch (Belyipatrul), but its violence did not leave a lasting mark in the history of Russian right-wing extremism.

106  Right-wing subcultures in Russian Federation 13. Khomyakov graduated from the faculty of geography and the faculty of mechanics and mathematics at Lomonosov Moscow State University, became a doctor of technical sciences and professor, and led several laboratories at the Russian Academy of Sciences. He turned from Orthodox religion to neo-paganism, and it was allegedly his protest against the incompetence of the Soviet nomenklatura that led him towards nationalism. He started his career with protests against the Siberian river reversal, and during the 1980s he was involved in the Pamyat’ movement. In 1992 he joined the Russian National Assembly (Russkii natsionalnyisobor) and soon thereafter was in the National-Republican Party of Russia. Following a rift in the party, he joined Yurii Belyaev’s Party of Freedom. In 2002 he was the deputy chair of the executive committee of the Congress of Russian Communities, then led by Dmitrii Rogozin, today the deputy prime minister who oversees the defence industry (MK.ru 2012). 14. Wotan Jugend also organised concerts for WP band Russkiistyag (Russian Flag), previously associated with Rumyantsev’s NSO. The band later played at pro-government festivals. First founded in 2000, it maintained contact with the Polish pro-Russian right-wing extremist organisation Zadruga; some of its members have fought in Donbass on the separatists’ side. 15. Since 2012 the festival has been held every December. Its fourth year in 2015 was held in Kiev, as was the fifth on 18 December 2016, with the participation of the following bands: M8l8th, Peste Noire (France), Nokturnal Mortum (Ukraine), Kroda (Ukraine), Kamaedzitsa (Belarus) and Wehrwolf (Belarus), which promotes environmentalism and veganism. 16. Busygin (hailing from Perm and residing in the Czech Republic, in the Prague suburb of Libeň) has been in contact with the Russian neo-Nazi scene, visiting Russia regularly. He gained a few adherents among active neo-Nazis, and with about four or five people he founded the Czech ‘branch’ of WJ. In September 2015, five members of WJ including Busigyn were given suspended sentences (ranging from 18 months to three years) for promoting Nazism. 17. Smirnov attended Russian marches and maintained the profile of Misanthropic Division on the VKontakte social network. During interrogation he admitted his support for the Right Sector, and investigators charged him with illegal possession of an explosive device of his own construction.

5

Terrorism committed by militant Russian nationalists and violent racist gangs

It is typical of militant Russian right-wing extremist organisations to seek to achieve their aims in a variety of violent ways. For example, a certain—and relatively important—part of the violence committed by Russia’s extreme right can be subsumed under the category of terrorism, understood in this book primarily as a method of achieving one’s own interests by using intimidation to send a threatening message to an evidently larger group of people than just the victims of the terrorist act (Mareš 2005: 22). However, it is often difficult to distinguish extreme right terrorism from other forms of violence (Ravndal 2016). This is because the ‘threatening message’ is generated by the very fact that an act of violence has been committed, and is not necessarily accompanied by a written or video explanation (Waldmann 2003: 38–39). For this reason, this chapter is divided into sections, the first dedicated to terrorist groups (where terrorism is evident), and the second covering violent racist gangs (where terrorism is debatable). In the last section, we discuss some borderline cases where it is not just the nature of the violence but also the presence of a political motive that are ambiguous. In this chapter we employ the notion of vigilantism, defined as the enforcing of a subjectively conceived notion of law and order by individuals or groups that do not recognise the state’s monopoly of violence or dominance in policing (Kučera and Mareš 2015). Here it needs to be noted that some scholars have defined vigilante terrorism as the use of terrorist methods for vigilante aims or the use of intimidating terror against those whom rightwing extremists consider to be a threat to their perception of law and order (Sprinzak 1995). However, vigilantism is not necessarily terrorism (e.g. there can be paramilitary patrols who do not threaten terrorism), and its primary aim might be to win social recognition for those conducting vigilante actions. We propose the following analytical categories for the violence committed by right-wing extremists in Russia (in practice the categories often overlap): a Militant wings/sections of right-wing extremist organisations (vigilantism) are organised structures (e.g. BORN etc.) whose actions in some cases overlap with those of violent gangs (e.g. NSO-Sever). Their members commit violence against selected groups of citizens (e.g. ideological

108  Militant nationalists and racist gangs opponents, people of ‘non-Slavic appearance’, immigrants). Violence accompanying the supposed uncovering of alleged drug dealers and paedophiles (such as acts committed by Restrukt! or Ataka), as well as violent attacks on immigrants (e.g. actions conducted by some segment of the ‘Russians’ movement and other organisations) also fall into this category. Their actions rarely end with deaths; the perpetrators seem mainly to want to attract attention to themselves and to achieve media coverage. b Violent racist gangs are usually composed of young extremists (e.g. autonomous neo-Nazis) who specialise in street violence. Typically, they are not linked with a specific political organisation but emerge from relationships between individuals. They tend to be local in character, linked with a place of residence, school, etc. Their violence targets immigrants and people of ‘non-Slavic appearance’ in particular. Knives are their weapons of choice exclusively. This group is responsible for the greatest number of deaths and instances of grievous bodily harm, committed as part of their hate crimes. c Terrorists tends work in small, closed, hierarchically organised groups that are not affiliated with broader militant nationalist platforms (e.g. the neo-Nazis associated with Nikita Korolev, the BTO and neo-pagan neo-Nazis; some activities carried out by BORN and the NSO have also been borderline terrorist). Most attempted terrorist attacks are amateurish, even primitive, and they often target state authorities (e.g. police stations). The damage caused to property tends to be relatively small (e.g. damaged facades, broken windows, burnt offices, but there was also a derailed handcar), and they tend not to result in loss of life. Some of the attacks have classic criminal motives (e.g. the murder of a judge by members of Russian National Unity). Such terrorism peaked in Russia in 2008–2009, and virtually no attempts at such activities have been recorded recently.

Militant wings/sections of right-wing extremist organisations (vigilantism) Combat Terrorist Group Combat Terrorist Group (Boevaya terroristicheskaya organizatsiya, BTO) is a St Petersburg neo-Nazi gang, which from August 2003 to May 2006 also operated under the name Banda Borovikova-Voevodina. It emerged out of Dmitrii Bobrov’s skinhead group, Schultz-88. After Bobrov was arrested and his group broken up, two of its former members, Dmitrii ‘Kislyi’ Borovikov (who in Bobrov’s group authored the magazines Made in St. Petersburg and Gnev Peruna) and Aleksei ‘SVR’ (Sdelano v Rossii, or Made in Russia) Voevodin decided not just to continue with neo-Nazi activities, but to take organised violence to a higher level. What they objected to in Schultz-88 were the group’s ‘soft intimidation acts’ (i.e. street violence

Militant nationalists and racist gangs 109 falling short of murder) and its primitive neo-Nazism. They joined Ruslan Melnikov’s hooligan group Mad Crowd. Melnikov was later sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison and, upon release, took up purely criminal activities. In 2013, Melnikov was rearrested as a member of a group that stole more than USD 10 million from Russian banks (Nikulin 2014b). When Mad Crowd was broken up in 2003, Borovikov and Voevodin pinned their hopes on founding a ‘new type of party’. They took no one from the old gang, Mad Crowd, into their new group, recruiting physically fit racists and Slavic neo-pagans instead. ‘If skinheads are the infantry, BTO are the soldiers of the new SS (Schutzstaffel),’ Borovikov wrote. Over time, the membership ranged from six to 11. Borovikov avowed the principle that one must always be ready to murder (Shtormchistoĭkrovi 2016). They shed their external skinhead attributes, used the principles of conspiracy and created their own combat doctrines. In their leaflets and ‘directives’, subsequently confiscated, they wrote: ‘We wage a war on the system. We understand that the chief enemy is the ZOG [Zionist Occupation Government], and not the “darkies”.’ It was absolutely clear to them, however, that they would not be able to get to the ‘ZOG’ leaders (i.e. we are dealing here with an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory which argued that ‘Jewish agents’ were clandestinely controlling the country’s government) and that, ‘in a strong and stable state structure’, a revolution was impossible. Beyond that, ‘state power creates an illusion of prosperity among the population’. Thus, they thought that a ‘destabilising terror’ was the only possible avenue for struggle. Through murders and physical attacks on ‘nonwhites’ and other methods, this terror aimed to destabilise Russian society (Sidorov 2006). BTO was well organised. Its members, who came from a variety of social and educational backgrounds, were experienced street fighters and used underground tactics, including false identification papers and safe houses. The gang’s members allegedly did not use magnetic metro cards or mobile phones. If they needed to call other members about planned violent action, they borrowed mobile phones from passers-by. A time given over the phone indicated a meeting at the given place an hour before (Belogonov 2009). Some members did not know each other’s names, only nicknames. Their aggression increased over time—when they could find no suitable victims, they would slash the tires of emergency services vehicles so that these ‘wouldn’t save the Jews in time’. They even visited morgues and stabbed corpses with knives to practise future attacks on living victims. The members usually carried plastic knives to be able to pass freely through security scanners. They were given clear instructions in case they were pursued by the police: they were to kill one last ‘darkie’ and then commit suicide. They sewed razors in their clothing so that they could slash their wrists at an opportune moment after arrest (indeed, some attempted to do so in detention). Important for the gang were not just the murders themselves, but also the media and social responses to them; hence they sought to ‘create’ these media events (http://dmitriyborovikov.blogspot.cz 2009).

110  Militant nationalists and racist gangs The group launched its violent campaign in August 2003 in an assault on two Armenians; this was in fact how the group actually came to be. In December 2003, Voevodin and five other members of the group committed the first murder, with a Korean falling victim. Soon after, they attempted to murder a Nigerian citizen, who survived 30 stab wounds thanks to the timely arrival of an ambulance. In early 2004, the group secured a supply of weapons from two ‘black diggers’, i.e. people who illegally dig for World War II artefacts (Newsland 2010). BTO’s murder of a nine-year-old Tajik girl in February 2004 in Borovikov’s street caused a massive wave of disgust, even among radical nationalists. Before summer 2004, they committed several more physical assaults. Frequently lacking finances, they introduced membership dues (albeit at a mere 300 roubles per month), robbed post-offices and stole from victims (for instance, when they murdered the Korean citizen, they found 300,000 roubles on his person) (Lvov 2006). Borovikov then decided to commit demonstrative murders of two acquaintances, Gofman1 and Golovchenko (it is unclear whether they were members of the group), who had disobeyed his order to kill the St Petersburg academic, expert witness and authority on right-wing terrorism, Nikolai Girenko (according to another version, Borovikov suspected them of being police informers). Girenko was finally murdered in June 2004 by two BTO members, Kostrochenkov and Prokhorenko, who shot him through the door of his flat. Borovikov claimed that Girenko was a Russophobe and an anti-fascist, and that many of ‘our people’ were in prison because of his expert opinions (Mzk1.ru 2015). In 2004, Andrei ‘Boets’ Malyugin joined BTO after returning from Chechnya, where he had served in the special forces. Allegedly, he was so aggressive that even BTO members feared him. Malyugin brought a new ideology to the group. He said that the Chechen insurgents were so well organised that BTO should enter into an alliance with them and convert to Islam, at least for the sake of appearance. Shortly before his arrest, Malyugin had been downloading material from the Islamist website Kavkaz-tsentr and was speaking of his plan to find suicide attackers who would detonate their bombs in St Petersburg where a G-8 summit was to be held. During a house search at his address, dynamite was found (Lvov 2006). At his first trial, Malyugin was acquitted, and in April 2006 he shot dead a student from Cameroon. The police arrested members of the BTO group in 2005 and 2006. In total, BTO was responsible for seven murders, eight cases of bodily harm, armed raids on post offices, an attempted bomb attack on a café where foreign students met regularly, and illegal possession of weapons and explosives (Abarinov 2006; News.ru 2009). The head of the group, Dmitrii Borovikov, was shot dead by the police in May 2006 (he allegedly resisted arrest and attacked officers with a knife, but the details are unclear). In Russian neoNazi circles, this immediately made him a ‘martyr’ and a symbol of the abuse of power by the country’s security forces. The group was able to continue

Militant nationalists and racist gangs 111 to operate underground, thanks in part to Dmitrii Borovikov’s father, who was a police officer.2 When the elder Borovikov was dismissed from the service, the authorities continued their arrests of BTO members (Belogonov 2009). Their trial began in 2009: Aleksei Voevodin received a life sentence in July 2011, as did another member of the group, Artem Prokhorenko. Others received prison sentences ranging from seven to 18 years, four of them suspended. Like Goryachev and Tikhonov of Russian Image/BORN, Voevodin is now serving his sentence in the Polar Owl penal colony in Kharp, beyond the Arctic Circle. In September 2016, he bludgeoned his cellmate to death, thus losing the opportunity of parole when his case is due for review 25 years after sentencing (Mzk1.ru 2016). The last BTO member who was given a long-term prison sentence was Andrei Malyugin, who had been acquitted at the trial of BTO members. He was only found guilty in March 2016, when he received a 18-year prison sentence for the attempted murder of the St Petersburg City Court judge, Shidlovskii, who had presided over the trial of BTO members; two murders (one killing, of a business man, had a purely criminal motive; the other, of the neo-Nazi Miroslav Kovrovskii, was committed because the victim had insulted Voevodin); and violence committed against a public official (Kommersant 2016). Borovikov, Voevodin and their gang were probably the most extreme in Russia, alongside NSO-Sever, as shown by their writings, especially those by Borovikov: ‘A weak one will not have recourse to hate. Hate is a strong weapon. Only he who is really strong can use it. In this world, you always receive what you give. This is why weaklings share love: they hope that the world will repay them in the same coin. But for us pagans, the crucified God means nothing. Christian love turns men into swine—our weapon is hate’ (Livejournal 2013). This quote also demonstrates a hatred of Orthodox Christianity, a notable component in BTO’s ideological toolkit. Borovikov and his supporters once seriously considered a terrorist attack on an Orthodox church. Between their violent actions, the gang members published magazines in which they attempted to justify their acts. It seems that they eventually realised that the ‘whites’—in whose name they ostensibly waged their struggle—had no stomach for their ‘racial war’. This realisation did not, however, prevent them from perpetrating further violence. By contrast, they decided that ‘white people were not as worthy as they were—they were “heroes”’. They started to consider themselves ‘a separate nation’, ‘supermen’, who had to eliminate both the ‘coloureds’ and the ‘whites’. Their ‘new race’, which was to rule over the world, was to emerge from the bloody chaos of a civil war, which had to be stirred up (Falkovskii and Litoi 2013: 220–221). ‘Television, family, pitiful entertainment, fashionable clothes, a full fridge … if that is all that is of interest to the whites today, what kind of white people are they? They are just flesh and rubbish,’ wrote Borovikov. ‘The white race must be started again from scratch’ (Shtormchistokrovi 2016).

112  Militant nationalists and racist gangs Military-Patriotic Club SPAS In 2001, the neo-Nazi Nikolai Korolev founded the Military-Patriotic Club SPAS (the acronym translates as Specialised Combat Army System). In addition to combat techniques, Korolev (who, as a member of skinhead group OB-88, had participated in the Yasenevskaya and Tsaritsyno pogroms) and his associate, Sergei Klimuk,3 a martial arts instructor and Federal Security Service (Federal’naya sluzhba bezopasnosti rossiyskoy federatsii, FSB) warrant officer, indoctrinated their followers (who were mostly students of various Moscow universities) with radical nationalist ideological principles. Members of SPAS and two students at the Mendeleev Institute of Chemical Technology, Ilya Tikhomirov4 and Oleg Kostyrev,5 together with two other students, bombed the Cherkizovskii market in August 2006. The attack claimed 14 lives and 49 people were injured. The perpetrators had already unsuccessfully attempted several other bomb attacks, having found instructions on how to make explosives on the internet: e.g. on a hostel for Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan; on the office of the newspaper Russkii vestnik; on a mosque in Yachroma, a small town in the Moscow oblast’ (the leader of Slavic Power, Dmitrii Demushkin, was detained for this attack); and on several Azeri-owned Moscow market stalls and gambling houses (Publichnaĭa internet-biblioteka Vladimira Pribylovskogo undated). Tikhomirov’s diary led police investigators to other individuals implicated in the Cherkizovsky market bombing (the largest terrorist attack by radical nationalists to date). It also contained the following note: ‘Now I am planning a large terrorist action. The goal is to kill several hundred enemies and stop the influx of immigrants’ (Zheglov 2007). It was initially thought that Klimuk was the main organiser of the Cherkizovskii market bombing, but it was later determined that he had nothing to do with the other attacks (attempted bombings of an Armenian hostel, a mosque, market stalls, cafés and a gaming-machine hall). At first, Korolev claimed that Klimuk had boasted to the other accused that the bomb attack on the market was motivated solely by his own criminal-business interests. Then Korolev changed his testimony and claimed that he organised the terrorist attack and that he had merely used Klimuk. The racial-hatred motive was not discussed at the outset. Klimuk denied his guilt throughout. During his detention, he suffered a heart attack, and the right side of his body was partially paralysed. Korolev, Klimuk, Tikhomirov and Kostyrev were sentenced to life imprisonment in May 2008. Three other members of SPAS received sentences ranging from two to 20 years. In the meantime, a separate trial was held in which Nikita Senyukov, a student of the police academy and also a member of SPAS, was condemned to 13 years in prison for the murder of an Armenian student at the Pushkinskaya metro station in Moscow (Trifonov 2008a). During the trial and while serving his prison

Militant nationalists and racist gangs 113 sentence, Nikolai Korolev established authority over his supporters. He targeted them with video messages and presented himself as a neo-Nazi ideologue and something of a godfather to NS (neo-Nazi) skinheads, winning fame as one of the ‘white heroes’ in the Russian neo-Nazi pantheon. He said in an interview: ‘… I have been killing enemies since 1996. I was involved in several extreme-right brigades and organisations, until I went underground in 2001 and founded SPAS […] Tikhomirov’s cell carried out the action because of the dominance in the markets of Southern occupants’ (Falkovskii and Litoi 2013: 77). During his time in a Moscow prison, he wrote the book The Skinhead Bible—New Testament, which in 2011 was judged to be extremist material by a court of law and banned (in 2014, a second volume was also banned). Korolev evaluated the terrorist attack very positively, because ‘the government eventually accepted revolutionary change—it pulled back the aliens from the markets, and the Ministry of the Interior started to check immigrants much more stringently’. In this context, it is worth noting some of Korolev’s biographical details. He was born in Moscow in March 1981 into the large family of a music professor. At the age of 14, he became acquainted with football hooligans supporting FC Dynamo Moscow and joined NS skinheads. He finished a music school course and became greatly interested in boxing. Around 1998 he led two skinhead ‘brigades’: Babka-Front (named after Babushkin skaya metro station) and the Street Hooligans. He was a member of Aleksandr Shtilmark’s Chernayasotnya and felt close to fundamentalist Orthodox Christianity. According to an interview with his father in the Izvestiya newspaper, he did not serve in the army, allegedly due to illness—supposedly he took drugs in his youth and became infected with hepatitis. Later he became a martial arts instructor and received a suspended sentence for manufacturing and possessing weapons (Falkovskii and Litoi 2013: 61). Some SPAS members were also members or sympathisers of the Russian All-National Union (Russkii obshchenatsionalnyi soyuz, RONS), led by Igor Artemov. RONS, however, distanced itself from all of its members who had anything to do with the terrorist acts described above. As is the custom in these circles, RONS blamed a state authority, the FSB. One of the leaders of the former RONS (and the chair of the ‘Renewed RONS’, in exile in Germany), Kryukov, said the following about Korolev in an interview for Radio Free Europe: ‘Nikita Korolev was close to RONS. He was a very charismatic leader and attracted young people, organised sports tournaments and helped to organise the whole network in Moscow and Moscow oblast’. He distributed our paper, Rubezh (Frontier). What happened to him? Many charismatic leaders feel compelled to self-promote, becoming haughty and vain. People from the FSB appeared around him and started to influence him […] then the FSB blew up the Cherkizovskii market’ (Volchek 2016a).

114  Militant nationalists and racist gangs ‘Orel Partisans’ This group was active in the city of Orel in western Russia. The ‘Orel Partisans’ were an autonomous group that attempted to conduct subversive terrorism. They targeted buildings occupied by state authorities and the property of non-Slavic inhabitants. Their actions were demonstrative in character: at the site of attack, they left leaflets confirming the neo-Nazi motivation of their acts and declaring their desire to unleash anti-state terror. Shortly after members of the group were arrested in 2010, a document appeared on the internet headed ‘A letter from the Orel Partisans’, claiming that the group was part of a nationwide anti-state terrorist partisan trend. From the view of political science and security studies, it is very interesting to note that this was the first case in which the core of a militant extremist group consisted of serving members of the Russian security services. The ‘Orel Partisans’ started their activities in about November 2009. Their leader was Viktor Lukonin (born in 1978 in Postdam in then East Germany, whose father probably served in the Soviet army). Later, he became a convinced racist and taught at the FSO (Federal Protective Service) Academy. There he organised lectures by well-known nationalist activists such as Roman Zentsov, the leader of Resistance (Soprotivlenie), and field camps for young neo-Nazis. Lukonin first recruited two of his students, Anton Gavrin and Ilya Bagrov, into his group. These two acquainted Lukonin with Denis Konstantinov, one of the region’s most prominent activists, who had contact with Sergei Golubev, the leader of Blood & Honour Russia. After a Blood & Honour concert in Orel, Golubev—in addition to celebrating Chechen Islamist insurgents—asked the Orel neo-Nazis to produce a list of those serving in the local anti-extremism police squad, because, he alleged, he knew people in Moscow who would be able to come and get rid of them (Falkovskii and Litoi 2013: 176). Available data suggest that it was the death of Kirill Kalashnikov, who was close to local nationalists, in a brawl with a group of people from the Caucasus that was the cause of the increased activism of the Orel Partisans. This was because investigators had come to the conclusion that the Caucasians had acted in legitimate self-defence. Several local NS skinheads then joined the Orel Partisans. The group started to commit arson attacks and to prepare explosives. The fact that Lukonin was an FSO officer allowed him to take weapons, firebombs and other explosives to the site of attack. The group adhered to some conspiracy rules, and its members were forbidden to drink alcohol (Falkovskii and Litoi 2013: 166–167). Arrests started in August 2010 after an explosion in a café owned by Caucasians. To detonate the bomb, the group’s explosives expert, Vladimir Artamonov, used a mobile phone with a SIM card from which he had earlier made calls, and this led to his arrest. After several interrogations, he turned in the whole group. The 11 people who were arrested included Lukonin and three of his former students, who in the meantime had achieved junior officer

Militant nationalists and racist gangs 115 status in the FSO (the arrests were not limited to Orel, but included Rybinsk and Moscow oblast’, where the cadets served in FSO units). In June 2012, the members of the group were given jail sentences of up to 16 years (Falkovskii and Litoi 2013: 178). As they later claimed, they committed arson attacks on police and public prosecutor offices ‘because of the arbitrariness of the police organs, which are guilty of massive invasion by aliens.’ They called themselves ‘partisans’ and NS/WP Centre. The ‘Orel Partisans’ were responsible for the following crimes: • • • • • • • •

An arson attack on Aleksandr Nevskii chapel in the second half of 2009: they threw a firebomb at the wall of the building, which did not cause substantial damage. An arson attack on an Orel police department using firebombs: no serious damage (November 2009). An arson attack on the Orel district public prosecutor’s office (December 2009); they broke into the building at night and started a fire. A firebomb was thrown through the window of a local police station (February 2010). Shortly thereafter they attempted to set a branch of the Orel city police on fire. A physical assault on two young Armenian men, one of whom subsequently died (April 2014). A homemade bomb was thrown through the window of the public prosecutor’s office (July 2010); walls, furniture and office equipment were damaged. An explosion in the Indira café; four people were wounded (August 2010). Three further arson attacks on police stations, a café and a shop (all unsuccessful).

Later, the so-called ‘Irkutsk Partisans’ and ‘Primorsky Partisans’ (see below) emerged among Russia’s militants, but their activities and background were closer to classical radical nationalism than to neo-Nazism. The ‘Irkutsk Partisans’ was a name used for the brothers Artem and Ruslan Vokin, who attended fistfights organised by neo-Nazi neo-pagan associations. In late 2010, they decided to declare war on the Russian state. In 2010, they killed an Uzbek citizen and attacked a taxi driver with a knife. In April 2011, they had a skirmish with police, killing two officers and wounding a third. The event received a significant positive response from Irkutsk nationalist circles. The perpetrators hid in Omsk oblast’ but were later caught (Falkovskii and Litoi 2013: 263–264). In 2012, the two brothers received their sentences: Artem 22 years and Ruslan life (Geroivoli undated). While serving his sentence, Artem bludgeoned his cellmate, who was serving time for rape, to death. Biryulevo Front and associated groups The group Biryulevo Front (Biryulevskii front, BF) emerged in the peripheral Moscow borough of Biryulevo, most likely in 2005. During its time,

116  Militant nationalists and racist gangs it committed dozens of assaults on non-Russians, some of which ended in deaths. The group was led by Ilya ‘Luftwaffe’ Shutko, sentenced in 2009 for a murder and three attempted murders. Later, the leading activists were Evgeniya Zhikhareva and Svyatoslav Batyuk. When the prosecution of Batyuk was opened, he attempted to hide from the police in St Petersburg at Malyugin’s home (Malyugin was one of the leaders of Borovikov’s and Voevodin’s BTO). Malyugin sent him to nearby Pikalevo, to his ‘fellow fighters’ Mark Filippov and Aleksandr Nikitin, who ultimately killed Batyuk by cutting off his head and hiding it in the refrigerator (they were sentenced for the murder in December 2011). The two perpetrators were members of the St Petersburg neo-Nazi gang, NS/WP Nevograd, led by German Vengerfeld, a Russian citizen of German origin living in the city. NS/WP Nevograd was established in April 2009 when two neo-Nazis killed an immigrant from Uzbekistan and recorded the murder on camera. The group had at least 10 members (most of them minors), and they committed several felonies, including the racial murder of an African, which they again recorded on video and published on the internet as a ‘New Year’s present’. The group also attacked a handcar and threw firebombs into an Orthodox church. Later, German Vengerfeld and Valentin Mumzhiev burned two homeless women to death. In November 2009, they planted a bomb at a public transport stop (one person was wounded). In total, this St Petersburgbased group was responsible for eight murders and four attempted murders. In the trial that followed these attacks, Vengerfeld was sentenced to 24 years in prison, and the others were sentenced to three to 16 years (Fontanka.ru 2014; Achmetzhanova 2014). One member of NS/WP Nevograd, Kirill ‘Vegan’ Prisyazhnyuk, converted to radical Islam in prison and became a jihadist. When released, he married a Muslim in the Caucasus, worked as a recruiter for the Islamic State and attempted to travel to Syria. He was arrested in December 2015 at the border, and the next year a Grozny court sent him to prison for four years (Judina and Alperovitch 2017). Moscow’s BF, meanwhile, continued to exist, reappearing in the media in autumn 2013 in connection with anti-Caucasian disturbances in the area. Most sources indicate that this group—which had as many as 100 members— tended to be rather passive at the time. Allegedly forming part of the BF were Kalinichenko’s gang, during the trial of which Shutko (‘Luftwaffe’) was also brought to justice, and the Ryno-Skachevskii gang. The BF cultivated contacts with many of Russia’s neo-pagan (rodnovery) activists, especially those from Volgograd oblast’ and St Petersburg. For instance, when the prosecution was opened in Volgograd of two neo-pagan activists, Bashelutskov and Lukhmyrin, for their assault on an Azerbaijani citizen, they moved to Moscow and stayed with BF members. The BF is alleged to be responsible for killing 12 guest workers and planting bombs in railway structures, in a church in Biryulevo-Zapadnoe and in a McDonald’s restaurant in Kuzminki. In its glorification of violence, the BF did not acknowledge the leaders of established nationalist organisations, recognizing only those neo-Nazis who had

Militant nationalists and racist gangs 117 committed a large number of murders or a terrorist attack (Vershov 2013; SOVA 2013a). The neo-pagan group Autonomous Slavic Resistance (Avtonomnoe slavyanskoe soprotivlenie) cooperated with the Biryulevo Front or was perhaps part of it. It was responsible for arson attacks on churches, synagogues and police cars; explosions in Moscow marketplaces; four murders, of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Cameroon citizens; and 11 attempted murders of people of non-Slavic origin (including citizens of Gabon, Cape Verde, Azerbaijan, China and South Korea), as well as numerous physical assaults. When the group started its activities in August 2008, all of its members were minors. For reasons of security, the group’s leader, Vasilev, did not support contact with other nationalist groups and urged members to meet only to carry out violent acts; otherwise they communicated solely over the internet. On the other hand, they recorded most of their acts on camera and published the videos on the internet. They stand accused of, among other things, pouring a flammable mixture over two women from Central Asia (or South Korea, according to other sources) and setting them on fire (Falkovskii and Litoi 2013: 222). At the turn of 2008/2009, they planted several bombs in Moscow marketplaces, close to stalls owned by traders of non-Slavic origin (in September 2008, an explosion in the Bistro café injured six people; in December 2008 at the Yarmarka market close to Prazhskaya metro station in Chertanovo borough, another explosion injured 12 people; four further attacks from August to September 2008 resulted in no casualties due to failure of the detonators; News.ru 2011b). The group’s leaders were arrested largely by chance when, in January 2009, Vasilev and Andrei Gordeev attempted to flee a routine police check as they returned to a metro station after another attempted murder. That very day they had attacked citizens of Cape Verde and Gabon with knives. After the leaders’ arrest, Svyatoslav Batyuk fled to St Petersburg. In March 2013, the group’s members were sentenced: the 23-year-old leader, Anton Vasilev, to 22 years in prison; the 19-year-old Gordeev and Konstantin Kucherto to 10 and 13 years, respectively; and Vladislav Polyakov received nine years. Autonomous Combat Terrorist Group The Autonomous Combat Terrorist Group (Avtonomnaya boevaya terroristicheskaya organizatsiya, ABTO) focussed on arson attacks on FSB buildings, police stations, the market stalls of non-Russian traders and blocks of flats housing non-Russians. The leader was Ivan Astashin. All of the ABTO’s acts, which included eight arson attacks and explosions, took place in 2009 and early 2010. Its members—a total of 10 people—were sentenced to a total of 70 years in prison in April 2012 (Kozlov 2012). The Moscow City Court took an unprecedented measure in connection with ABTO in June 2013, banning the group as a terrorist organisation, not just an extremist group. This was the first time that a right-wing extremist,

118  Militant nationalists and racist gangs rather than Islamist, group was included on Russia’s list of terrorist organisations (Judina, Alperovitch and Verkhovskii 2013). In 2015, the Minin and Pozharskii Public Militia, led by Vladimir Kvachkov, was added to the list. As of December 2017, these are the only two Russian nationalist organisations to have been classified as terrorist (Nacionalnyĭ antiterroristichekiĭ komitět undated). The list does include the Crimea branch of Praviisektor, which, given that Russia’s annexation of Crimea is not recognised by international law, is in this respect irrelevant; it is more of a propagandist act on the part of the Russian authorities, who wish to call attention to the threat allegedly posed by Ukrainian nationalists.

Violent racist gangs not affiliated with an organisation Some of the extreme-right political violence in contemporary Russia falls under the category of hate crimes committed as unpremeditated violence or with very little preparation. We can therefore speak of ad hoc hate crimes.6 This violence usually appears in subcultures dominated by racist ideology. Between 2008 and 2013, this unpremeditated racist violence exhibited two main characteristics. First, it was perpetrated much more often than before by older offenders (i.e. about 20 years old) who were able to carry out more sophisticated kinds of violence than the primitive street violence—they could, for instance, make bombs. Second, the murders were committed with senseless brutality; more than once, racial murders were recorded where the victim was stabbed as many as 30 times. Theft was occasionally committed along with the murder to obscure the racial motive. Extremists under trial would occasionally plead guilty to more murders than they had actually committed to increase their authority within extremist circles or to protect other perpetrators (interview with Aleksandr Verkhovskii 2009). This racial violence was surprisingly common: in 2009, according to Verkhovskii, there were 2,000–3,000 young, non-organised racists in Moscow alone, ready to assault and kill immigrants chosen largely at random (interview with Aleksandr Verkhovskii 2009). Across Russia, a sharp increase in the number of racially motivated murders could be observed as early as 2003—previously, the attacks rarely resulted in deaths. Some of the militant nationalists themselves lost their lives, but attempts to obtain more precise data on murdered far-right extremists foundered on lack of information. A website dedicated to Russian extremists who were murdered or sentenced lists about 40 dead in Russia since 1999 (Kniga pamyati pavshikh geroev undated) (Table 5.1). The bulk of these attacks and murders were committed in Moscow or St Petersburg. One has to bear in mind, however, that these data are not necessarily exhaustive and the real numbers maybe higher. Aleksandr Verkhovskii, director of the SOVA centre, estimates the real number of race murders to be about double the unofficial figures quoted above (interview with Aleksandr Verkhovskii 2009).

Militant nationalists and racist gangs 119 Table 5.1  Overview of hate crimes and physical assaults according to the SOVA Centre for Information and Analysis Year

Dead

Injured

2004

50

218

2005

49

419

2006

66

522

2007

89

618

2008

110

487

2009

84

434

2010

37

382

2011

25

195

2012

19

187

2013

23

203

2014

36

134

2015

12

96

2016

9

72

2017 (early) Total

4

64

613

4,031

Sources: Kozhevnikova 2005b, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009b, 2010; Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2011; Judina, Alperovitch and Verkhovskii 2012; Judina, Alperovitch and Verkhovskii 2013, 2014a, 2015, 2016a, 2017; SOVA 2017c.

We must also recognize that Russia is, generally speaking, a country where crime is rife, with more than 10,000 murders committed each year (according to official statistics, 12,921 murders were committed in 2014 and 11,679 in 2015; The Village 2016). Other sources suggest that the real number of murders committed in Russia is much higher, alleging, for instance, that there were 32,900 murders in 2015 (Vetrov 2016). Perhaps paradoxically, the murder rate is lowest in the Northern Caucasus, seen by Russia’s racists as a veritable hotbed of crime and violence. In any case, racial murder accounts for at most 0.1% of all murders in the country. Note that the above-cited SOVA centre statistics only include those cases where the racial motive was officially recognised by a public prosecutor (Table 5.2). The overwhelming majority of these gangs operated between 2006 and 2009; around 2010, the violence committed by organised and non-organised radical nationalists decreased sharply. One more recent gang worthy of note called itself ‘the Cleaners’ (Chistilshchiki). It had five members, and they did

Table 5.2  Violent racist gangs Name

Period of activity

Gang Ryno-Skachevskii

August 2006 to April 2007

Kalinichenko’s Gang

Leaders and number of gang members

Violent activities

Active in

Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevskii,a 7–9 membersb

20 murders, 12 attempted murders. They randomly chose their victims (e.g. guest workers on building sites, maintenance workers), largely based on their ‘non-Slavic appearance’, near metro stations and killed them by inflicting 15–60 stab wounds.

Moscow

August–October 2007

Kalinichenko, 12 members (teenagers aged 15–19 years)c

2 murders (including that of chess grandmaster Sergei Nikolaev), 7 attempted murders.

Moscow

White Wolves (Belyevolki)

April 2007 to early 2009

Aleksei Dzhavakhishvili, 12 members (sentences ranging from 6 to 23 years)d

11 murders, victims mostly randomly chosen Central Asian guest workers.

Moscow

Volksturm

September 2006 to February 2008

Mikhail Rusakov, 9 members (in June 2011 given sentences ranging from 6 to 13 years)

3 murders, 40 instances of bodily harm. Victims largely people of ‘non-Slavic appearance’. Members filmed their violence and posted the videos on the internet. They covered their faces when attacking and communicated cautiously.

Ekaterinburg

The Society of the Whites-88 (Obshchestvo belych-88)

2008–2009

Aleksandr Degt’arev (Maksim Aleshin from December 2008), seven members

4 murders, 9 attempted murders

Nizhnii Novgorod

Simbirsk White Power

2008–2010

Dmitrii Nikitin, then Aleksei Mairabeev, maximum of 5 members

1 murder (of a Cameroonian), 14 instances of bodily harm. All were filmed and posted on social networks. Their targets were non-Russian guest workers and students.

Ulyanovsk

Sieg-88

Autumn 2006 to January 2007

Ivan Sazhnev, 8 members, sentenced to 6–10 years

1 murder

Ekaterinburg

White Inquisitors Crew

2008–2009

7 members, sentenced to 2.5–9 years

1 murder, 3 instances of grievous bodily harm

Ryazan

Linkoln-88

August to December 2007

Andrei Linok (‘Linkoln’), up to 22 members

2 murders, 1 attempted murder, 12 physical assaults

St Petersburg

Belaya staya

2009

Sergei Shurygin, about 5 members

10 instances of bodily harm, chiefly Nizhnii against guest workers. The gang Novgorod operated similarly to Restrukt!, arranging dates with ‘paedophiles’ and assaulting them.

(Continued )

Table 5.2  Violent racist gangs (Continued ) Leaders and number of gang members

Violent activities

Active in

2009–2010

Emelyan Nikolaev (‘Yan Lyutik’, sentenced to 19 years), 6 members

1 murder, multiple attempted murders, disorderly conduct, thefts.e

Moscow

Krivets’s Gang

October 2007 to May 2008

Vasilii Krivets and several other persons

15 murders, largely of Caucasian and Central Asian guest workers.

Moscow

“14/88”

2013 to January 2014

Aleksandr Sokolov (sentenced to 10 years in 2016), fewer than 30 members

1 murder, 3 counts of grievous bodily harm, physical assaults on Moscow metro passengers

Moscow

Name

Period of activity

Yan Lyutik’s Gang

a Ryno grew up in Ekaterinburg and Khabarovsk. His parents divorced; at school, he was a quiet, introverted pupil without many friends. He allegedly adopted racist convictions after a Chechen schoolmate beat him up. In 2004, he moved to Moscow and attended an art college, studying icon painting. Skachevskii grew up in Moscow and was a talented student. He allegedly adopted racist views after a block of flats opposite his home in Moscow was bombed in 1999—he lost several friends in the explosions. At the time of his crimes, he studied at the sports faculty of a Moscow university (Harding 2009). Ryno and Skachevskii met through Martsinkevich’s neo-Nazi website, www.format18.ru. b The other gang members were not particularly physically fit—they were inconspicuous teenagers, some of whom were not enlisted for military service due to physical defects. These young men considered the murders as part of a fight for national liberation, a quasi-mystical struggle to remove immigrants from Russia, in which they wished to play the role of heroes and warriors. The two leading members of the gang received 10-year prison sentences (the highest possible sentence for minors in Russia); five other members received between 6 and 20 years (Harding 2009). c It was due to this murder that the police uncovered the gang, because one of the attackers was so inept in handling the knife that he caused himself a serious injury. The police found him in hospital and, using data on his computer, traced other members of the gang (Trifonov 2008b). d The judge, Eduard Chuvashov, who passed sentence on them, was murdered in April 2010 by the Moscow neo-Nazi Aleksei Korshunov of BORN, who was also responsible for killing several leading militant anti-fascists. The court said that together they collaborated on a criminal plan to systematically commit murders of persons of non-Slavic origin in public places (in the streets, in public spaces in housing estates, in parks and on public transport) in the presence of passers-by. By committing these murders, the defendants sought to elicit a widespread response in society and unleash a wave of nationalist hate. They committed their violence using knives, screwdrivers or whatever they found in the street (Shmaraieva 2010). e They agreed to meet at metro or suburban train stations and chose their victims according to their ‘non-Slavic appearance’. The group was led by Emelyan ‘Lyutik’ Nikolaev, the half-brother of the actor Artur Smolyaninov. He was charged with 30 attempted murders, but found guilty of only three (Setdikova 2012). Sources: Polit.ru 2008; News.ru 2008; Chelikanova 2010; Girin 2010; Sergeyev 2010; Dobrynina 2011; 73online.ru 2011; RZN.info 2011; SOVA 2013b; Interfax 2016.

Militant nationalists and racist gangs 123 not attack immigrants or people of ‘non-Slavic appearance’, instead targeting homeless or inebriated people whom the gang’s members considered a ‘boil on the body of society’ that had to be removed. The gang operated in 2014 and 2015 and was responsible for 15 murders in and around Moscow.7 All of its members were devotees of racist and radical nationalist ideologies. Some members allegedly wished to fight in Ukraine’s Azov battalion, but the Russian authorities sent them back from the Russo-Ukrainian border. In recent years, members of several youth gangs have been arrested for murdering homeless people. However, these killings were not motivated by a radical nationalist ideology (Turovskii 2017b).

Borderline cases In some cases there is an overlap between a racial motive and other drivers of violence—i.e. some gangs might be classified as common criminals who tend to choose their victims from non-Russian ethnicities. For instance, this was the case for the youth gang Sinichka, operating in Balashikha in Moscow oblast’ and consisting of teenagers aged 14–16 from troubled families. This group was active starting in 2010 and committed about 27 murders, with people whose appearance suggested they originated in the Caucasus or East Asia increasingly chosen as victims. They filmed some assaults and posted the videos on the internet (Krylova 2012). The case of the so-called ‘Primorskii Partisans’, a criminal group that in early 2010 committed a range of assaults, principally on police officers, in Primorskiikrai, provides an example of terrorist acts being ‘appropriated’ by nationalists. Some members of the group had previous links with militant nationalism (at least two of them had been tried for racial assaults). Many people in Russia resent the arbitrary behaviour of their country’s police, and these strong anti-police moods in society boosted the popularity of these self-styled ‘popular Russian avengers’, whose activities were reported even in reputable media. Thus, a cult of ‘white heroes’ was created (especially of those among the Primorskii. Partisans who had not surrendered themselves to the police, preferring to commit suicide, e.g. Andrei Sukhorada and Aleksandr Sladkikh), in which the state and its repressive apparatus provided classic images of the enemy (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2011). However, the Primorskii Partisans were not primarily driven by radical nationalism. Two murderers from Akademgorodok in Irkutsk, Siberia, who professed inclinations towards the ‘People’s Haters’ misanthropic movement, can be assessed in a similar way without specifying details about the movement. Artem Anufriev and Nikita Lytkin committed six murders and 16 assaults over four months in winter 2011. They seem to have chosen their victims entirely at random (irrespective of gender, age, race, religion or social status) and recorded some of the attacks on camera and posted them on the internet (Judina, Alperovitch and Verkhovskii 2012). Anufriev espoused a

124  Militant nationalists and racist gangs neo-Nazi ideology and was occasionally involved in neo-Nazi events (e.g. he attended the November 2010 Russian March). He also maintained contact with the informal leader of Irkutsk NS skinheads, who, however, did not consider Anufriev a skinhead and said at the trial that for Anufriev neo-Nazism served merely as pretext, that he (Anufriev) did not much care whom he murdered, because he hated absolutely everyone. Both Anufriev and Lytkin admired Russian serial killers such as Chikatilo and Pichushkin. They differed from other racist gangs by choosing their victims at random. Although they maintained some contact with neo-Nazis, read their literature and for some time moved in NS skinhead circles, they did not commit their murders out of racist convictions. In July 2012, Vasilii Fedorovich, a 28-year-old lawyer from Ekaterinburg, was arrested and charged with 14 murders. A firearms and knives buff, Fedorovich led sports clubs and worked as a knife-fighting instructor. He associated with other racist thugs, and their victims tended to be people from the Caucasus. During interrogation, he unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide (by stabbing scissors into his neck). The investigation concluded that a nationalist or racial motive could not be ascribed to all of his murders, as his victims included a Russian student and a Russian veteran of the Chechen war. Fedorovich is therefore another borderline case. The exact number of the group’s victims cannot be ascertained with confidence, with some media claiming that up to 40 murders were committed (Gorbunov 2012; Gorbunov 2015; Ura.ru 2016). Compared to the previous era, extreme-right violence has increased substantially in Putin’s Russia. Indeed, as far as the number of victims is concerned, it is probably unparalleled worldwide (Koehler 2016: 7–50).8 Russia’s extreme-right violence is characterised by its assaults on people from the Caucasus and Central Asia (as opposed to extreme-right violence committed in Central Europe, which tends to target the Roma, and that in Western Europe, where immigrants from the Middle East and Africa tend to fall victims). In this sense, it is certainly not coincidental that in the mid-2000s the promotion of extreme-right interests by means of terrorism and armed struggle became known as the ‘Russian way’.

Notes 1. The parents of the murdered Gofman found in his e-mail account a list of nicknames, phone numbers and people whom the group had decided to kill. The police paid no attention to this, however, and the group was able to commit violent crimes for two more years (News.ru 2009). 2. Borovikov’s father was a very good acquaintance of the leader of the counterextremist 18th Department of the Russian Directorate for Fighting Organized Crime (Rossiiskoe upravlenie po borbe s organizovannoi prestupnostyu, RUBOP). It was alleged that this was the reason Borovikov escaped punishment, despite having already been arrested in 1999 for stabbing a Chinese man—an offence for which his accomplice was sentenced. He was later accused of three murders but always managed to escape conviction

Militant nationalists and racist gangs 125 (Belogonov 2009). Borovikov was studying at a police law academy at the time he committed his crimes, but the academy later expelled him. 3. Sergei Klimuk was born in Kazakhstan on 9 December 1970. In 1991, he became a martial arts trainer. In 2006, he served as a FSB warrant officer in Moscow oblast’. He attended religious courses and was involved in providing protection to events organised by the International Fund for Slavic Literature and Culture, the director of which was the sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov, who in 2005 revived the Chernaya-sotnya-style Union of Russian People (Soyuz russkogonaroda). Klimuk met Korolev at the Fund. 4. Tikhomirov was a member of Artemov’s RONS and even frequented RONS training camps in the Vladimir oblast’. He was also one of the observers monitoring the election of the district where Artemov was an unsuccessful candidate (Makarkin 2009). 5. Kostyrev, a 20-year-old student when he committed the crime, was considered an intelligent, quiet young man who did not have many friends. 6. We adopt the definition of hate crimes recommended by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Russian non-government experts of the SOVA centre contributed to this definition, which is formulated in the following words: ‘Hate crimes are criminal acts committed with a bias motive [sic]. It is this motive that makes hate crimes different from other crimes. A hate crime is not one particular offence. It could be an act of intimidation, threats, property damage, assault, murder or any other criminal offence’ (OSCE/ODIHR 2009: 16). 7. Their activities were similar to those of the gangs noted above in that they selected their victims at random, stabbing them dozens of times. The gang had five members; its leader, Pavel Voitov, previously lived in Latvia, where he was tried for vandalising a Jewish cemetery. He received a life sentence in 2017, and the others were sentenced to 9–16 years in prison. They had first met through social-media profiles such as Time to Hate (https://vk.com/club79592383). 8. It is therefore interesting to observe that some important scholarly books tend not to focus on this phenomenon, concentrating largely on Western Europe and North America (Halbrook and Taylor 2013).

6

Russian militant nationalism and the war in Donbass

Russia’s foreign policy towards Ukraine since 2014: The annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Donbass During February and March 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, hitherto an integral part of Ukraine’s territory. In parallel, Russia’s authorities initiated the so-called ‘Russian Spring’, i.e. attempts to incite uprisings against the Ukrainian government in eastern and southern Ukraine. The tacit aim was to ‘federalise’ Ukraine, in effect, to split the country in two—thus definitively dashing the Ukrainian leadership’s aspirations to integrate Ukraine into Euro-Atlantic structures—and to bind the country with Russia. Aided by Russian ‘volunteers’, led by Igor Girkin, in April 2014 an uprising broke out in the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts of Donbass. In summer 2014, when Ukraine’s military started to get the upper hand and there was a serious risk of them suppressing the rebellion, Russia’s leadership opted for a direct intervention, sending units and heavy military equipment into Donbass in August 2014 (Olszański 2017; for specific activities of Russia’s armed forces during the annexation of the Crimea and the Donbass invasion, see e.g. Berezovets 2015; Tymchuk, Karin, Mashovec and Gusarov 2016). As of December 2017, the threat of Ukraine’s break-up has not materialised, but the conflict has turned latent. Russia’s annexation of Crimea was not just a highly controversial act internationally, but also (if not first of all) a psychological tool to mobilise Russia’s society and rally support for the president, Vladimir V. Putin. Ideologically, Putin explains the decision taken as an effort to prevent a massacre of Donbass’s Russian population by ‘Ukrainian fascists’; in October 2017 he even put forth the summer 1995 Srebrenica massacre as a possible parallel. In Donbass, Putin seems to follow, rather, a geopolitical pragmatism. It seems that his aim is to create another zone of ‘frozen conflict’ that could be reactivated at a convenient time. The fundamental objective remains as before: to prevent Ukraine from leaving Russia’s zone of influence and becoming integrated into Euro-Atlantic structures. If the geopolitical choice made by Ukraine’s leadership and society cannot be pro-Russian, then it won’t be pro-Western, either (Olszański 2017; Zhukov 2017).

Militant nationalism and war in Donbass 127 The emotional aspect of Crimea’s annexation relied largely on an ‘imperial syndrome’, which is characteristic of much of Russian society. In essence, this syndrome is a belief that Russia has a specific civilising mission, seen as an alternative to the Western system of values (Domańska 2017). Within the syndrome, the state authority is the chief guarantor of order and provides the frame of reference for a national identity. The self-confidence of each individual can be reinforced by their identification with the state, especially at times when the whole of society is being mobilised against a common enemy. One consequence of this is militaristic rhetoric. Thus, in connection with the annexation of Crimea, understood as a supreme act of the Russian state in its role as a superpower, the self-confidence of Russia’s society grew substantially, as did the belief that this was the right path to take to make Russia more respected in the world. In this way, the Kremlin tries to overcome its dread fear of ‘colour revolutions’. Under such circumstances, the identification and confrontation of an ‘enemy’ (often external, but can also be internal) can help boost the legitimacy of a regime faced with domestic problems, e.g. a weak economy, falling standards of living, few prospects for future development or innovation. However, ambitious neo-imperial anti-Western ‘conservatism’—the ideology that is today supposed to help the Kremlin rally Russian society around the leadership— has also stimulated the camp of xenophobic nationalism. In a multi-ethnic state with millions of immigrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia, this might well cause political destabilisation (Trenin 2011; Rojek 2015; Domańska 2017). Aleksandr Verkhovskii has noted that Russia’s interference with Ukraine’s internal affairs, its mobilisation against ‘the West’ and the ‘Kiev junta’ (i.e. the new Ukrainian government), has meant a shift in the image of the enemy from the domestic sphere (consider the turning away from xenophobic media campaigns after their peak in 2013 and the subsequent decline of support for ethnic nationalist slogans, including the previously popular idea of introducing visa regimes with countries of Central Asia) to the international sphere (Verkhovskii 2016: 82). All of this, however, caused dramatic discord among the nationalist political spectrum. Discord among radical nationalist organisations in terms of their postures towards the Russo-Ukrainian war since 2014 The positions regarding the Ukrainian question—specifically, relations with Euromaidan, Ukrainian nationalists, the annexation of Crimea, the emergence of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR/LNR) and Russia’s active involvement in the Donbass war—created significant discord in Russian radical nationalist organisations in 2014. Those radical nationalists supporting the annexation of Crimea and the Donbass separatists have, however, lost some of their importance, as they effectively adopted and repeated state propaganda running on TV channels. By contrast, the

128  Militant nationalism and war in Donbass pro-Ukrainian segment of Russian nationalism faced two issues: they were subject to increasingly strong police repression, and the sentiments were expressed more convincingly and actively by the liberal opposition (Judina 2014; Judina and Alperovitch 2015). The discord was primarily manifest in the ‘Russians’ coalition movement. In 2014, due to disagreement about its posture on Ukraine, the National Democratic Party (Natsional-demokraticheskaya partiya, NDP) and the Russian Imperial Movement (Russkoe imperskoe dvizhenie, RID) left the ‘Russians’ movement. The two opposed the ‘anti-Russian and openly Russophobic’ position of the ‘Russians’ leaders, Belov and Demushkin. Thus, as of late September 2014, the ‘Russians’ movement effectively consisted of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (Dvizhenie protivnelegal’no iimmigratsii, DPNI), led by Aleksandr Belov, and Dmitrii Demushkin’s Slavic Power. Furthermore, in October 2014 Belov was arrested by the police (Judina and Alperovitch 2015). Even after the disintegration of the ‘Russians’, various organisations previously involved in the movement attacked each other, and there were mutual accusations of not being true nationalists and patriots. There was just as much discord within the organisations themselves. For instance, some NDP activists left the outfit because they disagreed with the leadership’s view of the ‘Ukrainian question’. Unhappy members of the ‘Russians’ complained that the Moscow leadership prevented them from organising events in support of the Donbass separatists, and that a block had been imposed on this topic on their social networks (Judina 2014; Judina and Alperovitch 2015). As early as 2015, however, the issue of Ukraine was no longer so salient. Not supporting the idea of a ‘Russian Spring’, the movement sought not to expose the topic. Some organisations that in 2014 actively supported the separatists—notably DmitriiBobrov’s National-Socialist Initiative (Natsional’naya-sotsialisticheskaya initsiativa, NSI)—also sought to avoid disputes over Novorossiya. The NSI assumed a neutral position, made the question of Novorossiya a taboo topic in its internal communications and focused on domestic issues. DmitriiBobrov has argued on YouTube that, initially, many had seen Maidan positively, as a struggle against the bloody, oligarchic regime of Viktor Yanukovych. This interpretation changed, however, in response partly to Russian propaganda and partly to the actions of the Ukrainians themselves: ‘For the annexation of Crimea, we must thank first of all the Svoboda [Freedom] party and the Praviisektor [i.e. for their alleged cries for a ‘de-Russification of Ukraine’—this and all other items in square brackets are authors’ notes]. […] Neither Putin, who replaces Russians with immigrants, nor the ‘independent’ de-Russifiers are friends of the Russians’ (YouTube 2014b). Igor Artemov, the leader of the Russian All-National Union (Russkii obshche natsional’nyi soyuz, RONS), assumed a similar neutral position, proclaiming in an interview for Radio svoboda: ‘I support neither Putin nor Poroshenko. […] The Russian nation continues to degrade—that is the main result of Putin’s actions; all the rest is detail.

Militant nationalism and war in Donbass 129 Crimea is secondary. [The war in Donbass] is one of the side lines in the KGB’s control over nationalism. This terrible affair—the unleashing of a fratricidal war—is the worst thing to have happened in the post-Soviet era. […] We must live in one state—no independent Ukraine may exist—but this must not be achieved through war. A war has flared up and hate has buried these hopes [i.e. of one Russo-Ukrainian state]’ (Volchek 2016e). In the second half of 2016, the organisations that supported the Kremlin’s policy on Ukraine faced public indifference as their street demonstrations were attended by few and their campaigns were ignored (Judina and Alperovitch 2017).

The anti-Ukrainian camp of Russian nationalists in Russia The events in Ukraine led to the creation of nationalist coalitions, including those that brought together militant organisations and more moderate groups that were more or less loyal towards the Putin regime (the Russian National Front, or RNF, was largely an exception to this). These included the St Petersburg-based coalition ‘For Novorossiya’, the Moscow group ‘Battle for Donbass’, the largely militant RNF and Girkin’s 25 January Committee (K25), which was not so much a coalition as a discussion group of several nationalist activists, which failed to evolve into a fully-fledged political structure. By publicly supporting the separatists in Donbass and Russia’s military aggression, they sought to attract attention to themselves, in particular the attention of the more moderate nationalists, whose groups (the NDP and New Force), as well as the now semi-forgotten militant nationalist groups (the Russian Imperial Movement and Russian National Unity), will be briefly noted here to complete the picture of the issue. Coalitions of moderate and radical nationalists As early as April 2014, when Igor Girkin and his unit arrived in the Ukrainian city of Slavyansk in the Donetsk oblast’ (by which act the war in Donbass started), the ‘For Novorossia’ movement arose in St Petersburg, emerging from local branches of the pro-Kremlin Rodina organisation, the opposition NDP and RID. This coalition did not last long, however, because Rodina and the militant RID stood on a platform of aggressive Russian imperialism, whereas the leadership of the NDP advocated a nation-state and later accused Rodina of Stalinism (Judina and Alperovitch 2015). In June 2014, the coalition ‘Battle for Donbass’ was founded in Moscow and began organising public events in support of Novorossiya’. It consisted of the Right-Conservative Movement (Pravo-konservativnoe dvizhenie), which was a former Russian Image structure, as well as the Eurasian Youth Union, the National Patriots of Russia (Natsional-patrioty Rossii), members of a coalition known as the Permanent Council of NationalPatriotic Forces of Russia (Postoyannodeistvuyushcheesoveshchanienatsio

130  Militant nationalism and war in Donbass nalno-patrioticheskikhsil Rossii), the internet project Sputnik i Pogrom led by Egor Prosvirnin, and other groups. The Battle for Donbass was led by Aleksei Zhivov and Evgenii Valyaev, the latter a former member of Ilya Goryachev’s Russian Image. The two nationalists were not well known outside their intimate circles. They gained some reputation by organising a rally in June 2014, which was attended by several thousand people and was reported positively in Russian propaganda media (Stroganov 2014). Other Battle for Donbass activities included holding events in support of Novorossiya’ and promoting books published by the People’s Diplomacy fund, where Valyaev worked. On the whole, this was a short-term effort, and its media coverage by Russian television channels, originally substantial, gradually ebbed away (Judina 2014; Judina and Alperovitch 2015). In 2016, following police house searches on both Zhivov and Valyaev, the Battle for Donbass was reduced to a mere group on VKontakte social networks, where it continues to spread disinformation about the events in Ukraine (see https://vk.com/donbassbattle). Zhivov and Valyaev subsequently focused on national-conservative political projects (Judina and Alperovitch 2017). The end of December 2014 marked the creation of the RNF coalition, made up largely of Orthodox-Church-linked monarchist opposition movements (e.g. the Russian Imperial Movement or Great Russia). Although its activities were not limited to showing support for Donbass separatists, the coalition dedicated several rallies to the events in Ukraine, including one to commemorate Aleksei Mozgovoi, commander of the separatist Prizrak (Ghost) unit (he was killed in May 2015 in Luhansk oblast). Similar events were dedicated to Yurii Budanov and Lev Rokhlin. Later, the RNF’s position on the war in Donbass became passive and the coalition focused increasingly on supporting its own jailed leaders (e.g. Kvachkov, Ekishev and others) and opposing the Putin regime (Judina and Alperovitch 2017). It is difficult to interpret this movement’s view of Putin’s Ukraine policy. Andrei Savelev, the leader of Great Russia and one of the most important ideologists of the Orthodox-monarchist camp, inveighs in interviews and publications against ‘Kiev’s state-sponsored Russophobia’ and takes the stand that south-east Ukraine should be annexed by Russia, considering this a matter of vital importance for the whole Russian nation. He claims that the conflict in Ukraine was initiated behind the scenes in the West but considers Russia’s authorities as a direct accomplice in this. In his interpretation, a special operation was carried out that turned Ukraine into a ‘loser state’ and Ukrainian citizens’ hatred of their government was channelled into hatred of Russians and Russia. The conflict could only be solved, he argues, by ‘bringing together Russian people [a term that according to Savelev includes Ukrainians] against the common enemy: the Poroshenko and Putin oligarchy […] an alien oligarchy which captured power both in Ukraine and in the Russian Federation.’ (Nordfront 2016; Savelev 2017).

Militant nationalism and war in Donbass 131 The radical nationalist circles of the Russian National Front and other Orthodox-monarchist organisations (e.g. Union of Russian People) thus approve of the Kremlin’s policy to some extent, while also being convinced that Putin is simply and cynically using the Ukrainian question to achieve his own policy objectives and that he is not a genuine defender of Russians. They do not even agree on the logic driving Putin’s policy: some leaders argue that (a) Putin took advantage of the situation in Ukraine and the turmoil of war to diminish political freedoms in Russia and establish a more conservative internal political model; or that (b) by doing so he sought to improve his sagging ratings; or that (c) the aim was primarily to create a negative image of the nationalists as such (consider the campaign in the Russian media against ‘fascists’ in Ukraine) and to exert pressure on the ‘Russian movement’ within Russia. Also popular are conspiracy theories that Putin plotted with the West, secretly dividing Ukraine into zones of influence, with Russia receiving Crimea and Donbass, and the West the rest of Ukraine. Most of the nationalists of this category (except for strongly pro-regime organisations such as Rodina and the People’s Assembly, Narodnyi sobor) thus see the contemporary political regime as an ‘anti-Russian’ one and hope that by annexing new ‘Russian’ territories, things will turn out for the better (the Russian Imperial Movement’s Vorobev even argues that there are no Ukrainians at all, instead this is a conflict between Russians and Russians, and that some of the Russian population has been manipulated by a ‘Ukrainisation’ directed from the West; Judina and Alperovitch 2015). In early 2016, the main innovation in terms of the organisation of nationalists supporting Russia’s aggression in Ukraine was the creation of K25. The personnel involved included Igor Girkin (Novorossiya movement), Eduard Limonov (The Other Russia), Egor Kholmogorov (the author of the term ‘Russian Spring’, journalist and anchor on Malofeev’ stelevision station Tsargrad), Konstantin Krylov (the NDP), Egor Prosvirnin (the website Sputnik i Pogrom), Maksim Kalashnikov (Partiyadela) and Anatolin Nesmiyan (a blogger with the nickname El-Muríd). Later, Limonov, Nesmiyan and Kholmogorov left K25 (Dergachev 2015). Initially, K25 was intended as a platform for discussion and as a base for exchanging information, but it quickly mutated into a hierarchical organisation governed by regulations. This transformation was completed in spring 2016, when it was renamed as the All-Russian National Movement (Obshcherusskoe natsionalnoe dvizhenie), and led by Girkin. Its guiding ideas, which united disparate ideological movements ranging from national democrats to Stalinist nationalists, were support for the east-Ukraine pseudo-republics, and the necessity of establishing a ‘third force’ that would ‘protect Russia’ by standing against both the ‘pro-West liberals’ and the government party, United Russia. However, Girkin failed to develop this into a full-featured political project and as of December 2017 the All-Russian National Movement carries out no public activity (Alperovitch 2017).

132  Militant nationalism and war in Donbass Moderate nationalist groups Because support for the Crimea annexation and ‘Russian Spring’ is prevalent among the broader nationalist spectrum (including right-wing populist associations and nationalist-Stalinist groupings), we give some space to these organisations here to provide a better idea of the breadth of support for Russia’s interventions in Ukraine. In 2015, pro-Kremlin movements became more active, seeking to woo some of the radical nationalists by arousing ‘patriotic enthusiasm’. Their primary topic was, and continues to be, the struggle against the external enemy (the West, especially the United States of America) and the internal one (the ‘fifth column’, foreign non-governmental organizations, liberals, lesbian/ gay/bisexual/transgender groups). Thus in 2015 the Antimaidan coalition was created, in which the chief players were Nikolai Starikov and his Great Fatherland Party (Partiya Velikoe Otechestvo), the National Liberation Movement (Natsional’no-osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie, NOD) led by United Russia deputy Evgenii Fedorov, and the Battle for Donbass coalition. This segment of the nationalist spectrum accepts the official Kremlin version, according to which Putin supports the citizens of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasti who strive to secede from Ukraine. The Antimaidan supporters include a number of people with radical nationalist sympathies who failed to win recognition in traditional anti-system nationalist organisations. Broadly speaking, it could be argued that it is precisely because of these pro-Kremlin platforms that the radical nationalists find it impossible to gain access to the average voter holding ‘ordinary’ xenophobic opinions. Enjoying state support, the pro-Kremlin nationalist movements such as NOD are better equipped to articulate these topics and able to push the anti-system radical nationalists out of the political scene. For instance, before the September 2016 parliamentary election, the National-Conservative Movement ‘Russian World’ (Natsionalno-konservativnoe dvizhenie ‘Russkiimir’), led by Mikhail Ochkin and Valentina Bobrova, sought the status of a political party, but none of its public events had any success and the organisation fell virtually silent after the elections (Chernukhin 2016; Judina and Alperovitch 2017). Eduard Limonov’s National Bolsheviks, associated with The Other Russia, and Egor Prosvirnin, the editor of the popular ultranationalist website, Sputnik i Pogrom, have adopted the rhetoric of Russian propagandist media and in some cases have gone further than them. Limonov’s The Other Russia organises events in support of Novorossiya, and its members are involved in the hostilities in Donbass, where they have formed their own combat unit, the Interbrigade (see https://vk.com/interbrigada). However, their organisation is not a right-wing nationalist outfit; rather it espouses a mixture of neo-Eurasianism, Bolshevism and fascism. Konstantin Krylov and Vladimir Tor, the leaders of the opposition NDP, and Valerii Solovei (New Force or Novaya sila), as well as, understandably, the pro-Kremlin Rodina, headed by Aleksei Zhuravlev, also

Militant nationalism and war in Donbass 133 promote the ‘Russian Spring’. On 2 May 2015, the NDP organised several rallies to commemorate those who died in Odessa’s Trade Unions House (in early May 2014, several dozen separatists perished there in skirmishes with pro-Ukrainian activists). These events were attended by only several dozen people. Ideologically, both the NDP and Novaya sila claim that what happened in Ukraine was a conflict between the ‘Banderovtsy’ of central and western Ukraine and the Russians of the south-eastern regions (Judina 2014; Judina and Alperovitch 2014b; Judina and Alperovitch 2015). In summary, unlike the opposition militant ethnic nationalists, Russia’s anti-Ukrainian nationalists have largely managed to evade state repression. The price they have paid for this was having most of their media blocked by Russian censorship bodies like Roskomnadzor (cf. Sidorov 2017). Unlike in 2014–2015, as of December 2017 this segment of Russia’s ideological scene is not discussed in the media, not even in connection with the war in Donbass. Neither Girkin nor other well-known nationalist figures are able to bring people to the street, and what was originally their rhetoric is now being disseminated in the media by other actors and in a more acceptable format. Russian militant nationalist combat units fighting on the DNR/LNR side Russian nationalists, ideologically motivated but largely not politically inspired, many of them veterans of the Afghan and Chechen wars or retired soldiers, have fought (or continue to fight) in Ukraine on the side of the separatists. Many of them have previous links with Russian National Unity (Russkoe natsional’noe edinstvo, RNE) and with Cossack organisations active in regions close to the Ukrainian border (Kuban), whose members traditionally have had military training (in the 1990s alone, thousands of young people were trained there). Typical examples include the activists of the AllGreat Don Army (Vsevelikoe voisko donskoe), led by Nikolai Kozitsyn, and the Wolves’ Hundred (Volch’ia sotnia ) of Belorechenskaya station in Krasnodarskkrai (Judina and Alperovitch 2015). In late 2014, however, most of the Russian Cossack units ceased their activities in the occupied territories because their chaotic criminal activities (e.g. blackmail, robbery, marauding and ransom) and incessant internal conflict (largely squabbles over money) obstructed the efforts of the occupation authorities, led by Igor Plotnitskii, to centralise power on behalf of the LNR. Thus, the Russian ‘curators’ (i.e. private individuals appointed by Russia to oversee the pursuit of Russian interests in the occupied territories) forced them to hand over their weapons, leave the LNR and return to Russia (Donday 2015). In particular, supporters of Orthodox-monarchist and imperial nationalism fought on the separatists’ side. The first small group of Russian nationalists arrived in Donbass in summer 2014. These were St Petersburg-based neo-Nazis, some of whom, including the brothers Konstantin and Boris Voevodinov, had served as Russian paratroopers and in the special drug

134  Militant nationalism and war in Donbass squad, Grom. In Donbass they joined the armed separatist group ‘Batman’, led by Aleksandr Bednov until 1 January 2015, when he was murdered either by the FSB or the competing separatist unit Zarya, run by LNR leader Plotnitskii (or perhaps by both in a joint operation). St Petersburg hooligan websites and the popular website Sputnik i Pogrom run by the Russian ultranationalist, Egor Prosvirnin, called on people to join ‘Batman’; the St Petersburg neo-Nazi Kirill Rimkus served as the contact person (Omeliantchuk 2015). Another neo-Nazi popular on Ukrainian blogs is Anton Raevskii from the city of Orel. Previously a member of Dmitri Bobrov’s NSI, Raevskii had participated in the first pro-Russian protests in Odessa in spring 2014 and allegedly had been preparing an attack on the Odessa leader of Praviisektor (Vaadua 2014). In 2014, some leaders of Russian nationalist groups, whose previous efforts had consisted mainly of organising raids against immigrants, reoriented themselves towards support of Donbass separatists. Indeed, as early as autumn 2014, many nationalists with DNR/LNR sympathies felt that the government had ‘left Novorossiya at the mercy of the Ukrainian army’ (Judina and Alperovitch 2015). For example, Igor Mangushev’s Orthodoxnationalist movement Svetlaya Rus’, previously active in seeking out places where illegal immigrants congregated, started to cooperate with the group E.N.O.T. Corp. (https://vk.com/dezinsektor) (Tumanov 2015a). Officially, this private military company is involved in the collection and supply of humanitarian aid to south-eastern Ukraine; unofficially, it is directly involved in combat operations. The former head of Moscow Shield, Aleksei Khud’akov, who had previously become notorious for organising raids on the lodgings of illegal immigrants, also jumped on the Ukrainian bandwagon (Nikulin 2014a; PSB-News 2016). In 2015, his new organisation, Russian Choice, collected money and sent humanitarian aid to Donbass separatists. Russian volunteers who were actively involved in the protests in Kharkov and Odessa in spring 2014, which were themselves provocations, and subsequently fought in eastern Ukraine include activists of Aleksandr Barkashov’s RNE, Aleksandr Dugin’s Eurasian Union of Youth, Stanislav Vorobev’s RID and other groups. One of these groups (involving Rimkus, Milchakov, Deineko and others) was incorporated into the Batman unit in the LNR, as noted above. It was out of this group that the famous reconnaissance and sabotage company, Rusich, emerged. Rusich’s main figure was Aleksei ‘Fritz’ Milchakov. Born in 1991 in St Petersburg, Milchakov moved in nationalist organisations (e.g. Slavyanskayaobchina) from 2007. After some issues with the police, he appeared in Pskov, where he served in the 76th paratrooper division. Immediately after the end of his army service, in summer 2014, he travelled to Luhansk. At the front there, he became notorious for the photos he took with dead Ukrainian soldiers in the background and his admission in an interview that his unit ‘took no prisoners’ (Vernyĭ 2014; Polit UA 2016). His deputy in

Militant nationalism and war in Donbass 135 Rusich was Yan Petrovskii, a National-Socialist Black Metal fan then living in Norway but deported to Russia in October 2016. Stanislav Prokhod’ko, a Slavic Union activist in Norway, also maintained close links with the company; he was involved in the case of the neo-Nazi Vyacheslav Datsik (‘Rusty Tarzan’), who fled to Norway, where he applied for political asylum without success (Gonta 2015). Despite the low number of its combatants and having little to show for itself on the front (only a single foray into battle is known, against the Ukrainian voluntary battalion Aidar in summer 2014, near the municipality of Metallist), the Rusich company played an important propaganda role. The sources from which it disseminated information included the VKontakte social media profile Misanthropic Division Novorossia (more than 2,200 followers, but inactive since August 2016), which contained the following proclamation: ‘We hope that Kiev and Lvov will lie in smouldering ruins with blood flowing over them […] that the mother of every bastard in Ukrainian uniform will remain without her son, and the wife without her husband. We do not wish for a single Ukrainian word to be heard in the Russian territory of Novorossiya or the left bank of the Dnieper, or for a single Ukrainian book to remain there’ (https://vk.com/ dshrgrusichofficial). Aleksei Milchakov has arguably become a symbol of the Russian neo-Nazis fighting in Donbass for the ‘rights of Russians’. For that reason Rusich has managed to influence the opinion of some of the country’s neo-Nazis, who have had to decide whether to support Euromaidan or, contrariwise, Novorossiya. An example of Milchakov’s importance as a popular youth leader, expressing the interests of neo-Nazi sympathisers, can be given in his participation at an International Russian Conservative Forum in St Petersburg in March 2015, where he shook hands with representatives of other European far-right organisations (Chachatryan and Fomina 2015). Other examples of Milchakov’s contacts include his friendly links with a small Polish neo-Nazi organisation, Zadruga, a member of which fought for the Rusich company (Gonta 2015). He also cultivates other pro-Russia Polish nationalist groups, especially Falanga, Change (Zmiana) and the Great Poland Camp (Obóz Wielkej Polski). Milchakov and members of the aforementioned nationalist private military company E.N.O.T. Corp. Later organised training camps for ‘patriotic youth’ in Moscow oblast’ (Informatsionnoe soprotivlenie 2016). Above all, he focuses on promoting radical nationalist ideas on social media, and does so in accordance with the objectives of Putin’s foreign policy in Ukraine. Another radical nationalist volunteer group directly involved in the Donbass hostilities was the Imperial Legion (Imperskii legion), founded in June 2014 by RID. Led by Denis Gariev, a former soldier, it had about 100– 300 Russian nationalists in its ranks. The Imperial Legion was originally a paramilitary unit in Russia that organised guerrilla-style training courses. The course cost €250, and selected fighters who volunteered were sent to

136  Militant nationalism and war in Donbass Rostov-on-Don, from whence they travelled further to Donbass. Typical of the legion’s fighters was strong, Chernayasotnya-style anti-Semitism; they described themselves as Orthodox nationalist monarchists and spoke of the ‘inevitability of war and physical removal of the Ukrainian carcinoma’ (Pravyivzglyad 2015). For instance, the former commander of the ‘Cossacks’ of Stakhanov, Pavel Dremov (killed in December 2015),1 proclaimed that the Minsk agreements were a Zionist conspiracy. The leader of the DNR, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, meanwhile, let it be known that the government in Kiev was controlled by ‘pathetic Jews’ (zhalkieevrei) (Hvylya 2015). The organisation that served as parent to the legion, RID, was involved in Russian activities in Ukraine right from the beginning in 2014. The RID leader, Stanislav Vorobev, flew to Ukraine immediately after Crimea’s occupation in late February 2014. In mid-March, another group of RID members, led by Nikolai Trushchalov, arrived in Donetsk, where they met with representatives of pro-Russian organisations that had long maintained links with Aleksandr Dugin’s Eurasian movement. RID members became involved in providing humanitarian aid and human resources to the pro-Russian nationalists. In addition to Gariev, this so-called humanitarian aid from Russia to east Ukraine (‘so-called’ because it included weapons and ammunition) was coordinated chiefly by Aleksandr Zhuchkovskii, who, together with his colleagues, allegedly collected around 75 million rubles over the first 10 months of the war (Chalenko 2015). When Igor Girkin left Donbass, the Imperial Legion became part of Aleksei Mozgovoi’s Prizrak brigade. However, Mozgovoi was killed in May 2015, probably by the Zarya unit led by former LNR leader, Igor Plotnitskii (Chetvertaya vlast’ 2016). Ultimately, the Imperial Legion left Donbass over disagreements with the local occupation authorities. The movement’s paramilitary wing ceased its activities, and RID became an ordinary, marginal Orthodox-monarchist organisation, which now focuses on preparing civilians for the ‘collapse of civilisation’. Its paramilitary training courses, called ‘Partisan’, are often co-organised by various military sports clubs. It has been alleged that neo-Nazis of the Swedish Nordic Resistance Movement, suspected of organising bomb attacks on refugee centres in Gothenburg in January 2017, took part in these courses (Jutlen 2017). In the public sphere, RID members established social media profiles intended to act as a counterbalance to pro-Ukrainian Russian militant associations and to lure their target group, the young militant nationalists. Beyond the above-mentioned Misanthropic Division Novorussiya, these include the profile Evil Novorossiya (Zlaya Novorossiya), which has more than 5,000 followers (Zlaya Novorossia 2016). According to Aleksandr Verkhovskii of the non-governmental organization SOVA, Russian authorities tolerate these small paramilitary groups because it is the easiest way to re-adapt Donbass veterans in Russia without them causing violent disturbances (SOVA 2016b). RNE, mentioned above, or more precisely that part of the movement over which its 1990s authoritarian leader, Aleksandr Barkashov, has kept control,

Militant nationalism and war in Donbass 137 has also been actively involved in the Russo-Ukrainian war. RNE has faced permanent internal crises, and its various splinter groups have accused each other of cooperating with the FSB. During the 2000s, Barkashov’s endeavours failed repeatedly: his project ‘Pora’ (‘It is time’) in 2005; his foundation of the movement ‘Aleksander Barkashov’ in December 2006, allegedly intending to unite all those who ‘share this ideology and trust A. Barkashov’; and the 2009 attempt to establish an organisation called October 1993, with the hope of uniting the veterans of the conflict that took place at that time (Kozhevnikova 2007; Kozhevnikova 2009a; Kozhevnikova 2010).2 Barkashov’s RNE finally became more active when the war in Donbass flared up. Indeed, a small, armed unit was established under the leadership of his son, Petr Barkashov, and Aleksandr Kildishov (the leader of the Volgograd branch of RNE; Judina and Alperovitch 2015), and the Barkashov faction conducted a campaign on the internet to attract volunteers (consider the activities of the head of the Moscow branch of RNE, Svyatoslav Andreev). The organisation’s VKontakte social network profile says the following: “…recently there occurred in Ukraine an armed coup d’état, organised entirely by the USA. The government in Kiev has been captured by a junta, made up of CIA agents, the Banderovtsy, faggots, sadists and avowed Satanists […] Russian National Unity in Moscow and the regions announces the establishment of Volunteer Troops to provide aid to our brothers who now fight in the territory of the former Ukraine” (Vkontakte undated, c). RNE Volunteer Troops were closely linked with the Russian Orthodox Army, an armed unit comprising about 300 combatants and largely involved in marauding and criminal activities. ‘DNR authorities’ have terminated its business, however. Of the Donbass separatists previously active in the RNE, there is Pavel Gubarev, who in 2014 posed as a self-proclaimed ‘popular governor of Donbass’ and today leads the organisation Donbass People’s Militia and the political movement Novorossiya, but does not have a substantial role in the DNR’s power structure (unlike his wife Ekaterina, former ‘DNR foreign minister’). Purely pro-Kremlin organisations, which can be described as imperial nationalists—e.g. the parliamentary party Liberal’no-demokraticheskaya partiya Rossii (LDPR) and NOD—as well as extremist groups that could only ambiguously be classified as the left or the right—e.g. Eduard Limonov’s National Bolsheviks—also sent aid to Donbass. Finally, there was in Donbass an ‘indigenous’ military separatist unit, Varyag, made up of local pro-Russian militants and led by the Donetsk neo-Nazi Aleksandr Mat’ushin, appearing under the pseudonym Alexander de Krog (http:// vk.com/de_krog88). The origin of the unit’s name is as follows: Mat’ushin had been involved in a club, Svyatoslav, dedicated to military-historical reconstructions of events from the era of the Slavic Varangians (Varyags). Initially, the Varyag unit was part of the DNR MGB (Ministry for State Security) and was involved in the battle for Donetsk airport. In autumn 2014,

138  Militant nationalism and war in Donbass it left DNR MGB due to internal conflict and controlled a part of Donetsk, later joining the Republican Guard. Mat’ushin is certainly an interesting figure. Starting in 2005, he moved in Moscow’s neo-Nazi circles. After the Orange Revolution, he was a leading member of the Donetsk Republic movement, breaking away in late 2013 (simultaneously with the beginnings of Euromaidan) with an extremist militant wing, the Varjag Crew, and this in turn served as the basis for Varyag. Mat’ushin is known in Donetsk as an organiser of ‘Russian Marches’ and a participant in anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian acts of violence and provocations. For some time he was also an activist of Russian Image. Mat’ushin describes himself as an ‘Orthodox fascist’ (e.g. in a January 2015 interview for the Russian nationalist sheet Klich). He believes that the war between Ukrainians and Russians is taking place because of the Ukrainians’ rejection of the idea of a Great Russian Empire. In another interview, Mat’ushin argued that, whereas Russians are pure-blooded, blond Slavs, Ukrainians are not really Slavs at all; he describes them as a Turkic nation (Kont 2015). In 2017 he held the position of assistant to chief of staff in one of the DNR’s military units (Gubanov 2014; Novorosinform 2015). The Varyag unit is not to be confused with the unit known as the Varangians (Varyagi), created in October 2014 as a security service of the Prizrak separatist group under Aleksei Mozgovoi. Led by Konstantin ‘Stiler’ Kovalev, the Varangians were largely made up of radical Russian nationalists. The basis for the unit was provided by Kovalev’s St Petersburg-based motorbike club, which supported the Night Wolves (a nationalist, Hell’s Angels-like club). After Mozgovoi’s death, their base was surrounded by the LNR MGB; the Varangians surrendered, handed over their weapons and went back to Russia (Shershneva 2016). As of December 2017, Kovalev is in St Petersburg, where he leads the paramilitary Military-Patriotic Centre (Voenno-patrioticheskii tsentr). A provisional picture of the anti-Ukrainian camp in Russian nationalism would be as follows: the groups that joined this side were largely the more moderate, as well as those more or less loyal to the regime, which have adopted the regime’s aggressive anti-Western rhetoric. By implication, this rhetoric was also anti-Ukrainian, as it portrayed Ukraine as a puppet of the West. Some of these groups (e.g. Svetlaya Rus’, Moscow Shield and others) have consciously shifted their attention away from their earlier ethnic xenophobia and raids on illegal immigrants and towards anti-Ukrainian topics. Incidentally, this shift has helped decrease the general level of xenophobia in Russian society and has stolen the thunder of militant anti-immigration organisations. By undertaking activities in Donbass, some militant organisations such as RID and RNE have sought to reorganise their structures, recruit new members and make themselves better known. Given the strong position of Putin’s regime and its undisputed ability to limit the ambitions of various political actors (including those who declare themselves as anti-system), this current of Russian nationalism has been a risky strategy.

Militant nationalism and war in Donbass 139

The pro-Ukrainian camp of Russian nationalists The first pro-Ukrainian Russian nationalist organisations emerged long before Euromaidan. On 14 October 2009, the anniversary of the establishment of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the First Congress to unify Russian opposition was held in Kiev, and adopted the idea of creating a coalition of nationalist organisations and activists. The best-known participants included Petr Khomyakov (then being investigated by Russian police), the chair of Freedom Party, YuriiBelyaev (recently released from jail) and the deputy chair of the National People’s Party, Aleksei Shiropaev, previously an Orthodox monarchist, later a neo-pagan neo-Nazi and a critic of Russian imperialism and Eurasianism. Among the Ukrainians attending the congress was Dmytro Korchynskyi, leader of the ‘Bratrstvo’ (Brotherhood) nationalist group (Kozhevnikova 2009a).3 Understandably, it was only the events in Ukraine since November 2013 that provided a real stimulus for the pro-Ukrainian sentiments appearing within the Russian nationalist camp. The chief issue for the pro-Ukrainians among Russian nationalists was (and continues to be) the fact that they oppose their country’s official policy and their government’s rhetoric, and at the same time they are a minority within their own nationalist camp (Judina and Alperovitch 2015). However, if within the whole Russian nationalist camp there are fewer opponents than supporters of Russian intervention in Ukraine, within militant right-wing Russian nationalism the ratio of opponents to supporters of the idea is more balanced. Among those who are most critical of Russian activities in Donbass are the leaders of the disbanded ‘Russians’ movement: Dmitrii Demushkin, Vladimir Basmanov and Aleksandr Belov, as well as their allies, such as Maksim Kalininchenko,4 the former leader of Russian Runs (Russkieprobezhki, an initiative promoting a healthy lifestyle among nationalists) in St Petersburg, former leading member of Restrukt! Roman Zheleznov, the chief of the St Petersburg branch of the Slavic Force, Dmitrii Evtushenko, and others. Their rhetoric is somewhat redolent of the liberal opposition’s slogans. These nationalists believe that it would be better for Russians and Ukrainians alike to steer clear of Putin’s ‘anti-Russian regime’—this does not imply that they harbour any illusions about the present Ukrainian government. They have largely viewed the Ukrainian revolution as a struggle between Ukraine’s citizens and the corrupt Viktor Yanukovich regime. They believe that the Kremlin has added fuel to the conflict between Kiev and the separatist regions of eastern Ukraine, as the Kremlin wished—and still wishes—to prevent its neighbour from creating a prosperous nation state, fearing the export of revolution into Russia. Most of these nationalists believe that Russia’s government gives an artificially ethnic character to the war (i.e. Ukrainians of the country’s western and central parts versus the Russians of the south-east), even though at its core this is a conflict of values: a desire to build an independent nation-state on

140  Militant nationalism and war in Donbass the one side, and paternalistically minded supporters of Russia with their nostalgia for the Soviet Union on the other. For these reasons, this current within Russian nationalism rejects the annexation of Crimea and other areas of Ukraine; Russians living in Ukraine should remain wherever they are. The opponents of Russian military intervention have censured particularly harshly those nationalists whose opinions they believed to be virtually indistinguishable from Kremlin propaganda (e.g. NDP leaders Krylov and Tor, and journalists/bloggers Kholmogorov and Sputnik i pogrom’s Prosvirin). They started to see them as agents paid by the Kremlin, traitors and vatniky (a derogatory term for Putin supporters yearning for a Soviet imperial regime; see Judina 2014; Judina and Alperovitch 2014b; Judina and Alperovitch 2015). Let us now attempt to describe the positions taken by the leaders cited above. In his public speeches, Aleksandr Belov has argued that Ukraine’s successful development would be the most hopeful weapon against aggressive Putinism. By contrast, he has called Putin’s contemporary Russia the most powerful totalitarian empire in Eurasia. According to Belov, the military aggression in eastern Ukraine has increased tensions in Russia’s society, which helps Putin’s regime deflect attention away from domestic problems. He has gone on to say the following: ‘Any external war, any victory, is advantageous for such a large country as Russia. One can endlessly extend the president’s powers and turn him into a veritable tsar, as all those around us are enemies—the Americans, the West, the cursed Ukrainians, fascists and the Banderovtsy commit murders and now we shall vanquish them. We’ll win, of course, but the problem is that nobody knows what it is these people are so guilty of. Of course, there are no atrocities being committed in Ukraine. The Banderovtsy are not unleashing fury or murder. People live in myth; they themselves create these myths and are willing to spill blood for them’ (Volchek 2016d). Dmitrii Demushkin defends positions that are similar to Belov’s. He and Belov argue that Ukraine is in fact an artificial state, originally created by Lenin. Nevertheless, Maidan, at least in the beginning, was evidently a manifestation of a nation’s right to protest a dictatorship of ‘fraudsters and thieves’. By contrast, Demushkin accuses the Russian leadership of having betrayed Russians who, as he believes, live throughout Ukraine and not just in Donbass. In his view of ethnicity, virtually all Ukrainians (bar those in a few regions) are Russians, and ‘…for us it has always been unacceptable to fight against Russians in the interests of some kind of “Russian world”. […] The Ukrainians understand the notion of war with Russia not as war against a specific territory or for the destruction of Russians, but as a fight with Putin and his people. There is no ethnic war in Ukraine’ (Azar 2015b). In another interview, Demushkin claimed that he neither supported the annexation of Crimea nor was strongly against it. And he went on to say that: “Russia might well annex the whole of Ukraine, if that were her goal. I believe, however, that the annexation of Crimea is not in Russia’s interests

Militant nationalism and war in Donbass 141 at all […] The Kremlin never needed any unity, but sought weakening and conflicts in neighbouring territories and the establishment of various types of autonomy, such as the one in Transnistria. Soon they’ll probably start explaining to us that Lukashenko too is a pro-Western enemy and that we need to wage war on the Belarusians. Russian nationalists are not so stupid as to accept the following idea: “If Putin has a disagreement with someone, it means that that nation is our enemy”’ (Volchek 2016b). New leaders of the Party of Nationalists indulge in similar rhetoric. Ivan Beletskii, who left Russia for Ukraine in 2017, said the following in an interview withal-Jazeera: ‘We, the right-wing nationalists, believe [the separatist regions in eastern Ukraine] to be Putin’s machinations. We take a stand against this and suffer harsh repression’ (Petkova 2017). He also openly supports Maidan and defends Ukraine’s independence in interviews (YouTube 2017b). The pro-Ukrainian segment of the Russian nationalist camp also includes small regional organisations, but they are often immediately disbanded and their members arrested by the police. Examples include the Russians of Astrakhan (Russkie Astrakhani), a daughter organisation of the Russian Society of Astrakhan (Russkoe obshchestvo Astrakhani, ROA). In May 2016, its leader, Igor Stenin, was sentenced to two years in prison for posts in support of Ukraine on social media (SOVA 2017c). Similarly, in 2017, the Kaliningrad-based nationalist separatist group, the Baltic Avant-Garde of Russian Resistance (Baltiiskii avangard russkogo soprotivleniya, BARS), was subject to police repression. Exiled Pro-Ukrainian associations of Russian militant nationalists In August 2015, in a characteristic expression of the increased pressure exerted by the state on the nationalist scene, two organisations emerged, unifying activists who had emigrated from Russia to escape prosecution. Most of them previously supported the Ukrainian revolution, and some of them then emigrated to Ukraine or joined the local voluntary battalions (especially Azov and Praviisektor). Vladimir Basmanov, a former leader of DPNI, the ‘Russians’ coalition and later the Nation and Freedom Committee, announced the foundation of the first such exile organisation, called Forces of the Good (Sily dobra). In addition to Basmanov, the following activists are involved in Forces of the Good: Dmitrii Savvin (formerly an activist of the Chernayasotnya-style Union of Russian People and the New Force party, who applied for political asylum in Latvia), Aleksandr Valov (a leader of Murmansk nationalists, who fights in the Azov battalion), Sofia Budnikova (an activist of the ‘Russians’ movements, formerly a DPNI member) and Aleksei Kutalo and Tatyana Kungurova, husband and wife who formerly collaborated with RONS and, once their prosecution began, fled to Ukraine and thence to Argentina, where they applied for political asylum (Vsemirnoe dvizhenie Sily dobra undated).

142  Militant nationalism and war in Donbass As far as Novorossiya is concerned, Basmanov is fond of pointing out that he formulated his opinions on this ‘terrible anti-Russian adventure’ back in 2014: ‘Back then I addressed the honest nationalists in words that testify to my position [on the events in Ukraine]: the Putinian Chekist, Girkin, who started the armed uprising in Donbass, which has led to the destruction of cities, mass deaths of Russian people and the strengthening of power of their rulers—the thieving dictatorship in the Russian Federation— is an old “acquaintance” of mine, an officer of the FSB’s Service for Defence of Constitutional Order. He had conducted a perfidious struggle against Russian nationalists in general and the DPNI in particular […] for many years. Later the circle closed. But now the Chekist meat-grinder processes […] thousands of killed Russians, Ukrainians, Donbass inhabitants, volunteers from the Russian Federation and the millions with minds poisoned and manipulated by mendacious propaganda. […] The pro-Putin gangs turned thousands of Russian children in Donbass into orphans, millions of refugees have fled into the world, a region with a contiguous Russian population was completely destroyed, the ideological “Russian-imperial” idiots, who had appeared there, have long been removed by those who sent them. […] Ukraine’s territory, seized by the Putinians, has become an analogy for hell on Earth: those who were able to move, fled; a person can be shot and thrown into a pit for holding an incorrect opinion; human life is worth nothing; hunger and death are daily occurrences. And they’ve impudently called all of this a ‘Russian Spring’; a greater mockery is hard to imagine. And yet, the leaders of this Putinian “patriotic” agitation […] do not live in Russia, they’ve long ago sent their families abroad, to the United States] and London, where they have their houses, bank accounts and children. They only needed a picture of the horrors of war in post-revolutionary Ukraine to forever hammer into Russian heads the fear of ‘Maidans in Moscow’, ‘of what happened in Ukraine happening here’, thus inducing feelings such as “better to have Putin than something like this”. They’ve done this and killed thousands in the process. […] For us, the Russian Federation’s aggression is no different from the Soviet Union’s invasion of Finland in 1939’ (Volchek 2016a). The second exile movement is called the Russian Centre (Russkiitsentr). It was founded in October 2015 in Kiev and is led by Denis Tyukin (Vikhorev), Aleksei Levkin and Ivan Mikheev—thus it is essentially the leadership of Wotan Jugend in exile. Other figures involved in the centre’s activities were or are the following: Roman ‘Zukhel’ Zheleznov (in autumn 2017 he announced the end of his political activities), Ilya ‘Dalnii’ Bogdanov (an FSB border guard, who went to Ukraine to fight for the voluntary Ukrainian force, Praviisektor), Andrei Kuznetsov (editor of the social-media resource

Militant nationalism and war in Donbass 143 #Orange, about whom more can be found below in connection with the Russian Insurgent Army), Aleksandr Noinets (editor-in-chief of the medium Petr iMazepa) and Mikhail Oreshnikov (Byshok and Valyaev 2015). Appearing as the main Russian Centre coordinator was Denis Tyukin (Vikhorev), the former leader of the Kirov branch of the ‘Russians’ movement and a Wotan Jugend administrator, who has been investigated by the public prosecutor’s office in Russia over his anti-communist proclamations at the 2014 Russian March. However, it is Aleksei Levkin, the Wotan Jugend leader, described in this book in the chapter on subcultures, who has been the main organiser of the Russian Centre’s various activities. In an interview for the Polish nationalist medium, Szturm, Levkin stated that he saw the Donbass war as ‘…Putin’s punishment of the Ukrainians for their daring to rise against his protégé, and also as a vaccine for the Russians, so that they felt at the purely emotional level that, if they were to rise against Putin’s regime, a civil war would erupt in Russia—as there is talk of civil war in Ukraine. Since 2014, to support Ukraine means to support a revolution in Russia’ (Szturm 2016). For ‘pseudo-Russia’, which is what Levkin calls Russia today, de-communisation is a paramount concern. The purpose of the country’s contemporary imperialism is simply to make sure that ‘…the elites presently in power would ride the crest of success and hold onto their power, because as soon as they lose power they might well lose their heads, too. Today’s imperialism is the result of a “neo-communist plan”, not a nationalist one. A superficial Orthodoxy and communism are professed, and a vulgar cult of victory [in WWII] is absurdly abused…’ (Szturm 2016). Levkin believes that the powers that be represent the chief threat to Russia, and everything else (e.g. Islamisation, overall degradation of society, etc.) is only a consequence of the present exercise of power in the country. By contrast, he praises the tsarist era highly (Szturm 2016). Ivan Mikheev acts as the ideologue of Wotan Jugend. Like Tyukin, he hails from Kirov, where, from 1998 to 2000 he was first a member of Russian National Unity, then allegedly the leader of local national-socialist skinheads and ultimately the DPNI leader in Kirov oblast’. In May 2005, he and a group of skinheads attacked a punk concert, and Mikheev received a suspended prison sentence of four and a half years. In 2006, he created a group of national-socialist straight-edge vegans, Hardline Center, which had its own band, Nuchtern Reich (Sober Reich). Its members were sentenced in 2009 for the murder of two homeless people. The website of the Hardline Center was allegedly the main source of information for this particular subculture in the whole of Russia. However, later the interest in this current waned and both the band and the website ceased their activities. In November 2010, Mikheev received another suspended sentence of two and a half years) for inciting hatred and public justification of terrorism. Despite this, he continued to lead a group of autonomous nationalists and, in December 2014, he appeared at an opposition rally called For Honest

144  Militant nationalism and war in Donbass Elections (Sobeskii 2014a). In Kirov, he and Tyukin organised so-called Russian Marches, where Mikheev glorified Nikita Korolev, the perpetrator of bomb attacks on the Cherkizovskii market. From 2012, Mikheev led the Kirov branch of Wotan Jugend, which, in his own words, he ‘had created together with Levkin during the struggle against the left deviation in the nationalist movement’. Then he replaced Wotan Jugend with the project Varangian Rus, which, he claimed, was less radical and less political than Wotan Jugend. His main ideas included neo-paganism, so-called normanism and White Guardism; his chief enemies were monotheism (as expressed in Christianity), ‘Red’ Eurasianism and the celebration of Soviet empire based on Eurasian ideas, Orthodox-monarchist organisations and, finally, the cult of victory in World War II. In January 2016, Mikheev was involved in the attacks organised by Azov battalion’s Civic Corpus (a political wing of Azov, operating since 2017 as a political party named National Corps, Natsionalnyi korpus) against leftist activists in Kiev who had assembled to commemorate Stanislav Markelov, murdered by BORN members in January 2009. Another interesting figure is Mikhail Oreshnikov. Hailing from Cheboksary in Chuvashia, he has been active in nationalist circles since 2007. In 2008, he was prosecuted for a knife attack on Antifa members, and in 2009 he was sentenced to one-and-a-half years in prison for an arson attack on a police station. In 2012 and 2013 he organised Russian Marches in Cheboksary and was a member of Restrukt! In 2014, he applied for political asylum in Ukraine and joined the Azov battalion, where he led (or perhaps leads) the unit Misanthropic Division. However, available information suggests that the Misanthropic Division either does not exist at all or has only a few members, and is of value in propaganda rather than combat (Pravda PFO 2014; Avtonomnoe deistvie 2014). In contrast to Forces of the Good, the Russian Centre largely consists of militant nationalists and neo-Nazis who are in Ukraine and, in some instances, are linked with the voluntary battalion Azov or the Praviisektor Ukrainian Volunteer Corps. Attending the founding congress of the Russian Centre were the leaders of the party National Corps (Natsional’niikorpus, Azov’s political wing): Elena Semenyaka, Aleksandr Alferov and Eduard Yurchenko. The primary task of these organisations is lobbying so that citizenship or asylum are granted to Russian nationalists who are being pursued in the countries where they find themselves, especially in Ukraine. Beyond that, they seek to win the confidence of those nationalist groups that have remained in Russia (Judina and Alperovitch 2016a). The Russian Centre sets as the goal of its programme the dismantling of the present-day ‘anti-Russian tyranny’ in a revolution and the creation of a new form of Russian statehood, one that would be based on the country’s historical traditions. They believe that it is in the national interest to totally dismantle the entire apparatus of the contemporary Russian government (especially the Cheka-NKVD-KGB-MGB-FSB agencies), to investigate the

Militant nationalism and war in Donbass 145 crimes committed by this government against the Russian nation, and to carry out a lustration of corrupted officials and confiscate their property. They also seek ‘…to overcome the pernicious effects of the USSR–RF [Russian Federation] foreign policy: the red rulers of the Kremlin have turned occupied Russia into a platform for ‘world revolution’ and brought misfortune not just to the Russians but also to their neighbours. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, regimes arose in some of its former parts that are formally independent of Moscow, but are in fact controlled by the Kremlin. All of them, and especially the Stalinist Novorossiya, are in insuperable contradiction with Russian interests. For that reason, we fight the Soviet-Eurasian evil together with Ukrainian nationalists. We believe that the elimination of the LNR and DNR will be the first step on a path towards a Russia freed from an anti-national and inhuman tyranny’ (Russkiitsentr 2015). The people involved in the Russian Centre believe Russia to be ‘…a fortress of European civilisation against Eastern barbarians. […] Thanks to the Russian nation, Europe spread as far as the Pacific Ocean. […] However, the Bolshevik putsch ruptured the harmonic links between Russia and the rest of Europe. Legal nihilism, hatred of freedom and property, friendship with brutal “third-world” regimes, anti-European and anti-Russian immigration policy–those are the characteristics of the regime now ruling in Russia. Without returning to our European roots, Russian revival is impossible! We are hostile to both the Kremlin’s Eurasianism and the bureaucratic EU [European Union]. We orient ourselves exclusively towards a traditional Europe, represented by those Europeans who rejected both the Trotskyites in Brussels and the neo-Stalinists temporarily sitting in Moscow’ (Russkiitsentr 2015). Testifying to the international contacts of the Russian Centre are the following facts: its supporters took part in the Independence March in Poland on 11 November 2017, and a Centre representative, Andrei Savelev, visited the Europe of the Future conference in Poland in November 2017, where the delegates included Denis Nikitin (White Rex), Elena Semenyaka (National Corps, Azov), Ruben Kaaler (a member of parliament for an Estonian conservative party) and Aspir Leonis Befreier, representing the American AltRight (Russkiitsentr 2017b; Russkiitsentr 2017c). In late December 2014, a paramilitary nationalist organisation, the Russian Insurgent Army (Russkaya povstancheskaya armiya, RPA), was established in Kiev, consisting of Russian fighters of the voluntary battalions in Ukraine (Azov and Praviisektor). It has claimed responsibility for certain violent acts in Russia, such as an attempted arson attack on a ‘troll

146  Militant nationalism and war in Donbass factory’ in St Petersburg in October 2016, an arson attack on the Volgograd governor’s headquarters in November 2016, the murder of a corrupt former official of United Russia in Novosibirsk oblast’ and, most importantly, an attack on an FSB office in Khabarovsk in April 2017. During this attack, an FSB counter-extremism officer was killed and the organiser of the attack, Anton Konev, who had led the group Stolz Khabarovsk, also died in the shootout. The group Stolz Khabarovsk existed from 2012 and had about 15 members aged 17–20. They obtained weapons in an attack on a shooting club in Khabarovsk, during which they killed the local instructor (RBC 2017). The RPA openly declares the violent overthrowing of the Putin regime as its main goal. Its core is made up of Russian volunteers in Ukrainian nationalist battalions. Andrei Kuznetsov claims to lead the organisation. He became politically active as the organiser of #Orange, which evolved out of a social media profile that provided on-line streams from the anti-Putin protests in 2011. Kuznetsov supported Maidan in the early days and agitated on its behalf. It was due to his support for Maidan and protests against Crimea annexation and Russian intervention in eastern Ukraine that the Russian authorities in St Petersburg became interested in Kuznetsov, who then fled to Ukraine. He himself has said: ‘It is precisely in Ukraine that a front line—in the true sense of the word—passes between us. A front line between us, the Russian opposition, and Putin’s oligarchic regime’ (European Russians 2015). He conceives of the RPA as a political centre of Russian opposition, ready to defend their rights with arms in hand because all other options have already been exhausted. For that reason, the RPA emphasises combat training for Ukraine’s voluntary battalions. Ideally, they would like to create sabotage groups in the occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasti (European Russians 2015; Peterson 2015). They have more than 1,200 followers on social networks (RPA undated). All of the activities just described are the work of a relatively narrow circle of people. Admittedly, due to its information links with the profiles of Wotan Jugend and the Intransigent League, the Russian Centre exerts substantial influence on the ideas and actions of Russia’s autonomous neo-Nazis. Forces of the Good, meanwhile, commands some potential due to their links with the Nation and Freedom Committee, which is also active in Russia, and in the figure of its leader Basmanov, who is one of the leading ideologues of the contemporary opposition radical nationalist right. Radical Russian nationalists in Ukraine’s voluntary battalions From the beginning, the Russian nationalists showed a positive interest in Euromaidan as it unfolded in Ukraine because they considered it a possible blueprint for similar events in Russia. In late autumn 2013, a group of Russian nationalists arrived in Euromaidan, headed by Roman Strigulkov (a member of Russian National Unity from 1999 to 2003). In 2012, Strigulkov joined Valerii Soloviov’s New Force and led its Belgorod branch, and, in

Militant nationalism and war in Donbass 147 this capacity, he maintained contact with the Kharkov-based organisation Patriot of Ukraine (Patriot Ukraini), which subsequently mutated into the Azov voluntary battalion. In Kiev, Strigulkov presented himself as a political émigré and coordinated the so-called ‘Russian Legion’ of Euromaidan. This project appears to have involved only him (or a few other Russians at most), participating in the anti-Yanukovich protests (General_Ivanov Livejournal 2014; Byshok and Valyaev 2015). Strigulkov’s activities in no way influenced the revolution, although one of the alleged members of the legion, Igor Tkachuk, originating from Kaliningrad oblast’, died in the violence accompanying Euromaidan (Klops.ru 2014). Failing to obtain his dreamed-of status as a political refugee, Strigulkov proclaimed himself disappointed in the Ukrainian revolution and retired to seclusion. Other radical nationalist volunteers arrived in Ukraine throughout 2014. According to various estimates, their numbers were in the dozens at most—they mostly joined the Azov battalion, with smaller numbers joining the Praviisektor Ukrainian Volunteer Corps and other units. The best known of these militants were Roman ‘Zukhel’ Zheleznov and Sergei ‘Malyuta’ Korotkikh. Zheleznov, a former collaborator of Maksim ‘Tesak’ Martsinkevich and a former student at Moscow’s prestigious Higher School of Economics, arrived in Kiev in July 2014. Later he obtained Ukrainian citizenship and was supposed to have led the so-called Russian Corps (Russkiikorpus) of Azov; however, no activities of this corps are known and it probably does not exist at all. Previously, he was active in Moscow in the Anti-Antifa movement, and he was known for the collection of personal data of the militant Antifa leaders, thanks to which activity he knew some BORN members but did not maintain close links with them. He collected data on the far-left anti-fascists together with Aleksei ‘Antitsygan’ (meaning ‘Anti-Gypsy’) Kasich, allegedly receiving money for this from a former LDPR State Duma deputy and neo-Nazi, Nikolai Kuryanovich (specifically, he was in contact with his aide, Evgenii Valyaev, of Russian Image). Zheleznov was repeatedly prosecuted and sentenced, e.g. for firing a gas-powered pistol at an underage member of the punk subculture, and for theft of beef from a hypermarket (Judina and Alperovitch 2015). Perhaps the most influential of the Russian volunteers was Sergei Korotkikh (also known as ‘Malyuta’ and ‘Botsman’), the former commander of the Azov battalion intelligence service, who cultivated links with Ukraine’s security apparatus, including the former interior minister Arsen Avakov. As of December 2017, Korotkikh heads a commercial organisation that, according to some, serves as the ministry’s slush fund (Furmanyuk 2017). Korotkikh arrived in Ukraine in April 2014 and by December had obtained Ukrainian citizenship. He has had a colourful career of a neoNazi activist—perhaps he is better described as a soldier of fortune. In the 1990s, he served in Belarus’s Spetsnaz (special forces; he is a Belarusian); in the late 1990s he became a leading member of the Minsk branch of RNE, which at the time was characterised by its physical assaults on

148  Militant nationalism and war in Donbass liberal opposition, apparently conducted under the silent leadership of the Belarusian KGB. When the leader of the Belarusian RNE, GlebSamoilov, was killed in 2000 by unknown perpetrators, Korotkikh moved to Russia. There he was involved in the founding and leadership of the NationalSocialist Society (NSO) until he was expelled over financial irregularities. During his time with the NSO, he befriended Maksim Martsinkevich, whose organisation, Format 18, virtually became a part of the NSO, thanks to the links between Martsinkevich and Korotkikh. In 2007, Korotkikh was arrested on suspicion of involvement in a bomb attack on Manezhnaya Square, which claimed no casualties. When the police released Korotkikh, his trail then went cold. According to Polish investigative journalists, after leaving the NSO, Korotkikh moved from place to place (including stints in the Middle East) and most likely worked for private security agencies that hired mercenaries (Reszka and Holcova 2017). He reappeared in public in February 2013, when the militant Antifa attacked him and Martsinkevich in Minsk; during the skirmish, Korotkikh knifed one of the attackers. He was arrested but released the next morning, allegedly thanks to his good links with the Belarusian security apparatus (pn14.info 2013; Girin 2014). Some journalists have connected him with the suspicious death of an Azov leader, Yaroslav Babich, who raised funds for Azov abroad (Furmanyuk 2016). Today Korotkikh is part of the structure of the Ukraine Ministry of the Interior, but his role is somewhat nebulous. Since spring 2014, the Russian nationalist Ekaterina Logunova (‘Zigunova’) has maintained contact with Korotkikh in Ukraine. She is subject to prosecution in Russia, where she had coordinated the St Petersburg branch of Restrukt! and earned the nickname ‘Tesak’s daughter’. Today she is involved in Azov battalion’s political wing (Gonta 2016). Other known Russian activists in Ukraine—beyond the people connected with Wotan Jugend and the Russian Centre—include Aleksandr ‘Rumun’ Parinov, a BORN member. Parinov is probably not involved in hostilities, as he suffers from diabetes. He is a veteran of the national-socialist skinhead group OB-88 (for which he organised concerts), and he was accused of the murder of an Antifa member, Ryukhin, which he allegedly committed together with Tikhonov. It has also been alleged that Parinov and Korshunov killed a Tajik immigrant guest worker as an act of revenge for the rape and killing of a school girl by an immigrant. Korshunov supposedly cut off his head and brought it to the front of the Mozhaiskii district government offices (the original murder took place in that district). Then he sent threatening letters to the media and human rights organisations (SOVA 2014a). Parinov fled to Ukraine as long ago as 2009, where he remains as of December 2017. He allegedly had links with Ukrainian nationalists as early as 2006 (Skovoroda and Nikulin 2014). Parinov is the sole leading BORN member to remain at liberty. Also serving in Azov is the Russian neo-NaziAleksei ‘Kolovrat’ Kozhemyakin, a known activist from Syktyvkar, the capital of the Komi

Militant nationalism and war in Donbass 149 Republic. He was the chair of the organisation Slavic Brotherhood (Slavyanskoe bratstvo) and an activist of the group Northern Frontier (Rubezhsevera). In January 2007 he was sentenced to seven years in prison for grievous bodily harm when he was convicted of assaulting a citizen of Azerbaijan with a racial motive. In November 2013, before the Russian March was due to take place, he was rearrested. He led the Komi branch of Restrukt! In June 2014 he was again arrested for bodily harm and later fled to Kiev (SOVA 2015b). A problem often encountered by Russian volunteers is that of citizenship, as Ukraine’s leadership tends not to rush to grant them Ukrainian citizenship (with the exceptions of Zheleznov and Korotkikh), so the Russian volunteers thus find themselves in a legal vacuum, having neither a valid passport nor a permanent residency permit. In March 2016, Ukrainian president Poroshenko signed an act granting Ukrainian citizenship to foreign volunteers active in the anti-terrorist operation zone, after they stay in the country for three years. In December 2016, the Russian volunteer Yuliya ‘Valkyrie’ Tolopa of Aidar battalion sought to draw public attention to unfulfilled promises made concerning the citizenship issue by spilling juice on the leader of Ukraine’s Radical Party, Oleh Lyashko, in the lobby of the Ukrainian parliament. Incidentally, this was a somewhat confused idea, as the granting of citizenship does not fall within the member of parliament remit, but of the president. Tolopa comes from Kislovodsk, a city in southern Russia in Stavropol krai, where she moved within nationalist neo-Nazi circles of the community volkhva Yaromira, led by Sergei Bukreev, who joined the Azov battalion in March 2014 (Eur Asia Daily 2017). For this, a prosecution of Bukreev was opened in Russia. This leader of a south-Russian neo-pagan community was previously involved in an ‘old-Russian’ Orthodox racist sect that was banned as extremist by a local court. Founded in 1992 by Aleksandr Khinevich from Omsk, the sect was a bizarre mix of biological racism, esotericism, folk medicine and belief in an extraterrestrial civilisation (Vashchenko 2015).

Conclusion The data collected in this chapter allow us to state that Russia’s support for pro-Russian ‘insurgents’ in Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and the subsequent war in Donbass, ongoing since 2014, has represented a fundamental— perhaps even existential—strategic challenge for Russian militant nationalists. These events have shifted the attention of the Russian public towards the ‘Ukrainian question’, and the anti-Western campaign of the Putin regime has managed to mobilise a segment of the public. This has caused a deep rupture in the Russian militant nationalist camp. The anti-Ukrainians among the radical nationalists could feel strengthened by the events, as hitherto more moderate groups started to communicate with them; however, these groups also brought demonstrative loyalty to the ruling authoritarian regime and a willingness to

150  Militant nationalism and war in Donbass accept and repeat the official propaganda. Unlike the pro-Ukrainian camp, the anti-Ukrainian camp of militant nationalists avoided police repression, but the price paid for that has been high. Because the anti-Ukrainians have nothing much to offer to either the Kremlin or the public, their public activities declined, and some organisations ceased their operations entirely. Furthermore, the support for Donbass separatists gradually lost its potential to mobilise. The pro-Ukrainian militant nationalists, meanwhile, have not proved particularly viable either, and the circle of their sympathisers has diminished. This has been due to the general weakening of xenophobic moods in Russia’s society, the official media campaigns in support of the Crimea annexation and Donbass war, and large-scale repression mounted by the security forces, targeting both the leaders and the rank-and-file of these organisations. With leaders either jailed or in exile, their activities are paralysed; today these groups often find themselves under new, inexperienced leadership and suffer from internal discord and continuing fragmentation. If there is an actor on Russia’s political scene who has profited from the ‘Ukrainian question’ (at least in a short- or medium-term perspective), it is Vladimir Putin and his regime.

Notes

1. He died of the after-effects of an explosion in the car he received as a wedding gift (most likely the bomb had already been planted when he received the car). As in the cases of other ‘field commanders’ in the LNR, it is assumed that the attack was planned by I. Plotnitskii or Russia’s intelligence agencies (or it was a joint effort by the two). 2. During the so-called ‘Battle for the White House’, i.e. a clash between President Yeltsin and a parliament in revolt, which developed into an armed conflict. Members of the RNE then sided with the parliament and defended it from being occupied by the army under government command. 3. Further fates of these people varied. Aleksei Shiropaev, for instance, later became one of the ideologists of classical anti-imperial Russian nationalism. He gradually abandoned his radical views, until he essentially became a pro-West liberal. Shiropaev endorsed the old idea of a historical divergence between an ‘authoritarian’ Principality of Moscow and a ‘democratic’ Republic of Novgorod (Volchek 2016d). In his interpretation, the whole history of Russia is one of a settled white race being engulfed by a nomadic ‘Asiatic horde’, with the consequence of a historically Russian democracy being replaced by an oriental despotism. He believed that the historical Rus’ (an ethnic-cultural space in Eastern Europe inhabited by eastern Slavs) was an integral part of Europe, and the traditional Russian anti-Western position was merely an attempt to grant legitimacy to the power presently exercised by the state and its elites. This argument is concerned not just with Ukraine, but with the traditional anti-Western positions of Russia’s ruling elites, from nineteenth-century Slavophiles, through the Soviet era, to Russia today. Shiropaev also renounced anti-Semitism, recognised that the 1932–1933 famine in Ukraine was a genocide, and subsequently supported Ukraine’s Euromaidan and condemned the annexation of Crimea (Volchek 2016d).

Militant nationalism and war in Donbass 151 4. Maksim Kalinichenko was arrested in February 2015 in St Petersburg for creating the website Russian Right Sector and was subsequently awarded a prison sentence of just under three years. His project of Russian Runs originated in late December 2010 on the platform of the group ‘I am Russian’ (Yarusskii) on the VKontakte social network. The group focused on sober celebrations of the New Year 2011 as part of their campaign against alcoholism in Russia under the slogans ‘To be a Russian means to be sober!’ and ‘A sober Russia will be great again’. This was intended as a civic activity to draw in the country’s youth, while also expressing their protest against the authorities’ inactivity when faced with alcoholism, drug abuse and moral and cultural decline in Russian society (Litovchenko 2015).

7

Contemporary pro-Putin Russian militant nationalism in Russia and Ukraine

Ideologically, pro-Putin militant nationalism relies on Aleksandr Dugin’s Neo-Eurasianist doctrine. However, this is more suited for spreading Russia’s influence abroad than for mobilising on the domestic political scene. Domestically, such nationalism focuses on fighting liberalism, ‘the influence of the West’ and the threat of ‘colour’ revolutions à la Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, also referred to as Maidan, of 2004–2005. In organisational terms, pro-Putin militant nationalism consists of Neo-Eurasianist associations in Russia and abroad (e.g. in Ukraine) and of religious and pro-government vigilantism; but the term is more descriptive of the form of their activities than their ideological grounding, which tends to be neither deep nor fixed.

Russian Federation First of all, pro-Putin militant nationalism is not united and free from internal disagreement. Its position towards the contemporary Russian authoritarian regime ranges from enthusiastic approval—e.g. National Liberation Movement (Natsional’no-osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie, NOD), South-East Radical Block (SERB), Anti-Maidan (see sections 1.3.1. to 1.3.3. for details)— to neutrality (most of the religious vigilantism), where, in the spirit of the traditional Russian saying, ‘Good tsar, bad boyars’, those around Putin but not the president himself are criticised. Standing somewhere in between these two positions are the okolo-gosudarstvennye (around-the-state) organisations and their leaders who maintain some degree of loyalty to the regime or are convinced that mutually beneficial compromises can be made with the regime in terms of support for certain topics (e.g. struggle against the liberal opposition, support for Russian military aggression in the Donbass, etc.). Further, it is necessary to distinguish these peoples’ postures towards the specific, current authoritarian regime (i.e. towards the people now leading the state and their activities) and their posture towards Russian statehood, which, for many nationalists, is a sacred value in itself. These last then tend to be described as gosudarstvenniki; they are close to the Italian fascist slogan ‘All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state’,

Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine 153 and, in their public utterances, present themselves as fighters acting in the name of the state and the president, but also of the Orthodox Church, or in the interest of protecting the religious feelings of believers (with the official Russian Orthodox Church, ROC, approving their acts to various degrees). The neutral position of pro-government vigilante associations lies in the fact that they do not act on direct orders issued by state authorities (though they are often financed from the Treasury) and do not have direct links with Russia’s elite. They often operate similarly to the pro-Kremlin youth organisations. Most of the religious vigilante associations have emerged since 2012 and are not linked with the old radical nationalist associations whose origins date to the 1990s. These last often drew their ideologies from the traditions of the pre-revolutionary Chernaya sotnya movement, which included various Russian National Unions, the Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers (Soyuz Pravoslavnykh Khorugvenostsev), Chernaya sotnya, Great Russia, etc. Their relationship with the Putin regime is complicated, and they sometimes sharply oppose it (see below). It is evident that, since the beginning of Putin’s third term in 2012, Russian leadership has placed an increased emphasis on using Orthodoxy to legitimise both the authoritarian exercise of power domestically and Russia’s aggressive foreign policy. This has become manifest in the increased influence of the so-called tsarebozhniki (tsar-worshippers), whose main public figure is the United Russia deputy, Natal’ya Poklonskaya, and the emergence of new pro-Putin associations linked with the ROC (e.g. the group Sorok sorokov, which literally means ‘forty by forty’). These radical associations stand in conflict with the Church’s official line, without thereby opposing the political regime. The scandals (for further detail, please refer to Rainsford 2017 and Groskop 2018) that followed the 2017 screening of the Russian movie, Matilda, about the romantic involvement of Russia’s last tsar, Nikolai II, with a Polish ballerina, suggest that religious-vigilantism-based militant or terrorist groups might appear in Russia in the future; but logically that would be an anti-regime phenomenon. As testament to the rapprochement between Putin’s regime and imperial nationalism in its various forms (both right- and left-wing) was the foundation of the Izborsk Club (Izborskii klub) in September 2012. This is essentially a regime-sponsored, ultra-conservative intellectual club that reflects the moods among the more radical segments of the contemporary Russian elite, with sessions attended by a number of nationalist activists, journalists, writers, experts and politically active individuals. The club is headed by Aleksandr Prokhanov, a Stalinist nationalist writer and editor-in-chief of the magazine Zavtra, who does not hide his sympathies for the North Korean totalitarian regime. The Orthodox journalist and philosopher, Vitalii Averyanov, and Zavtra deputy editor, Aleksandr Nagornyi, serve as executive secretaries for the Izborsk Club. Membership includes leading figures of Neo-Eurasianism such as Aleksandr Dugin and Valerii Korovin, and Stalinist nationalists such as Mikhail Delyagin and Leonid Ivashov.

154  Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine However, given the asymmetric power relationship between the pro-Putin nationalists and the state, the broad question remains: What can the former offer to the latter? The victims of pro-Putin militant nationalism correspond to the current (and changeable) ‘image of the enemy’ as created by Russian propagandist media, and hence the objects of militant action or violence tend not to be the ‘textbook’ cases (e.g. government buildings and institutions, or national minorities). Neo-Eurasianist militant groups The attitude of the Neo-Eurasianists towards Putin is unreservedly positive, and any criticisms that appear are targeted solely at individuals within Russia’s system of power, with objections raised to their excessive ‘liberalism’ (e.g. the former Kremlin ideologue, Vladislav Surkov, now a ‘curator’1 of the internationally unrecognised republics in the Donbass, is an embodiment of such ‘liberalism’ in the eyes of the Neo-Eurasianists). There have been a number of publications concerned with the imperial-nationalist ideology of political theorist Aleksandr Dugin (Laruelle 2006, 2008; Shekhovtsov and Umland 2009; Umland 2017b), hence our focus here is two-fold. First, we introduce organisations directly connected with Dugin’s ideology, which is necessary to understand the evolution of this segment of Russian militant nationalism, influencing as it does the development of pro-Russian movements in neighbouring countries (e.g. in Ukraine, due to the Donbass conflict, and also in Central Europe). Second, we present the violent manifestations that emanate from this doctrine. The Neo-Eurasianist perspective on Ukraine dates to the 1990s, when Dugin argued in his Osnovy geopolitiki (Foundations of Geopolitics) that Ukraine was an artificial state, consisting of four main regions with allegedly contradictory geopolitical loyalties (Dugin 1997: 377). A sovereign and united Ukraine, Dugin argued, posed the chief threat to Russia’s geopolitical security and to the revived Eurasian empire. Dugin introduced the means to neutralise the ‘Ukrainian threat to Russia’ in his book The Fourth Political Theory (Dugin 2009, English translation 2012): ‘extending Russian influence in the post-Soviet space’ would not necessarily imply ‘direct colonisation in the old tradition’; ‘in our world, more sophisticated and efficient network technologies are developed that allow us to achieve the same results with different means—with the use of information resources, social organisations, faith-based groups and social movements’. However, Russia’s direct action was also possible: ‘It cannot be excluded that a battle for Crimea and eastern Ukraine awaits us’ (Shekhovtsov 2016a). Naturally, such an interpretation is wholly unacceptable to opposition nationalists who support the Ukrainian side in the conflict, and for them Dugin is the archenemy. For example, Ivan Beletskii, the leader of the Party of Nationalists, argued that there are in Russia various mutually hostile nationalisms: there are ‘those who defend a “Russian world” and those who

Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine 155 defend the right with no annexations and no Putin. We are in an entirely different camp, so do not compare us with Dugin. In the future, there will be either us or Dugin. We cannot exist together in Russia’ (YouTube 2017b). Eurasian Youth Union The success of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in early 2005 terrified Russian president Vladimir Putin and the elite ruling Russia, as they feared that similar protests might occur in Russia, too. Because it was the young, active Ukrainians who made a significant contribution towards the success of the Orange Revolution, Russia’s leadership felt compelled to take preventive measures. First of all, they revived and mobilised the pro-regime youth movement. Several ‘patriotic’ youth organisations were founded, namely Nashi, Young Russia (Rossiya molodaya) and the Young Guard (Molodaya gvardiya). Another was the Eurasian Youth Union (Evraziiskii soyuz molodezhi, ESM), founded in 2005, allegedly on the initiative of Dugin and Surkov, then deputy secretary of the president’s office, and funded by Putin’s administration. The ESM officially organised the first Russian March in November 2005 and subsequently also a number of violent attacks on the opposition (Kozhevnikova 2007). The emergence of the ESM was connected with the political developments in Ukraine, and the movement sought to exert influence in the country. In 2005– 2007, branches were founded in Kiev, Kharkiv, Sumy, Sevastopol and other Ukrainian cities. They collaborated with the Ukrainian cells of the National Bolsheviks, the pro-Russian extremists associated in the Russian Bloc (Russkii blok), Nataliya Vitrenko’s Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) and Dmytro Korchynskyi’s Bratrstvo (Brotherhood). Vitrenko and Korchynskyi were even members of Dugin’s International Eurasian Movement Supreme Council. However, the Ukrainian branches of the ESM remained on the margins of the country’s political landscape; their activities mostly consisted of anti-NATO protests and other anti-Western events. Furthermore, some local ESM members did not share the radical anti-Ukrainian spirit of NeoEurasianism. For instance, they protested after several activists damaged Ukrainian national emblems at the country’s highest peak, Mount Hoverla, in 2007. For some time, the ESB was an object of increased interest to the Security Service of Ukraine (Sluzhba bezpeky Ukrainy, SBU), and in 2007 its Crimea branch was banned, although in early 2008 this ban was judged unlawful. During this time in Russia, the ESM focused on acts of vandalism motivated by xenophobia, the organising of nationalist rallies and unsuccessful attempts to attack left-wing activists associated with the Vanguard of Red Youth (Avangard krasnoi molodezhi) (Kozhevnikova 2008). Around 2008, the Neo-Eurasianist movement vanished in Ukraine, and that remained the case until the Russo-Ukrainian war of 2014. Some activists left it for ideological reasons, whereas others moved to Russia. More successful were those Russian Neo-Eurasianists who directly cooperated

156  Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine with pro-Russian organisations in Ukraine, most particularly Vitrenko’s PSPU, which at the time was the main radical anti-Western organisation in Ukraine. Vitrenko often participated in conferences featuring Dugin or other members of his movement, and Dugin described her as the leader of the pan-Ukrainian movement of resistance to the United States of America. Her political programme proposed to create a political union of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, and, conversely, rejected any rapprochement between Ukraine and the European Union or the United States of America. Referencing the Soviet myth of the ‘Great Patriotic War’ (the term used by Russians to describe World War II), Vitrenko described the war as a struggle between a ‘fascist’ West and an ‘anti-fascist’ Russia and generally sought to associate the supporters of Ukrainian independence or NATO with Nazism. The ideological foundation of the ESM is Dugin’s notorious doctrine of Neo-Eurasianism. Its aim is to create a multi-ethnic, Eurasian empire. Officially, the ESM rejects ethnic nationalism. The main emphasis is placed on ‘service to the Russian people’, interpreted in ethnic-cultural terms, but the concept of ‘Russia for Russians’ is rejected because Russia is understood as the main building block in the future Eurasian empire. Furthermore, the ESM promotes a greater social role for religion, considering Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism as the traditional religions of Eurasia. The supporters of the empire want Russia to annex many of its neighbours (all post-Soviet states except the Baltics, plus Mongolia). The United States of America serves as the chief adversary. The ESM sees Putin as taking steps towards the implementation of the Eurasian empire project and hence assumes a positive position towards him, all the more so since 2012, when Putin’s regime consolidated its authoritarian character. Although the movement has criticised fascist and Nazi leaders, it promotes figures involved with interwar nationalist and fascist groups, such as Julius Evola, Gabriele D’Annunzio and Corneliu Codreanu (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2009: 253). Typically, the ESM espouses the use of violence against both political opponents within Russia and the country’s geopolitical adversaries. Since 2005, it has organised summer camps where participants learn martial arts and the handling of weapons. The ESM’s pro-Kremlin orientation protects activists from prosecution for illegal acts—at most, they are detained for a short time, as was seen when the ESM attacked the Other Russia rally in 2006 or damage to a Moscow exhibition about the Ukrainian famine (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2009: 254). In the preparations for the Crimea annexation and the instigation of Donbass separatism, the ESM was probably the most active among Russian nationalist organisations. In 2005–2006, it maintained close links with the (then marginal) separatist outfit, the Donetsk Republic, and other organisations. Konstantin Knyrik, the leader of the Crimea branch of the ESM, which was banned for some time, became the director of the Donbass separatism information centre, known as South-Eastern Front, after Crimea’s

Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine 157 annexation and the outbreak of the Donbass war in 2014. Today, he is the chief of a relatively significant information agency, News Front, and in December 2017 he became the leader of the Crimea branch of the Russian nationalist party, Rodina. After 2014, the ESM, together with the RightWing Conservative Alliance and other smaller organisations, founded the coalition named Battle for the Donbass, which called for an open invasion of Ukraine by the Russian military. The ESM’s activities could be theoretically classified as pro-government vigilantism, but unlike the Anti-Maidan coalition and the NOD and SERB movements, the Neo-Eurasian associations are geared more towards activities abroad and the promotion of the Kremlin agenda, together with similarly minded groups in the target countries (PSPU and the Donetsk Republic in Ukraine; Change (Zmiana), Falanga and Zadruga in Poland; Jobbik in Hungary; etc.). Religious vigilantism Unlike earlier Orthodox-monarchist nationalist organisations, these groups usually lack an elaborate ideology. They tend to focus primarily on specific actions and violent provocations against the ‘fifth column’, protesting the collapse of society, insults to religious belief, etc. The rise of Orthodoxfundamentalism-based religious vigilantism can be dated to 2012, the beginning of Putin’s third term; the trial of Pussy Riot; and several property scandals that were connected with the Patriarch, Kirill. According to Aleksandr Verkhovskii, the activism of Orthodoxfundamentalist groups became manifest in their use of ‘limited violence’: they would destroy an exhibition or beat someone up, but would do it in such a way as not to attract too much police attention. The first to be noted by the media was the Holy Rus’ (Svyataya Rus) organisation, which, in connection with the Pussy Riot case,2 announced the forming of ‘Orthodox patrols’ to protect churches (the patrols were never deployed, see Borzenko, Gorbachev and Turovskii 2017; for more about the Pussy Riot case, see Panov 2012, Institute of Modern Russia 2012, Smitr-Spark 2012). Subsequently, similar initiatives appeared in other Russian regions, with ‘Cossack’ associations particularly active. Supposedly founded in July 2010, the Holy Rus’ organised its first public event only in June 2012 when, together with the Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers, it took part in a cross-bearing procession in Byansk oblast on the anniversary of the murder of Mikhail Romanov, the brother of the last Russian tsar. The movement was led by Ivan Otrakovskii, a former captain in the Russian marines, and its aim was to ‘transform the state’s orientation from a pro-Western to a monarchist one and to return to the spiritual statehood of Holy Rus’’ (Maltsev 2012). The movement attempted to establish training camps, and to this end approached former soldiers who had served in the Russian army in various conflicts. Another small group, God’s Will (Bozhya volya), was headed by Dmitrii ‘Enteo’ Corionov, a scandalous Orthodox activist who became notorious for

158  Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine his histrionic attacks on galleries or art exhibitions that, he said, offended the religious feelings of believers. God’s Will was created in 2012, but during 2016 it gradually ceased its activities; Corionov was (allegedly) expelled from the group in October 2017. Corionov considers himself a libertarian conservative and a monarchist, rejects the theory of evolution and is a geo-centrist. He adopted Orthodox religion only in 2010, when he joined the marginal Prophet Daniil Orthodox missionary movement. The next (and current) stage of religious vigilantism was spurred by the 2017 scandals that followed the screening of the film Matilda, which was about the last Russian tsar’s affair with the Polish ballerina, Matylda Krześinska. The media spotlight has been aimed at the tsarebozhniki (tsar-worshippers), whose brand of militant Orthodoxy is, compared to the existing ‘Cossack’ patrols at churches or small-scale disturbances by individual activists, a more consequential form of activism, especially because the ‘tsar-worshippers’ are willing to use violence. They believe that the last Russian tsar, Nikolai II, served as a sacrificial victim, atoning for the 300 years of sins committed by the Russian nation. (Incidentally, this belief in the last tsar’s redemptive sacrifice contradicts the official interpretation by the ROC.) The second characteristic of the movement is its anti-Semitism: many tsarebozheniki believe that the slaughter of the tsar’s family was a ritual murder, a conspiracy of Hasidic Jews and influential Jewish circles, the aim of which is to destroy the God-fearing Russian nation. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are popular among its followers. Ekaterinburg, where the ‘tsar-redeemer’ was executed in the summer of 1918, is a place of pilgrimage for them, fulfilling a role similar to that which Jerusalem has for mainstream Christians. The sect calls the place of the murder, Ipat’ev House, the ‘Russian Golgotha’. Viktor Korn’s pamphlet On the Order of Secret Forces: What the Inscriptions in Ipat’ev House Were Hiding (Po prikazu tainykh sil: chto skryvali nadpisi v Ipat’evskom dome) is also popular in the movement. Among other things, it claims that the tsar and his family were killed during a Jewish holiday and that the Hasidim left kabbalist symbols at the place of the execution (Borodin 2017). The movement’s main public figure is the controversial young State Duma deputy, Natal’ya Poklonskaya, known for her deification of Tsar Nikolai II. Ideologically more important is Father Sergei (Nikolai Romanov), leading cleric of the Sredneuralsk women’s monastery and a former police officer who spent 13 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter and can boast remarkable contacts with influential figures in both organised crime and the banking sphere. Father Sergei’s views are a mixture of apocalyptic and monarchist ideas, and he considers the tsar the only legitimate ruler. He supports the annexation of Crimea and the liquidation of Ukraine as an independent state, but is careful in his public utterances (Soldatov 2017b). Tsarebozhie is promoted as a ‘healthy alternative’ to the sanctimonious authorities of the ROC, a truly ‘popular faith’. Among the tsar-worshippers, the official Orthodoxy, led by the hierarchy and the Patriarch Kirill, is

Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine 159 viewed critically as drowning in luxury and pleasures, and in every respect supporting state power. Many experts have argued that the present radicalism of Orthodox groups has been fuelled by the increasingly anti-liberal rhetoric of the official Church, or of its fundamentalist branch, whose moods are slipping out of the Church hierarchy’s control (Soldatov 2017a). For instance, SOVA centre’s Natalia Judina argues that ‘[…] classic Russian nationalism in its ethnic, anti-immigrant form is a thing of the past. New movements are arising that are ideologically connected with the Kremlin. For them the main thing is patriotism, an admiration for the state and the adoption of conservative, Orthodox values.’ She points out that while hate crimes against minorities and migrants have decreased ten-fold since the late 2000s, attacks on the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) community are enduring, as these new ‘patriotic’ and Orthodox-fundamentalist groups see LGBT people as a promising target for their hatred (Petkova 2017). Aleksandr Verkhovskii has put forward a similar argument: this a new stage in the development of radical Orthodoxy, and at this stage the balance between religion and nationalism is shifting towards the former. This, Verkhovskii claims, is manifest in the activities of such associations as the Christian State – Holy Rus’ (see below) and the militant Orthodox brotherhood Sorok sorokov, directly supported by the ROC leadership (Borzenko, Gorbachev and Turovskii 2017). Sorok sorokov The name Sorok sorokov is a phraseme that denotes the total number of churches in the old, pre-Revolution Moscow (i.e. 1,600 churches). The movement emerged in June 2013 with Andrei Kormukhin, an agri businessman, as leader; his sister, who was a rock singer in the late 1980s, reoriented herself towards Orthodox pop music and shares his views. Other leading figures include the boxer, Vladimir Nosov, who pursues various homophobic projects on social media (his profile Vlk-homofob, or Wolf-Homophobe, has nearly 19,000 followers). Since its inception, the organisation has been cooperating with Orthodox Church dignitaries, focusing on the protection of churches and church building sites that are part of the February 2009 ‘200 Churches Programme’ initiated by Patriarch Kirill. This is a plan to construct 200 churches in Moscow, so that all the inhabitants of the metropolis have one within walking distance of their home. These links have been officially sanctioned by the ROC; at a November 2014 meeting with Orthodox youth, Patriarch Kirill called Sorok sorokov ‘his guard’. Kormukhin decided to organise the movement after the ‘2012 attack on the Orthodoxy’, by which he meant the attention surrounding the band Pussy Riot. ROC functionaries task Kormukhin with the protection of specific structures, and members of his organisation also accompany the Church’s cross-bearing processions in various regions. Some sources allege that Kormukhin controls property

160  Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine worth millions of American dollars because he is able to convert his activities into cash. He particularly cultivates Archpriest Dmitrii Smirnov, the chairman of the Patriarchal Commission for the Family and the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood, whose radical opinions are well known— he suggested to atheists that they should commit suicide, described baby hatches as ‘a weapon of the West’, called for sex shops to be attacked using bricks, etc. (Turovskii 2015). The famous martial-arts champion, Fedor Emelyanenko, is allegedly also cooperating with Sorok sorokov, and he is thought to co-organise the ‘Orthodoxy and Sport’ festival in Kolomenskoe, Moscow, attended by thousands every year. Kormukhin calls himself a ‘soldier of Christ’ and he speaks of the necessity of a ‘second christening of Rus’’ and the struggle against the ‘antiChrist who controls Hollywood’. In an interview for Radio Free Europe, Kormukhin denied being a nationalist (at least in the ethnic sense of the term as he understands it) by arguing: ‘we are Orthodox Christians; an Orthodox a priori cannot be a nationalist. […] The other thing is that we belong to the great Russian world, whose foundation is the Russian Orthodox Church. In our understanding, the Russian nation is not defined in terms of blood, but as a nation that is connected with the Russian world’ (Volchek 2017a). Kormukhin considers monarchy the best form of government, and hence he would like ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] in the next term […] to convene a diet [Zemskii sobor] that would elect a new gosudar [a historical term for the ruler]’, ideally Putin himself, ‘the only politician who shares most of my values and will secure Russia’s stability and sovereignty’. For that reason, he rejects the tsarebozhniki because he disagrees with their argument that Nikolai II is the redeemer of the Russian nation (Volchek 2017a). Initially, Kormukhin lacked resolute supporters, but then he was joined by Ivan ‘Combat-18’ Katanaev, the former leader of the Fratria hooligan group (which supports Spartak Moscow), who has a neo-Nazi past. Katanaev invited younger Moscow hooligans into the organisation to help develop its strength. In 2007, Katanaev was one of the founders of the AllRussia Supporters Union (Vserossiiskoe ob’edinenie bolel’shchikov, VOB), responsible for the distribution of football tickets. In 2009, members of the group supporting Spartak Moscow accused him of embezzling ticket money. Roman ‘Kolyuchii’ Verbitskii made threats against Katanaev and physically assaulted him—the two later reconciled and both joined Sorok sorokov). After the fraud scandal, Katanaev left for Bali, where he opened a restaurant, which he sold in 2014 before returning to Russia (Tumanov 2015b). Also involved in the movement was Vasilii ‘Killer’ Stepanov, a former member of the Gladiator hooligan group, who in 2003 assaulted the headquarters of the National Bolsheviks (nicknamed a ‘bunker’) and then provided protection to a congress of the youth movement Nashi. Stepan Krivosheev, who seeks to rally support for the Russian regime’s politics among the members of Moscow’s hooligan groups, likewise maintains close links with Sorok sorokov.

Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine 161 The movement’s leadership takes part in round tables about fighting abortion, Orthodox seminars and, with Archpriest Smirnov, organises the so-called ‘Sorochinskii meetings’, to which well-known preachers and the youth are invited. In May 2015, the movement’s adherents attacked a gay pride march in Moscow. The movement attracted the most attention in June 2015, when they beat up locals, supported by liberal opposition parties, who were protesting against the construction of a church in Torfyanka Park in Moscow (Turovskii 2015). It was at this point that a number of football hooligans were involved in the movement and Sorok sorokov was accused of being a Church commando group, committing seizures and pirate land grabs (reiderstvo) of lucrative plots in Moscow, as they allegedly appeared everywhere the ROC and Patriarch Kirill were involved in property disputes (ICTV 2017). Be that as it may, their units certainly act quickly and efficiently, and—because it is they who undertake these activities—the official state agencies do not have to get their hands dirty. Sorok sorokov has also been involved in the conflict in Ukraine. The organisation sends ‘humanitarian shipments’ to the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR/LNR). Katanaev has travelled to Gorlovka and Slavyansk with humanitarian missions several times. His visits with the commander of the Crimea battalion fighting the Ukrainian army, who was one of the former members of the Red-Blue Warriors ‘firm’, demonstrate that he maintains contact with the hooligan scene. In autumn 2014, Kormukhin met with Igor Girkin to discuss supplies of aid to the DNR separatists and further collaboration. By appealing to ‘Orthodox values’, Katanaev seeks to recruit hooligan youths for pro-government organisations and groups and to lure them away from neo-pagan militant groups, which tend to be anti-Putin and pro-Ukraine. Thus, he wants to endow his movement with an equally strong militant spirit, but to give it a pro-state orientation (Tumanov 2015b). The movement is based on ultra-conservative ideas and aggressive homophobia, but the fact that, by virtue of its connection with the ROC, it has accepted the role of an Orthodox militia has made its activities at least partially official. This places limits on its use of violence, among other things. For instance, although the leadership opposed the screening of the film Matilda and Kormukin flew to Ekaterinburg in late July 2017 to invite Natal’ya Poklonskaya to an event protesting the movie, Sorok sorokov committed no violence there (Borodin 2017). Christian State – Holy Rus’ In early 2007, a group called Christian State – Holy Rus’ (Khristianskoe gosudarstvo – Svyataya Rus’), led by the hitherto unknown Aleksandr Kalinin, attracted media attention by issuing arson threats against cinemas planning to screen the film Matilda. Initially, the group was thought to be associated with Poklonskaya, but she distanced herself from it publicly in February 2017 (Steĭnert and Grinkevich 2017). In September 2017, Kalinin

162  Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine was arrested; at the time of this writing, he had not beengiven a prison sentence. Kalinin’s brother Yurii and several others were also arrested, this time for arson attacks on vehicles near the office of the lawyer of Matilda’s director, Aleksei Uchitel’, and on his studio. Some sources also blame the group for an incident where a car was driven into a Ekaterinburg cinema and then set on fire. The group claimed no responsibility for any of these acts, however (Priimak 2017). Kalinin has no previous history of involvement in nationalist circles. According to information available, from 2002 to 2010 he served a prison sentence for the murder of his neighbour, from whose flat in Norilsk he and two drug addicts stole 75,000 roubles (Pravmir.ru 2017). In an interview for Medusa, an internet liberal opposition medium, Kalinin proclaimed that his aim was to create a totalitarian theocracy inspired by Iran (Turovskii 2017a). Indeed, his group’s name is intended to suggest an Orthodox Christian version of the Islamic State. One possible version is that the group, which does not even have a website, has only two members. The other person, who makes statements to the media on behalf of ‘Christian State’, is Miron Kravchenko. During the 2000s, he joined the Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers and led the ‘press department’ of Igor Artemov’s nationalist Russian All-National Union (Russkii obshchenatsional’nyi soyuz, RONS) organisation. In 2007–2012 Kravchenko edited the paper of the Sergiev Posad branch of the Central Cossack Army, whose ataman, Pavel Turukhin, was twice prosecuted (in 2007 and 2016) for inciting hatred; it was he who organised the march of the ‘Cossacks’, who describe themselves as ‘Orthodox fascists’, through the streets of Sergiev Posad with their right arms raised. In early 2010, Kravchenko attempted to organise Murmansk nationalists in the local cell of the Great Russia organisation; he also coordinated a Russian March in the city. After Euromaidan (i.e. the 2013–2014 protests over the Ukrainian leadership’s decision not to sign an association agreement with the European Union), he left for Ukraine. A radical anti-Putin activist, he failed to find work in Kiev or legalise his stay there, and he later returned to Russia (Borzenko, Gorbachev and Turovskii 2017). In 2017, speculations appeared in the media that the group Christian State – Holy Rus’ was controlled either by the Federal Security Service (Federal’naya sluzhba bezopasnosti rossiyskoy federatsii, FSB), as argued by some radical anti-Putin Orthodox monarchists such as Andrei Savelev and former RONS activists, among others, or by senior figures of the ROC (Chizhova and Krutov 2017). In September 2017, two deputies of the State Duma published their request that the state authorities investigate possible extremism in Christian State and Sorok sorokov. For this, they were criticised by Kormukhin, the leader Sorok sorokov movement (Dvizhenie Sorok sorokov, DSS), who in late September 2017 attended a session of the parliamentary group ‘For Christian Values’. Kormukhin nonetheless argued that Christian State

Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine 163 emerged ‘out of nowhere’ and as such was possibly a provocation aiming to discredit the ROC, and he distanced himself unequivocally from Christian State (Volchek 2017a; Maltsev 2017). Pro-government vigilantism In ideological terms, organisations loyal to the regime parrot the official state propaganda in the media: this means support for Putin, hate for ‘external enemies’ (whoever they might be) and attacks on any liberal opposition. In St Petersburg, for instance, pro-regime nationalists have pretty much crowded opposition activists off the street, calling them a ‘fifth column’ (Yudina and Alperovich 2016a). The time when the conflict was largely between the nashisty (pro-Kremlin youth organisations) and liberal opposition is over. The nashisty were replaced by new organisations: less centralised, and not so evidently linked with state authorities, but operating with their tacit agreement. Small pro-Kremlin organisations, acting relatively autonomously but enjoying immunity from prosecution, are used for precisely this purpose. These include the SERB and NOD movements. Anti-Maidan and its individual components, such as the biker club Night Wolves, are more obviously connected with the Kremlin. The National-Bolshevik organisation, Other Russia, has also become involved in fighting the ‘fifth column’; ironically, earlier, when its leader Limonov exhibited liberal leanings, the pro-Kremlin youths considered Other Russia to be part of this same ‘fifth column’ (Yudina and Alperovich 2015). However, since 2014, Limonov has passionately supported the Kremlin’s steps in eastern Ukraine. Finally, we could include in this category the Eurasian Youth Union (ESM) and perhaps also some smaller pro-Kremlin youth organisations, but these lack a nationalist ideology. South-East Radical Block The South-East Radical Block (SERB) emerged in early 2014 in Ukraine’s Dnepropetrovsk, whence its leaders originate: Igor Beketov (‘Gosha Tarasevich’), an actor in Russian TV police procedural drama series, and Aleksandr Petrunko. The two encouraged a group of Anti-Maidanovtsy to oppose the new Ukrainian government and became involved in unrest in Kharkiv, where they supported the annexation of Crimea and proposed the violent creation of the Kharkiv People’s Republic à la DNR/LNR. Some of them were allegedly involved in an attack on the building of the Kharkiv oblast’ administration. When the situation in eastern Ukraine stabilised, in the summer of 2014 they fled to Moscow, where they chose a new target—opposition activists—and started to pursue ‘operations to terminate the denigration of Russia and the Russian president’. In August 2014, they started to promote the events organised by the National Liberation Movement in support of the Donbass and Igor Girkin (Strelkov). From autumn 2014, SERB increasingly used anti-Western rhetoric; in the winter

164  Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine of 2014–2015, SERB members violently disrupted anti-war rallies organised by the opposition (e.g. Solidarity and other organisations). They accused Russian liberal opposition of preparing a Maidan in Russia; SERB proclaimed that they ‘…will prevent that, as we have always stood and will stand guard for the Russian world’ (Medialeaks 2015). SERB’s first act to attract media attention was its destruction of a memorial to Boris Nemtsov at the place of his murder near the Kremlin. Characteristic of its further acts was the spilling of various liquids, including chemicals, urine and ordure, on their opponents. In May 2015, SERB members threw faeces at Solidarity members during the latter’s protest against the war with Ukraine. In October of the same year, they physically assaulted Solidarity members again, claiming that they sought ‘[…] to be useful to Russia, Novorossiya and [our] Ukrainian brothers who do not want to be under [the rule of] Ukro-fascists’ (Berg 2017). In autumn 2016, a SERB activist threw urine at the photographs in a Jock Sturges exhibition in Moscow, because, he claimed, he had seen in the naked models a ‘spiritual crime’. These acts brought SERB closer to the powers that be in Russia: they had their photographs taken with State Duma deputy speaker Petr Tolstoi, with Sergei Glazev, an adviser to the Russian president, members of Just Russia,3 and others. In late April 2017, SERB activists attacked the opposition politician Aleksei Navalnyi with a chemical and damaged his eyesight. In December 2017, Tarasevich and other SERB members found themselves in court over their violent interruption and termination of a screening of the film Polet puli (The Flight of a Bullet), which tells the story of the Ukrainian Aidar battalion’s volunteers, who took part in the war in eastern Ukraine. SERB members considered the film to be ‘Banderite’ (referring to Stepan Bandera and his political movement, but by extension to any expression of Ukrainian nationalism). SERB attempts, albeit not very successfully, to make its activities popular on social media. Naturally, the opposition blames the state authorities for inaction in the face of SERB’s violent activities. Although police officers do arrest SERB activists at their events, they later release them without charge. Navalnyi, for instance, claims that the secret services pass information on his whereabouts to SERB (see Batalov 2017; Berg 2017; Krutov 2017).4 SERB allegedly coordinates its activities with the NOD leader, Evgenii Fedorov. National Liberation Movement Created in 2012 after the Bolotnaya Square protests on the personal initiative of the United Russia deputy, Evgenii Fedorov, the National Liberation Movement (Natsional’no-osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie, NOD) espouses an ideology marked by unreserved support for Putin’s policies and a radical anti-liberal rhetoric. Its members take action against Putin’s adversaries, promote conspiracy theories and exhibit extreme, militant anti-Americanism. According to Fedorov, the United States of America is responsible for all of

Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine 165 Russia’s problems. Even Ukraine’s Euromaidan and the war in the Donbass are allegedly the consequences of open belligerence towards Russia on the part of the United States of America. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia supposedly adopted a constitution written by ‘Western advisers’ and thus became a colony of the United States,5 which controls the country with the help of a ‘fifth column’: the central bank, the media and opposition figures such as Navalnyi. There is, Fedorov argues, only one warrior standing against this occupation: Vladimir Putin. But, although the president does what he can, it is not within his power to liberate Russia for good because enemies are everywhere. Fedorov calls Putin a ‘world revolutionary’. According to Fedorov, the way out of this situation is to grant extraordinary powers to Putin; hold a referendum on constitutional change; and eliminate from the constitution those articles that stipulate the supremacy of international law and prohibit state ideology. Fedorov entered politics in 1989, aged 26, and has since been elected a State Duma deputy five times. Despite his claim that the Americans ‘write Russia’s laws’, he claims credit for the Dima Yakovlev Act, acts on foreign agents and a ban on ‘homosexual propaganda’. He claims that NOD activists have averted several conspiracies and revolutions, and that they are winning the fight against the ‘fifth column’. Except for Fedorov and his faithful helper, Mariya Katasonova, who holds a U.S. Green Card6 and who constantly appears in the media, the NOD lacks distinctive leaders. Its members focus on protesting in front of the U.S. embassy, public calls for a war against Ukraine and the escalation of the conflict there. They support the Russian president and take action against the opposition, including skirmishes and physical assaults on opposition figures. Compared to SERB, NOD is somewhat more moderate in its methods; indeed, they claim that they are fighting for change in Russia by legal means only (Merzlikin 2017). The opponents of NOD claim that the organisation is Fedorov’s business project, which he has built up as a sect. Its sources of funding are unofficial; money presumably comes from the state or business interests close to Fedorov. His critics argue that he aims to be useful to state authorities, while benefitting personally and thus helping his business plans (Rusmonitor 2017). Anti-Maidan In response to the events in Ukraine, pro-government nationalist movements have become more active in Russia. Known as the Anti-Maidan, they act as a counterweight to the anti-system nationalist organisations. Anti-Maidan, an anti-opposition movement of sorts, was founded in January 2015 by the boss of the biker gang Night Wolves (Nochnye volki), Aleksandr ‘The Surgeon’ Zaldostanov;7 a member of the Federation Council (the upper chamber of the Russian parliament), Dmitrii Salbin; and an mixed martial-arts fighter, Yulia Berezikova. Later associates of Anti-Maidan were the Great Fatherland Party

166  Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine (Partiya Velikoe Otechestvo) of Nikolai Starikov, a nationalist-Stalinist propagandist, NOD and the Battle for the Donbass. Like the first pro-Kremlin youth organisations after 2005, the aim of the movement is to prevent a Maidan in Russia by undermining opposition nationalists. In the 2016 parliamentary election, two Anti-Maidan leaders, Sablin and Balyberdin, stood on the ticket of the ruling party, United Russia. The first Anti-Maidan rally was held in February 2015, the first anniversary of the change of government in Ukraine, under the slogan ‘There shall be no Maidan in Russia’. This was attended by several tens of thousands of people, although many were allegedly there under pressure (supposedly this was a ‘compulsory voluntary event’, to which those whose incomes ultimately depended on the state budget were strongly recommended to go) or to collect the 300 roubles that were offered for attending. In June 2015, the movement organised several events against Russia’s anti-system opposition. The best-known group in Anti-Maidan is the biker club Night Wolves (they call themselves Orthodox bikers). The Night Wolves capitalise on their proximity to the Kremlin by attacking the opposition with impunity, settling scores with competing biker clubs (e.g. in October 2012, there was a shoot-out in Zelenograd between the Night Wolves and another club, Tri dorogi) or obtaining funding and land from the state. Beyond that, the members of such groups volunteer for violent actions where the Russian state’s open engagement would be unsuitable (members of the Night Wolves played a role in the annexation of Crimea,8 with some of them acting as Crimea militia, and they were also involved in other violent operations) or for various provocations (consider their propaganda trips to Western Europe, specifically to Berlin, in connection with the anniversary of the end of World War II). Their links with the regime are sufficiently close to earn them the nickname of Putin’s Angels. The Night Wolves have organised some actions in cooperation with Sorok sorokov—e.g. in June 2015, they attacked protesters in Moscow’s Vorob’evy Gory who opposed the construction of a memorial to the priest Vladimir. The political aims of the Anti-Maidan coalition include the fight against the ‘fifth column’ and support for the ruling regime and its policies, which is taken to mean ‘not allowing a colour revolution, chaos and anarchy. Protection of the constitutional system, traditional values, etc., surveillance of the participants in protest events, not allowing a violent overthrow of state power’ (Parfitt 2015). Furthermore, the coalition is characterised by its homophobia, Orthodox conservatism, pro-regime nationalism, strong anti-Western rhetoric and a love of authoritarianism, including its protagonists in modern Russian history, Stalin not excepted (Parfitt 2015). Since May 2015, the Night Wolves have had a branch in Chechnya, where Ramzan Kadyrov is the honorary leader. The Night Wolves form part of no subculture (or counterculture); they simply serve the ruling regime, which uses their support for Putin, their Orthodox themes and their anti-American rhetoric as a source of soft power. If members of biker clubs or gangs in

Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine 167 other countries most often have a reputation for being apolitical rebels, in Russia it is clearly a different matter. Other pro-government nationalist organisations There are in Russia a number of pro-Kremlin nationalist organisations, but almost none of them could be termed radical or militant nationalist. Ideologically, they tend to rely on more extreme versions of the propaganda slogans disseminated by the current regime, but they do not commit violence and do not engage in significant militant activism. One such organisation is the Russian All-People’s Union (Rossiiskii obshchenarodnyi soyuz), called the People’s Union (Narodnyi soyuz) between 1991 and 2008 and led by Sergei Baburin, a veteran of the nationalist movement and former State Duma deputy. Another is the Rodina (Homeland) party, relaunched in 2012 under the leadership of Aleksei Zhuravlev, its only deputy in the State Duma since the September 2016 elections (previously Zhuravlev was a deputy for the ruling United Russia party). Rodina has a youth wing, the Tigers of the Homeland, where the word TIGR serves as an acronym for Traditsiya, Imperiya, Gosudarstvo, Rodina (Tradition, Empire, State, Homeland). In the Russian All-People’s Union, Sergei Baburin relies on a combination of the following ideas: cultural nationalism, Orthodoxy, an authoritarian state and the unification of Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia. Previously, he also led the People’s Will (Narodnaya volya) association; in summer 2001, Dmitri Rumyantsev, who later founded the National-Socialist Society, was a member of its organising committee. Baburin, a lawyer and historian by training, took part as a deputy in the defence of the White House in 1993 (he was close to Aleksandr Rutskoi), and he was the State Duma deputy speaker for seven years. He co-founded Rodina, organised Russian Marches and kept in contact with the leader of the populist Polish Samoobrona (SelfDefence) party, Andrzej Lepper (Reszka and Holcova 2017). The ideology shared by these parties and organisations includes their support for ‘Orthodox values’, gosudarstvennost (i.e. statehood), support for Putin’s foreign policy and the authoritarian state, and rejection of sexual minorities and the liberal political opposition. Other organisations are either too marginal (e.g. the Right-Conservative Alliance, which arose out of the wreckage of Russian Image) or more leftwing than right-wing nationalist, such as Starikov’s Great Fatherland Party (Partiya Velikoe Otechestvo), and as such not deserving detailed attention here. Starikov is a well-known Stalinist and propagandist, who often goes on lecture tours in Europe. In late 2017, Starikov’s party split (the seceding wing called itself the Russian Party Socialism Today, Rossiiskaya Partiya Sotsializm Segodnya), because some members accused Starikov of embezzling money intended for Donbass orphans and pensioners. Starikov’s answer to the charges was a classic of its kind: such accusations, he said, are conspiracies against Putin (Korotkov 2017).

168  Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine The role of Russian pro-Putin nationalism during the outbreak of war in Ukraine Prior to 2014, Konstantin Malofeev was a practically unknown investment banker who traded in the telecommunications sector in Russia. In 2009, the Russian state-owned bank, VTB, accused him of credit fraud worth US$200 million. The investigation was slow, however, and in the meantime, Malofeev started to present his Orthodox-monarchist nationalist views publicly, earning himself the nickname ‘Orthodox Oligarch’. Speculations appeared that he enjoyed political protection, and that he was involved in the annexation of Crimea and, especially, in starting the war in the Donbass. He also allegedly funded an attempted coup in Montenegro and helped spread Russian influence in other countries. What is known is that in February 2014, during the annexation of Crimea, his prosecution was dropped, his file was closed and VTB wrote off the debt, which was nearly US$500 million at that time. This sent a clear message to the Russian business community, and Malofeev got another nickname: ‘Putin’s Soros’. His present activities are largely concentrated around the St Basil the Great Charitable Foundation.9 He also maintains a close relationship with Dugin: they both seek to influence certain radical European politicians for the benefit of Russia or to use them as agents of Russian influence. In February 2014, Malofeev appeared in Kiev at a ceremony where the Dary Volkhvov (the Holy Gifts of the Magi) were exhibited. With him was the head of security of his company, Igor Girkin, allegedly a former FSB or Chief Intelligence Office (Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie, GRU) colonel, who adopted the pseudonym Strelkov when inciting the conflict in the Donbass. In Crimea, Girkin allegedly served as an informal ‘adviser’ to Sergei Aksenov, who was until 2014 the chair of the Russian Unity (Russkoe edinstvo) party and, during and after the annexation, the Kremlin-installed political leader of the peninsula. Girkin and an armed unit of volunteers he gathered in Crimea then travelled through Russia to Slavyansk in Donetsk oblast, which they seized on 12 April 2014.10 Against the backdrop of the general unrest in the area, Girkin incited an armed conflict, which after summer 2014 mutated into a war between Ukraine and Russia. Unlike in Crimea, Russia has tenaciously claimed that it had nothing to do with the situation in the Donbass, and that it sent no troops there;11 the responsibility for unleashing the war thus, presumably, falls on the shoulders of Malofeev’s people such as Girkin and the conservative journalist Aleksandr Borodai, whom Girkin knew from his stint at Aleksandr Prokhanov’s ‘red-brown’ newspaper Zavtra (Reszka and Holcova 2017; on Prokhanov and his paper, see Bäcker 2007: 104–116). Igor Girkin is a devotee of the ideology of Russian imperial nationalism and a sworn Orthodox monarchist. He has extensive experience with military conflicts from Transnistria and Bosnia (where he fought on the Serbian side in 1992–1993), as well as from the first and second Chechen wars.

Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine 169 Today, Girkin argues that Russia should be enlarged to incorporate all territories where Russians live and considers Ukrainians and Belarusians as parts of the Russian nation. Putin, or perhaps more precisely those around him (e.g. Timchenko and Rotenberg, friends from his youth who became influential oligarchs), are too pro-Western for Girkin—in a discussion with Aleksei Navalnyi published on YouTube, he called them ‘the West’s occupation administration’ (YouTube 2017a). However, Girkin avoids criticising Putin directly. Opposition ethnic nationalists such as Vladimir Basmanov have argued that Girkin previously worked in the FSB, where he was responsible for the fight against opposition nationalists (Volchek 2016a). With Girkin responsible for the military part of the Russian operations in the Donbass, the first ‘prime minister’ of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, Aleksandr Borodai, became the political leader during the Donbass occupation. Previously he worked as a public relationsmanager for Malofeev. Connected with Borodai was Pavel Karpov, who went on to become a political consultant and member of the Public Chamber of the City of Moscow. Previously he was an unofficial aide to the Presidential Office staffer Nikita Ivanov and, executing a ‘controlled nationalism’ strategy, was responsible for nationalist movements. He was also allegedly a Combat Organisation of Russian Nationalists (Boevaya organizatsiya russkikh natsionalistov, BORN) ‘curator’—he was named during the BORN trial, in which Goryachev claimed to have cooperated with him. During the Donbass war, he was initially spotted in Luhansk, where he collaborated with the local administration head, Valerii Bolotov.12 It was at this time that volunteers from St Petersburg and Moscow neo-Nazi circles began to appear in the LNR. In summer 2014, once the local occupation administration leadership had stabilised sufficiently in both occupied oblasti in terms of personnel, thus allowing Russia to interpret the situation as a civil war with no Russian intervention (by autumn 2015, virtually all radical Russian units had disappeared from the fighting in the separatist territories), Karpov and Borodai returned to Moscow (Prusenkova 2015). Borodai became the head of the Moscow-based Union of Donbass Volunteers, most likely as part of the efforts of Kremlin political technologists to keep the veterans of the conflict under state control and to ensure their activities were legal. However, it has been alleged that Borodai does not actually command much authority in these circles (Dergachev 2015). Ultimately, Girkin was recalled from the Donbass as well. He responded by criticising the Russian government, accusing it of leaving the Donbass at the mercy of the Ukrainians. His (as well as Dugin’s) main target is the political ‘curator’ of Donetsk separatism, Vladislav Surkov. Girkin founded the Novorossiya movement, a network of activists who help supply the DNR and LNR. He has become a favourite figure with anti-liberal nationalists, activists and journalists, with whom he founded the 25 January Committee (Komitet 25 Yanvarya, K-25), the probable aim of which is to push opposition nationalists out of the political scene and to take their positions.

170  Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine Girkin’s political projects have generally not been successful. They have no profile on social networks and are thus invisible to the public. K-25, now renamed the All-Russian National Movement (Obshcherossiiskoe natsionalnoe dvizhenie, OND), calls itself an opposition actor, but is not an object of repression that targets true opposition nationalists. After all, it avows the Kremlin’s official political line, including support for the projects of the ‘Russian world’ and ‘aid to Russians abroad’ (Judina and Alperovitch 2016b). It would be more accurate to say, then, that the OND’s position towards the powers that be is ‘neutral’ (Dergachev 2016). In January 2017, the nationalist blogger Egor Prosvirnin left the OND, claiming that throughout 2016 the movement achieved no tangible results: it did not have the means, projects, or even its own website, and it conducted hardly any public activities. He was not wrong. Furthermore, the movement’s members have been unable to agree on even its fundamental ideological principles. Another nationalist blogger, Nesmiyan, has left the OND leadership and publicly supported the liberal opposition. Responding to these criticisms of his inactivity, Girkin levelled accusations at Russia’s authorities, who ‘do not even persecute me; they act as if Girkin didn’t exist.’ The current OND leadership defends a wait-and-see attitude, expecting a crisis to destabilise the regime and create a need for a ‘third force’ (Alperovitch 2017).

Ukraine Activities connected with Russian pro-Putin militant nationalism culminated in Ukraine in the so-called ‘Anti-Maidans’, a term used to describe loose groups that have sought to stimulate insurgency against the Ukrainian government in various cities. Organised in response to Kiev’s Euromaidan in various parts of the country, they aimed to destabilise Ukraine and stimulate secession in multiple oblasti. It was precisely the (pro-) Russian nationalists with separatist tendencies insisting that these regions immediately join Russia after the Crimea model who were an important force in these ‘Anti-Maidans’. In stirring up popular feelings against the Kiev government during the Anti-Maidans, anti-Semitism played a certain mobilising role.13 When Russia’s propaganda machine described the Anti-Maidans as anti-fascists, their anti-Semitism increased, implying that the anti-Semitism narrative was in fact anti-fascist, thus turning Jews into fascists. In connection with this, there was a flood of memes on the internet, connecting Jews with Ukrainian ultra-nationalists (Shekhovtsov 2014a). In Crimea, the Kremlin supported and installed Sergei Aksenov, the leader of the nationalist Russian Unity party, as de facto head of the peninsula. In the 2010 elections to the Crimean regional parliament, Russian Unity polled a mere 4.02 percent of the vote, whereas Yanukhovych’s ruling Party of Regions polled almost 50 percent. Despite the fact that Aksenov and his party were marginal, Russia’s leadership placed its bet on him in February/ March 2014 as the main figure to ensure that the annexation went smoothly.

Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine 171 Aksenov does not have a strong ideology. For him, Russian nationalism is largely a guise under which he can pursue his primarily (criminal) business activities, and politics is an instrument for self-enrichment. This is also suggested by his past in that he was previously active in organised-crime circles under the nickname ‘Goblin’. In Kharkiv, the main movers of Anti-Maidan were the SERB movement (see above), the Russian nationalist Konstantin Dolgov14 and the Oplot organisation. Like Aksenov’s circle, this was more of an organised-crime group than an expression of radical political ideas. Founded in 2011 as a fight club, Oplot was led by former police officer Evgenii Zhilin, who was shot dead in September 2016 on Moscow’s outskirts by unknown perpetrators (it has been alleged that he was murdered in a fight over the sharing of profits from the sale of coal that was mined in DNR/LNR). Oplot was the chief actor in the attempted Kharkiv separatism and in the Donbass war as a whole. The organisation created a combat unit of the same name, which was commanded by Aleksandr Zakharchenko, formal leader of the DNR from summer 2014. However, it was the Anti-Maidans in Odessa and Donetsk who were of greatest importance in the developments in Ukraine, with the latter contributing significantly to the outbreak of the war. The role of Russian militant nationalism during the unrest in Odessa The Odessa Anti-Maidan was a remarkable mixture of Stalinists, Russian monarchists, neo-Nazis, semi-criminal ‘Cossack’ groups, Orthodox fanatics and pro-Soviet pensioners (Shekhovtsov 2014a). The so-called Odesskaya Druzhina became particularly notorious for its radicalism. It was led by Dmitrii Odinov, chair of the marginal Slavic Unity (Slavyanskoe edinstvo); before Euromaidan he was one of the leaders of pro-Russian neo-Nazis in Odessa. His real name is Dmitrii Maidannik; he adopted his new name, after the god Odin of German mythology, to conceal his Jewish origins. In the past, pro-Russian organisations did not cooperate with him, disagreeing with his radical views; but later he established links with Communists and Orthodox fundamentalists. His Slavic Unity movement was created using the resources of the Russian National Unity, which provided him with some funding. Prior to the political success of Igor Markov (see below) and his Rodina party, it was Odinov who organised many of the pro-Russian events in the city, including Russian Marches, which also attracted Eurasianists, the Russian Bloc and various ‘Cossack’ organisations. Attendance was in the dozens. However, in 2013, about 500 people joined the Odessa Russian March, and calls were heard to join Odessa with Russia (Dumskaya 2013). Odesskaya Druzhina played the chief role in the 2 May 2014 events at the city’s Trade Unions House, where they provoked a violent clash with pro-Ukrainian activists in which more than 40 people died. In November 2014, Ukrainian activists managed to take over the Russian March, turning

172  Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine it into a pro-Ukraine event as pro-Russian nationalists found themselves in a minority at the march. From then on, the pro-Russian movement in Odessa was on the defensive, because they lost their leaders, who hid in Crimea (Odinov) or Moscow (Markov and other Rodina activists). The regional political party, Rodina, which was inextricably linked with an important figure in Odessa politics, Igor Markov, was an influential player in Odessa’s Anti-Maidan. Markov gradually achieved the position of the chief pro-Russia political figure in Odessa. He is no ideologist, however; his political engagement is driven by purely pragmatic (i.e. financial) ambitions. Initially, he helped Yanukovych’s Party of Regions to secure its street politics. He was a member of the Ukrainian parliament and sat in the parliamentary Party of Regions. Around 2012–2013 he started to criticise Yanukhovych, supported opposition to the then-president in the Party of Regions, and adopted a Russian orientation. In response, he was charged and put in prison, where he languished until the beginning of Euromaidan. Once released, he immediately departed for Moscow, from whence he began to conduct pro-Russia actions in Odessa in spring 2014. In August 2015, he was arrested in Italy (where he had allegedly conducted negotiations with Italian members of parliament on a warrant issued by Ukraine’s branch of Interpol. In February 2016, an Italian court refused to extradite Markov to Ukraine, and he subsequently returned to Moscow. He is now a member of the Ukraine Salvation Committee (Komitet spaseniya Ukrainy), led in Moscow by the former Ukrainian prime minister, Nikolai Azarov. After May 2014, most of the leading Rodina activists fled to Crimea or Russia. Particularly active were Igor Dimitriev and Aleksandr Vasilev, a former Rodina deputy for Odessa and co-founder of the Odessa Liberation Committee – Anti-Maidan (Komitet osvobozhdeniya Odessy – Antimaidan). When Markov was in prison, the party was led by his deputy, Vadim Savenko, who organised attacks on their political opponents and assaults to eliminate Markov’s business competitors. After May 2014, Savenko fled to the Donbass, where he was involved in a separatist unit (nicknamed ‘Swat’), which was trained in Sevastopol by FSB officers. Another exiled former Rodina deputy, Oleg Muzyka, is active internationally. He is a member of the French non-governmental organization, Novopole, which acts as the Novorossiya embassy in France.15 As noted above, Markov entered politics not out of political conviction but to protect his organised-crime interests. If there is an ideology, his Rodina party assumes a radical pro-Russian nationalist stance and employs violence to achieve its objectives. Interestingly, it has been linked with Odessa Antifa: Rodina spread its protective wings over pro-Russian civic associations and organised attacks on Ukrainian nationalist activists (Svoboda, SiCh, Prosvita), including the murder of Ukrainian nationalist Maksim Chaika in a street brawl in April 2009 (Mischenko 2009). Through his media, Markov conducted a propaganda campaign in which he sought to connect everything Ukrainian with fascism or neo-Nazism. He promoted

Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine 173 his view of Ukrainian statehood in the anti-Semitic newspaper, Nashe delo (Our Affair), which was later banned for being extremist and inciting hatred and violence. In winter 2017–2018, the leading members of Rodina (Markov, Dimitriev and Vasilev were involved in the anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian information war by spreading targeted disinformation and fake news in the Russian media. In November 2017, for instance, Markov claimed on TV that ‘curators’ (i.e. ‘Maidan activists’16) are present in every primary school class in Ukraine, and identify ‘enemies of the people’ among the students’ parents (Dialog 2017). Pro-Russian separatism in the Donbass Russian nationalism has been present in the Donetsk oblast’ since the early 1990s. Modern Donetsk separatism claimed the tradition of the DonetskKrivoy Rog Soviet Republic that existed from February 1918 to February 1919 as an autonomous part of Russia, with Kharkiv serving as the capital. In March 1918, it was administratively handed over to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic (with autonomous status). At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, a marginal movement, led by brothers Vladimir and Dmitrii Kornilov, claimed this legacy and the idea of turning Ukraine into a federation. In 1989, Vladimir Kornilov founded the International Donbass Movement, which agitated against Ukrainian independence. It was probably coordinated by the Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, KGB)—and intended as a counterbalance to the contemporary Ukrainian National Movement—as was Kornilov’s later Institute of the Countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (Institut stran SNG).17 During the 1990s, Vladimir Kornilov led the anti-Ukrainian newspaper Donetskii kryazh,18 which united local pro-Russian activists. Originally funded by Russia, in the late 1990s it was sponsored by Vladimir Boiko, an owner of the Mariupol iron and steel works (it was later taken over by Rinat Akhmetov, one of the wealthiest Ukrainian oligarchs). Distributed by local authorities, under Boiko’s patronage the paper focused on building political opposition, and its radically anti-Semitic and anti-Ukrainian style did indeed rally pro-Russian Komsomol members, Eurasianists and Chernaya stonya-style nationalists around the editor. However, facing competition from the Communist Party of Ukraine, which was the main pro-Russian actor in Ukraine’s politics during the 1990s, this attempt to create a militant pro-Russian organisation failed. Generally, it is true that, against the power monopoly firmly held by the Party of Regions, little happened in Donetsk prior to the Orange Revolution. In the late 1990s, nonetheless, multiple pro-Russian actors appeared there, including pro-Russian militant nationalist associations. Russia’s intelligence agencies abandoned their orientation on local Donbass oligarchs and decided that they needed to control their own combat-ready structures. Thus there appeared in Donetsk a branch of Russian National

174  Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine Unity (the organisation was then still controlled by Aleksandr Barkashov), led by a local activist, Pavel Gubarev, who was able to muster a few thugs (after 2000, he had about 20 people) and conduct a primitive racist propaganda campaign. Although the local SBU knew about them and they carried arms, they were never prosecuted, only briefly detained. The Russian National Unity branch paid for Gubarev’s trips to Russia and for his university history course, but the branch eventually fell apart and Gubarev ceased his organised political activities for some time (interview with Stanislav Fedorchuk 2017). He later joined the radical Ukrainian politician, Natalya Vitrenko, and her Progressive Socialists (PSPU).19 Pro-Russian nationalist separatism and the Donetsk Republic after the Orange Revolution (2005–2017) When the Orange Revolution started, the Party of Regions—Donetsk’s dominant, almost monopolistic player in terms of power—needed street fighters and agents who would falsify elections, etc. For example, they organised the so-called titushky (hired thugs) to scare the Kiev central government with threats of potential radicalisation in the local area. These pro-Russian forces were organised by Boris Kolesnikov, with the help of the website Za Donbass. Among other things, they published claims that Ukrainian culture was second-rate (interview with Stanislav Fedorchuk 2017). Shortly after the Orange Revolution, in summer 2005, the Donetsk Republic (Donetskaya respublika) organisation was founded. This was a conglomerate of supporters of Vitrenko, Dugin, Barkashov and the Communists. Its founders—Andrei Purgin, Aleksandr Tsurkan and Oleg Frolov—declared that a struggle against the Orange Revolution was their aim.20 In 2006, Donetsk Republic members started to travel to Russia, where they attended training sessions and seminars on the ‘Russian world’. In terms of organisation, the Eurasian Youth Union (ESM) provided the most important connection between Russia and Donetsk Republic. In August 2006, Purgin, Frolov, Knyrik and other Ukrainian ESM activists (see the section on Neo-Eurasianist militant groups) attended a summer camp in Russia, organised by the ESM (Fakty 2014), where they were trained in violent street protest. Donetsk Republic received direct funding from the Party of Regions and was systematically used by the Donetsk elites. In terms of its programme, it was an openly separatist player from the outset, enthusing about Donbass independence (Livejournal 2010). Although the local SBU kept tabs on Donetsk Republic activists, the organisation was only banned after 2007, following a wave of civic pressure. The ban was, however, largely symbolic: the Donetsk Republic lost its registration, but neither its leadership nor rank-and-file were investigated by the authorities. Nevertheless, in the late 2000s Donetsk Republic’s activities decreased until they were limited to organising a few conferences, congresses and trips to Russia, and some sporadic public proclamations (e.g. in

Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine 175 2008, the ‘Ukrainisation’ of south-east Ukraine was described ‘as a form of cultural genocide destroying the native Russian population’). In 2009, the Donetsk Republic proclaimed a ‘sovereign Donetsk Federative Republic’, which was to cover the area of six Ukrainian oblasti. In the same year, the Donetsk Republic organised a camp where its members learned firearms and firebomb handling. It unsuccessfully attempted to organise its own paramilitary units under the ambitious name of the Donetsk Russian Army (Live journal 2010; Skorkin 2016). In 2009, the baton of promoting Russian imperialism in the Donetsk oblast’ was picked up by the Russkii mir (Russian World) foundation. The foundation was first a discussion platform for pro-Russian forces, and then it was used to build a local network of Russian agents (interview with Stanislav Fedorchuk 2017). From 2010, Donetsk Republic organised pro-Russian conferences in Donetsk in cooperation with Dugin’s people and with the help of Sergei Baryshnikov, then a reader in history at Donetsk University (where he served as rector for a short period after 2014)21 and later a DNR ideologist and promoter of Dugin’s ideas (Bessonova 2015). In 2011, Donetsk Republic organised a Russian March in Donetsk, and the next year they even started to issue Donetsk Republic passports at the Moscow headquarters of the ESM, which was described as the seat ‘of the Donetsk Republic embassy in the Russian Federation’. The active core of the ‘Donetsk Republic’ at the time comprised 30 people at most (Fakty 2014). Donetsk Republic was, understandably, mobilised by the Euromaidan and by Yanukovich’s flight to Russia. Around 2013, Donetsk Republic cultivated a youth wing, Varjag Crew, led by the Donetsk neo-Nazi Aleksandr Mat’ushin (UAinfo 2015). Mat’ushin started to sympathise with Moscow’s National Bolsheviks around 2003. In 2005, he became acquainted with Andrei Purgin, who, in Mat’ushin’s own words, completely changed his existing worldview (Kont 2015). Together they supposedly founded the movement ‘For Ukraine without Yushchenko’. Later, Mat’ushin left the National Bolsheviks (due to Limonov’s contemporary rapprochement with the liberals) and joined the Donetsk Republic, where he remained active until spring 2014 (UAinfo 2015). In 2010, a branch of Russian Image appeared in Donetsk. In terms of personnel, there was substantial overlap with the Mat’ushin-led radical youth wing of Donetsk Republic. Former Russian Image activists were among those who organised the ‘Battle for the Donbass’ in Moscow and served as partners to Anti-Maidan. Vladimir Basmanov produced a statement about possible cooperation between Russian Image and Ivan Girkin; the latter was supposedly acting as instructed by the FSB and became a friend of Goryachev, who was instructed by Leonid Simunin22 from the Russian presidential office (Goryachev allegedly knew Simunin from 2007, when he led the Lyubertsy branch of the pro-Kremlin movement, Mestnye, which was responsible for attacks on Limonov’s National Bolsheviks). This statement caused much commotion in nationalist circles, and they shared it copiously

176  Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine on their websites. Goryachev’s response was ambiguous: he denied contact with the FSB and confirmed those with Girkin and Simunin. Be that as it may, Goryachev and Girkin have much in common: educated as historians, holding nationalist views, interested in Serbia and the White Guard and, last but not least, supporting the idea that nationalists should act in accord with the Kremlin (Litoi 2015). From 2007, another separatist organisation in the Donbass was known as Donbass Rus’ and was composed of the activists of Russian Bloc, Communists and Vitrenko supporters. It was led by Nataliya Bilotserkovskya, a former deputy for Vitrenko’s Progressive Socialists. However, the organisation soon found itself in conflict with Donetsk Republic, as they competed with each other; both were dependent on funding from Russia or from local Russian agencies (Skorkin 2016). During Euromaidan, Russia’s secret services understood that the Communists, above all others, might serve as their operational partners locally (in many Ukrainian cities, the Communist Party of Ukraine organised the recruitment of ‘insurgents’). Pavel Gubarev immediately became involved in separatist rallies and led the most radical wing of the protesters, and in March 2014 was declared a ‘popular governor’ of the Donetsk oblast’. His finest hour came on 3 March 2014, when Russian agents in the Donetsk police and SBU brought Gubarev to the Donetsk regional administration for a session of the regional council, where he declared that he had thousands of armed people behind him and demanded a referendum on the status of the Donetsk oblast’. From July to September 2014, he repeatedly served as the chief of the mobilisation administration at the DNR ‘ministry of defence’. He has repeatedly been a target of attacks: in October 2014, an attempt was made on his life; in January 2015, a group of Chechens abducted him from his office for reasons unknown and took him to their base in Zuhres, but later released him. In January 2016, he was to be appointed the mayor of the city of Yasinovataya, but Aleksandr Khodakovskii forced him to leave due to a dispute between Khodakovskii and the DNR leader, Aleksandr Zakharchenko (Zarovnaya 2014). Gubarev, Tsyplyakov and other local collaborationist nationalists have evidently served to legitimise the occupation (a task that no-one in the ruling Party of Regions was willing to take on, as it was unclear how the whole affair would turn out). By and large, they assumed that they would get long-term senior jobs and would be immune from prosecution. Gradually, however, they were removed from their posts, one by one. Some were even arrested and ended up in the dungeons of the Ministry of State Security (Ministerstvo gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, MGB) for their criticism of and opposition posture towards the new elites. Purgin, for example, was first the deputy prime minister of the ‘DNR government’ (May–November 2014) and then the speaker of the ‘DNR parliament’. In September 2015, however, Purgin lost a struggle for power with Denis Pushilin, a fund manager of the MMM pyramid scheme. Pushilin assumed Purgin’s place, and Pugin was temporarily detained in the Ministry of State Security jail despite being a

Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine 177 member of the ‘DNR parliament’ (i.e. he was only stripped of his seat in February 2017) (OstroV 2014). Bilotserkovskaya, previously active at separatist rallies and in calling on Putin to invade the Donbass (Myrotvorec undated), attempted in June 2015 to flee to Crimea with her husband, who chaired the Donetsk branch of Russian Bloc, but they were apprehended at the border (Inforesist 2015). More such cases could be cited. Of the ideology-driven pro-Russian nationalists, almost none managed to hold onto senior positions by 2016; more pragmatic individuals with no history of activism replaced them. Ideological activists were replaced by people linked with organised crime, and the occupation administration is led by people who exhibit some leadership qualities, such as Zakharchenko, but more importantly are under strict Russian control (interview with Stanislav Fedorchuk 2017).

Conclusion After 2012, when Putin’s regime definitively embraced an authoritarian style of governance, one that was ideologically reliant on a national-conservative doctrine of ‘protecting traditional values’, and established a closer relationship with the Orthodox Church, pro-Putin militant nationalism gained strength as well. Putin increasingly emphasised dukhovnye skrepy (spiritual ties), which were intended to give society a kind of ideological crutch while concealing his pragmatic kleptocracy. Rising to this challenge in Russia were several small nationalist groups, which started to pose as commandos protecting ‘traditional values’ and Orthodoxy. This sometimes involved violence in such forms as attacks on ideological opponents or events (e.g. exhibitions allegedly insulting the religious feelings of believers). These trends grew stronger after 2014, in connection with the annexation of Crimea and the war in the Donbass, when the West (i.e. United States of America, European Union, NATO) was described as Russia’s main enemy, alongside ‘seditious’ Western values and the domestic ‘fifth column’ (e.g. liberals, non-governmental organizations, gays, etc.). This had the consequence that the hitherto dominant militant ethnic nationalism ceased to be interesting for many of Russia’s inhabitants. In this climate, a number of militant nationalist organisations re-oriented themselves as unreservedly loyal to the Kremlin, with the aim of obtaining its backing (both media and financial). Ukraine has always had, and continues to have, a special, irreplaceable position in the thinking of some currents within Russian nationalism. Ukraine has been an integral component in some variants of the ‘Russian world’ concept, whose defenders have viewed Ukraine’s independence in the early 1990s as a fatal event. Even the ethnically (as opposed to imperially) oriented post-Soviet Russian nationalism has always faced a dilemma: should Ukrainians be included in the Russian family? They also faced the question of what vision to offer to ethnic Russians living in Ukraine.

178  Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine However, the situation has changed since the 2014 the annexation of Crimea and the unleashing of conflict in eastern Ukraine. The ideas of Russian imperial nationalism and Orthodox fundamentalism, accompanied sometimes by Stalinist nostalgia, formed the official ideology of the DNR and LNR; declarations of the ROC’s exclusive role, and anti-Ukraine and anti-West attacks, serve an important role in the official documents, public utterances and leading media of these self-proclaimed republics. Anti-Semitism and homophobia play a lesser, yet still important, role in the DNR and LNR public rhetoric (Likhachev 2016). The positions of Russian anti-Ukrainian nationalist movements and their leaders in these processes are nevertheless wholly dependent on the Kremlin and its geopolitical and purely practical interests in the whole of Ukraine (not just in the east). In some cases, these interests may overlap with the preferences of Russian nationalists, and there can be synergies of ideology, material interests, politics, personnel and strategy. If, however, such situations should cease, these Russian nationalists—even if they are pro-Putin— cannot be sure that they will not be consciously marginalised, or even once again eliminated, by the Russian state.

Notes 1. When used in quotes, the term is employed here in the special Russian sense of persons appointed by the Russian government to oversee the pursuit of Russian interests but are not public figures. 2. In February 2012, several members of the punk rock band Pussy Riot entered the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow and attempted to perform an anti-Putin song. They were immediately apprehended and later sentenced to two years in prison. Although the West’s response was not entirely unambiguous, the event became a symbol of Putin’s repressive authoritarian regime. 3. They maintain contacts with this party through Igor Brumel, Just Russia deputy for the Zamoskvorechye constituency, who hails from Luhansk in Ukraine and is also a SERB member. 4. One of them is Oleg Chursin, a police officer teaching at the Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Beyond his engagement in SERB, Chursin is a sympathiser of Barkashov’s Russian National Unity (The Insider 2016). 5. Fedorov even claimed that the United States of America increases public utility tariffs in Russia, controls Russian media, forces the State Duma to adopt laws disadvantageous for Russia and sends schoolchildren to protest in the streets. He has called protesting students ‘Satanists’ and corrupt officials ‘U.S. agents’. 6. Katasonova (born 1993) has backed Russia’s war in the Donbass. In March 2017, she flew to Paris to visit Marine Le Pen’s campaign staff and voiced her support for the politician. 7. Zaldostanov has personal links with the Kremlin. Born to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother (allegedly of Georgian extraction) in Kirovohrad (today Kropivnits’kii), as a young boy he moved with his family to Sevastopol and from there to Moscow. He is a board member of the army propaganda television station, Zvezda, and owns a bikers’ centre and nightclub, Sexton (which also sells clothing and symbols), a bar restaurant, a disco, lounge and hotel (Vasilyeva 2015).

Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine 179 8. Acting as part of the Crimea militia, they guarded the building housing the Sevastopol administration and occupied the headquarters of Ukraine’s navy and a gas company. Later, they received about 300 hectares of land in Sevastopol. In 2017, the local Crimean government, headed by Sergei Aksenov, who has a history of organised crime involvement, attempted to seize about half of this land from them. Night Wolves are also active in the occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasti (some of them serve in units; they organise ‘cultural events’, deliver humanitarian aid, etc.). 9. The extravagant ‘Orthodox businessman’, Vasilii Boiko-Velikii, heads the similarly named St Basil the Great Foundation. In February 2012, Boiko-Velikii planned to found the Popular Movement Holy Rus’ party and at the same time organised an Orthodox demonstration ‘For Holy Rus’’ in support of Vladimir Putin. (However, another reason for the demonstration was that Boiko’s agribusiness Russkoe moloko had a property dispute with a competing firm; SOVA 2012b). 10. Also involved in the occupation of Slavyansk with Girkin was the field commander of one of his units, Igor Ivanov, who has been politically involved in various extremist organisations—including the Russian National Guard and the Russian Military Union—since the late 1980s. In July 2014, Ivanov was appointed chief of the political administration in the DNR militia headquarters in Donetsk, but he was later removed, allegedly over his extremist rhetoric (Depo. Donbass 2015). 11. Something they could not claim about Crimea. Although Putin said so initially, later he probably decided that such claims would be untenable in the long term. 12. In early April 2014, Valerii Bolotov, a former bodyguard who controlled several illegal, hand-dug coal mines (kopanki), organised an attack on the building of SBU administration in Luhansk, thus starting the active phase of the war in Luhansk oblast. Separatists were recruited and given weapons in coordination with Russian intelligence agencies, thus giving rise to Aleksei Mozgovoi’s separatist unit Prizrak (Ghost), which acted as a magnet for leftand right-wing extremists from the whole of Europe, until Mozgovoi’s death in March 2015; he was most likely eliminated by the LNR leader, Igor Plotnitskii. Plotnitskii pushed Bolotov out of the position of LNR head in 2014. Bolotov fled to Moscow and in December 2016 accused Plotnitskii of betraying him; in January 2017 he suddenly died in Moscow. He was most likely poisoned. 13. For example, one activist proclaimed at an Anti-Maidan: ‘[…] there was a nationalist coup d’état in the state, but […] let us see who came to power. Tymoshenko-Kapitelman, Tyahnybok-Frontman, Yatsenyuk-Jew. This is a Zionist putsch!’ (Shekhovtsov 2014a). (The second parts of the hyphenated names supposedly indicate their ‘true’ Jewish names. Yatsenyuk was simply a Jew, apparently.) 14. One of the leaders of the Kharkiv Anti-Maidan in spring 2014. He was arrested in April 2014, spent a month in prison, then was released on bail and fled. He has been living in Donetsk since September 2014 and dedicates himself to anti-Ukrainian propaganda. A supporter of Russian fascism, he is alleged to have been involved in the torture of Ukrainian soldiers and in forcing them to give interviews to Russian television stations. He calls himself the co-chair of Novorossiya People’s Front. In October 2015, he was appointed a DNR ‘Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ official (Depo. Donbass 2015). 15. In summer 2014, Muzyka went on a tour of Europe with a propaganda photographic exhibition, portraying the events of 2 May 2014 from the official Russian perspective. In Prague, the exhibition was shown thanks to help

180  Pro-Putin nationalists in Russia & Ukraine









provided by Milan Špás, director of the publishing house Futura, which publishes the hard-line communist paper Haló noviny. In Germany, Muzyka established contact with some figures of the party Die Linke. 16. Markov is suggesting that the ‘curators’ are Ukrainian; cf. Note 1 above. Ukraine has no ‘curators’, of course; he is waging a campaign of disinformation. 17. When war started in 2014, Kornilov fled, most likely to the Netherlands. The Institute of the Countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States was then led by Denis Denisov, also a graduate of the Faculty of History, Donetsk University (Zarovnaya 2014). 18. Intended to arouse local patriotic feelings, the name referred to highlands in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasti, between Seversky Donets River and the Sea of Azov. 19. These were anti-Western nationalist Stalinists, used by the then-president of Ukraine, Kuchma, to lure voters away from the Communist Party of Ukraine. 20. In the past, these people led several entirely marginal organisations, including Rukh pylnykh (headed by Tsurkan, the name was derived from a supposed Old Russian ‘Movement of the Vigilants’), the Union of Born Revolutions (Andrei Purgin), For Ukraine without Yushchenko (Aleksandr Khryakov, now member of the DNR ‘parliament’), Us (Roman Lyagin, who during the ‘Russian Spring’ led the DNR ‘central electoral commission’ for the May 2014 referendum; later a DNR ‘minister’, briefly detained after a conflict with the leadership, then fled to Russia) and the Young Patriots Movement (Vladimir Makovich, ‘speaker’ of the DNR ‘parliament’ in spring and summer 2014, died in March 2017). 21. The Faculty of History (formerly the Department of the Theory of Scientific Communism) is generally recognized as a breeding ground for DNR ideologists. Former students include Pavel Gubarov and DNR ‘ministers’ Elena Bondarenko and Nikolai Levchenko. Also active was the university’s deputy rector, Tatyana Marmazova, a Donetsk deputy for the Party of Regions (Zarovnaya 2014). Following a dispute with the Zakharchenko people, she fled to Russia and in the DNR was declared a Ukrainian spy. 22. Until 2014, Simunin regularly appeared on Aleksandr Borodai’s programme Den-TV; Borodai is an old acquaintance. In 2014, Borodai appeared as ‘minister’ in Borodai’s DNR ‘government’.

8

Contemporary anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism

There is only a partial overlap between the division of Russian nationalism into pro-Putin and anti-Putin camps as employed in the preceding chapters and the classic and often used differentiation of this nationalism into ethnic and imperial (cultural) types. For example, many Orthodox-monarchist organisations fall into the ethnic-nationalist camp, but, at the same time, differ in important respects from the opposition ethnic nationalists such as Demushkin or Belov. In other words, the internal divisions in various nationalist groups cannot be subsumed under the distinction of their opposition against, or support for, the contemporary Russian authoritarian regime. The divisions that are particularly salient today are concerned with the militant nationalists’ position towards the war in the Donbass and the question of their cooperation with the liberal opposition: almost all ethnic-nationalist opposition groups have assumed a pro-Ukrainian posture and are able to collaborate with the liberal anti-Putin opposition. The Orthodox-monarchists, by contrast, support Russia’s imperial ambitions in Ukraine and believe the liberal opposition to be an evil greater than Vladimir Putin’s regime. They do, however, mistrust this regime because they see it as a continuation of the 1990s ‘Yeltsin system’, characterised, in their view, by too much capitalism and too many oligarchs, excessive accommodation of the United States of America, a nihilism of values and too little Orthodox religion.

The ‘pro-Ukrainian’ camp of the opposition, cooperating with the liberal opposition This camp consists almost entirely of ethnic nationalists who tend not to emphasise monarchy or Orthodoxy. Many cooperate with the liberal opposition and, at the same time, seek to exert their authority among and secure the support of radical autonomous nationalist-socialists (NS avtonomy). It is precisely their cooperation with the liberal opposition and their pro-Ukrainian postures that distinguish them from the Orthodoxmonarchist opposition groups, which are less militant and do not earn the sympathies of the young NS avtonomy, who are the major militants

182  Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism within Russian nationalism. This segment of the nationalist camp is not anti-Western; they see Russia and Russians as part of the European peoples and often demonstrate their pro-European feelings (albeit, in a form of a ‘Europe of nations’, in contrast to the ‘neo-Marxist’ European Union), and they believe these positions to be entirely compatible with their own militant rhetoric with which they address domestic political issues. The ‘Russians’ movement, its components and its successor organisations after 2011 Starting in 2011, the ‘Russians’ movement, a coalition of militant nationalist organisations led by the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (Dvizhenie protiv nelegal’noi immigratsii, DPNI) and Slavic Power (Slavyanskaya sila), was the main opposition radical (ethno-)nationalist actor. The fact that Russia’s law enforcement agencies took active measures against these organisations and their leaders testifies to the prominent position of the movement. In 2011, the DPNI was pronounced extremist, and Slavic Power was likewise in 2014 (it had been banned in 2010 under its old name of Slavic Union or Slavyanskii soyuz, but some of the organisation’s cells in north-west Russia had maintained their independence as Slavic Power-North-West). In 2015, then, the coalition ‘Russians’ was itself proscribed. The only group to escape repression was the National-Democratic Party, which, however, sided with Novorossiya. Aleksandr Belov (real name Potkin) and Dmitrii Demushkin, the two leading figures of the ‘Russians’ movement, have not concealed their opposition to the increasingly authoritarian Putin regime, demonstrating their positions during Russian Marches in particular. In 2011–2012, Belov was active in the anti-regime demonstrations in Bolotnaya Square. His rhetoric was similar to that of the famous opposition politician Aleksei Navalnyi: ‘May the whole country rise against the party of fraudsters and thieves; we’ll seize the parliament and the Kremlin!’ (YouTube 2012). In November 2011, Belov announced a campaign to impeach Putin, and he was involved in the Opposition Coordination Council. He was arrested in October 2014 and jailed in 2016 for seven and a half years for allegedly founding an extremist organisation whose aim was to overthrow Nazarbaev’s regime in Kazakhstan, supporting nationalist hatred, inciting extremism, etc. Some liberal opposition figures, including Boris Nemtsov and Garri Kasparov, have defended him. At the time of the ban on the ‘Russians’ coalition, in 2015, the only leader to remain (briefly) at liberty and in Russia was Demushkin, who at Russian Marches all but called for an armed uprising against the regime and aimed contemptuous comments at those organisations that had accepted a compromise with the regime: If we are to consider ‘Russian Spring’, ‘Crimea Is Ours’ or the antiMaidan groups as a Russian movement […] then these have had a

Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism 183 fictitious growth. With loud cries for a ‘Russian world’, the Kremlin has broken up all nationalist movements. […] All the great associations are broken up, their leaders are subjected to repression, and all political nationalist organisations are banned. In the field of political nationalism, we see scorched earth, where the last of the wounded are being finished off. Those who actively supported the Kremlin’s policy, turned their coats, supported ‘Russian Spring’, ‘Novorossiya’, etc., have gained nothing. They were not destroyed, but neither have they obtained any advantage; they did not become friends of the Kremlin […] and they received nothing except promises. Their only reward is that none of them is languishing in prison and they did not have to flee Russia (Volchek 2016b). Those leaders of the other organisations that at some point were part of this coalition and who did not hide their opposition opinions were jailed or exiled. The leader of the Russkii Front Osvobozhdeniya Pamyat’ (RFO Pamyat’), Georgii Borovikov, was given a long prison sentence for his purely criminal activities; Dimitrii Bobrov of the neo-Nazi National-Socialist Initiative, the most radical part of the coalition, received in autumn 2017 a two-year sentence for sharing his racist writings on social media. The leader of Russian All-National Union (Russkii obshchenatsional’nyi soyuz, RONS), Igor Artemov, who rejected the ‘Putin tsarist autocracy’, received political asylum in the United States of America sometime after 2013. In an interview for Radio Free Europe, Artemov said: ‘Putin seeks administratively to bring back the Soviet Union. [He wants to] revive the army, the police, the bureaucracy and people’s dependence on the state. The Soviet Union is not being restored in other respects: there is no economic revival and no ideology exerting a strong public influence, even if he now seeks to create something akin to an ideology of state patriotism. This means a patriotism not based on the nation, history and culture, but on the state’ (Volchek 2016e). Successors to the ‘Russians’ coalition When the ‘Russians’ movement was banned and some of its leaders arrested, Aleksandr Belov’s brother, Vladimir Basmanov, who had been in exile since 2010, attempted to take over some of its structures, notably those linked with the DPNI. In his critique of the Putin regime’s authoritarian character and its war effort in the Donbass, Basmanov was the radical nationalist militant leader who perhaps came closest to the rhetoric employed by the liberal opposition. In 2015, Basmanov founded the Nation and Freedom Committee and addressed a plea to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, asking it to investigate Putin’s activities (Volchek 2016c). (Basmanov also founded the exile organisation Forces of the Good, made up of nationalists who were in hiding abroad from the Putin regime). In an interview, Basmanov stated that he had always opposed Putin: ‘…in 2000, I quarrelled

184  Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism with my similarly minded friends. I told them that Putin’s regime arose to preserve the power of the thieves, because Yeltsin became too weak. […] [I told them] not to believe the talk about the “greatness” of Russia, about Chechnya, etc., that this is a deception of TV viewers, that the nature of the people in power remains the same’ (Volchek 2016a). Starting in late 2016, there was close cooperation between New Opposition (Novaya oppositsiya) and the Party of Nationalists (Partiya natsionalistov). There is overlap in terms of personnel between the leadership of the two, but only the latter could be described as a nationalist organisation with militant tendencies, although its militancy is dampened by police repression. Until the leadership split in mid-2017, Yurii Gorskii was one of the leading figures. Previously, he co-organised Russian Marches in 2005 and 2007, and in 2005–2006 he was involved in the foundation of the pro-Kremlin Eurasian Youth Union (Evraziiskii soyuz molodezhi). In mid-2017, he was forced to flee to Lithuania, where he applied for political asylum. As of February 2018, the Party of Nationalists is the main (albeit significantly weakened) force of the opposition ethnic nationalist militant camp, and one that does not rule out cooperation with the liberal opposition. For some autonomous nationalists, associated with the Intransigent League and similar outfits, opposition to the regime is likewise the main theme. As already noted, the second and weaker segment of this spectrum, led by Basmanov (Nation and Freedom Committee, Forces of the Good) and Komarnitskii (previously of RFO Pamyat’, now of the Black Bloc), is similarly opposition-minded. Nor is there any reason to doubt the opposition stance of the exile association Russian Centre (this is essentially the leadership of Wotan Jugend), which is based in Kiev and maintains links with Ukraine’s nationalist battalions such as Azov and the Azov political wing, the National Corps (Natsionalnyi korpus). First, with the connivance of the Ukrainian Minister of the Interior Avakov, the Civic Corpus of Azov was established, which later mutated into the National Corps party; in January 2018 the party spawned the vigilante units of National Cohorts (Natsionalni druzhyny). These groups openly declared that their aim was to violently overthrow Putin’s ‘Russophobic’ regime and, as such, engaged in the most radical opposition against Putin, be it within the Russian or the Ukrainian nationalist movements (the latter comprising Azov/National Corps, Pravii sektor and others). Militant violent organisations The more violent the various associations or loose groups were, the clearer it was that the Russian security forces would sooner or later end their activities, because their ‘struggle against the system’ and disruptions of the state’s monopoly on violence pitted them against the Putin regime. None of the organisations described in this section are active today, and most of their leaders are serving long sentences in Russia’s prisons.

Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism 185 When the National-Socialist Society (Natsional-sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo, NSO) banished its leader, Dmitrii Rumyantsev, in 2008 because he rejected violent methods of struggle, the radical Maksim Bazylev took the helm of what remained of the society and publicly advocated murder and political terror. Bazylev eventually died in a cell in Petrovka Street, the Moscow Criminal Police headquarters, and members of the group NSO-Sever—only loosely linked with the original NSO—ended up in prison, most of them serving life sentences for the dozens of murders that they had committed. At about the same time, Russian Image (Russkii obraz) emerged, which originally sought to act legally and, through the figure of Goryachev (see Chapter 3), attempted to find a compromise with the powers that be and secure a source of funding. However, with the violence committed by BORN—a successor to Russian Image—which included murders, this was no longer an option, and the main players were jailed for life. In 2014, Russian security forces also broke up vigilante organisations such as Restrukt!, Ataka and Northern Frontier (Rubezh severa), which had carried out violent assaults on drug dealers, homosexuals and ‘paedophiles’. Similarly, starting in 2014 the police began to suppress attempts by militant organisations in Moscow, St Petersburg and elsewhere to conduct attacks on immigrants. There are virtually no such activities now, and all ethnic-nationalist societies presently employing militant rhetoric focus on opposition activities vis-à-vis the contemporary Russian regime.

The anti-Ukrainian and anti-liberal opposition militant nationalists: Orthodox-monarchist organisations These organisations appear opposed to the regime, but they undertake no militant activity against it. Rather, their rhetorical and real militancy is aimed against the common enemies of the regime, i.e. the liberal forces. In any case, these organisations are unable to rally a significant number of militants to destabilise the situation in the country. They present a lesser threat to state power than the opposition, anti-immigration ethnic nationalists, and so their leaders (Andrei Savel’ev, Leonid Simonovich and others) are at liberty. Beyond that, the Russian security forces are wary of taking measures against Orthodox radicals who maintain ties with the Church, and whose events are held under banners that are to some extent similar to the official ideological discourse. Orthodox-monarchist ideas, combined with imperial ambitions typically limited by the boundaries of the former Soviet Union, form the dominant part of their ideology. The beginnings of the Orthodox-monarchist branch of Russian nationalism date to the 1980s, when the organisation Pamyat’ was founded. It emerged from the Moscow branch of the Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments (Obshchestvo okhrany pamyatnikov i kultury), which accused ‘agents of Zionism and Freemasonry’ of destroying these monuments. Anti-Semitism, rather than Orthodox Christianity,

186  Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism formed the main ideology of Pamyat’. Over time, several dozen organisations have split off from Pamyat’, of which many emphasised Orthodoxy (as well as anti-Semitism and monarchism, sometimes combined with Stalinism). In 1990, Aleksandr Barkashov left Pamyat’ and founded the Russian National Unity (Russkoe natsional’noe edinstvo). Its members considered themselves Orthodox believers, but religion was not a major part of the Russian National Unity ideology. Barkashov nevertheless took monastic vows in the non-canonical True Orthodox Church (Istinno-pravoslavnaya tserkov), led by Metropolitan Rafail. During the 1990s, there were several nationalist Orthodox organisations, ranging from the non-violent to the relatively militant. Ideologically, they were united by their opposition to ecumenism, their monarchism, their rejection of democracy, and a tendency to embrace myths and conspiracy theories (particularly popular were ‘Jewish–Freemason’ conspiracies that had allegedly destroyed the Orthodox monarchy, the ‘truthful state’). These organisations exerted no political influence at the time, and in the late 1990s focused on such issues as opposing the introduction of barcodes and tax identification numbers (abbreviated in Russian as INN), as they believed these to be the seals of the Antichrist. Although they managed to win over the fundamentalist wing of the Russian Orthodox Church to their side, the Church as a whole opposed such ideas. One of the biggest victories of the Orthodox nationalists was the canonisation of the Tsar’s family in 2000, having spent practically the whole of the 1990s lobbying for the declaration of Tsar Nicholas II and his family as holy ‘strastoterptsy’.1 Between 2000 and 2012, this ideological current was largely stagnant and was represented by such political organisations as the Union of Russian People, the Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers, Great Russia and other smaller groups that sometimes came together in broader coalition movements. Public figures of this branch of Orthodoxy included Andrei Savel’ev, Egor Kholmogorov, Konstantin Dushenov (editor of the newspaper Rus pravoslavnaya), Yurii Ekishev, Boris Mironov and his wife, Tat’yana, and the journalist Mikhail Nazarov. Kholmogorov, who in the early 1990s defended liberal democracy and Boris Yeltsin, works today for Konstantin Malofeev’s fundamentalist Orthodox television channel Tsargrad and is thought to have coined the term ‘Russian Spring’. With the nationalist activist Konstantin Krylov, they run the website Doctrina.ru, where he defends the doctrine of ‘Atomic Orthodoxy’, with reference to Putin’s words at a 2007 press conference, where the latter opined that Orthodox religion and the nuclear shield are the two main elements of the Russian Federation’s internal and external security. Konstantin Dushenov is an interesting figure, active in a number of marginal organisations and projects (e.g. in 1997 he published the newspaper Rus pravoslavnaya), who considers Talmudic Judaism the chief enemy of Orthodoxy and the Russian nation. In 2005, he was prosecuted for writing the so-called Letter of 500 Representatives of Russian Society, which

Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism 187 requested the prosecutor-general to ban all Jewish religious societies as extremist. In 2010, he was sentenced to three years in prison for making the film Russia With a Knife in Her Back – Jewish Fascism and the Genocide of the Russian Nation and other propaganda. The chief point of Orthodox nationalism is its negative attitude to the contemporary world, which allegedly has rejected God and is ruled by the Antichrist. The special mission of the Russian nation, then, is to preserve the Orthodox enclave in a decadent world. Integral to this doctrine is monarchism, which often takes the form of ‘tsarebozhnichestvo’ (worship of the tsar over and above the Church canons). Traditionally, these organisations and activities have been characterised by intense anti-Semitism (e.g. ‘the Jews ritually murdered the tsar’). They attack the contemporary regime from a radical position, describing it as too liberal. As far as Ukraine is concerned, the Orthodox-monarchist circles claim that Putin is betraying the Russian nation in the Donbass and that he ought to act more forcefully. Orthodox-monarchist organisations often combine their struggle for Orthodoxy with opposition to immigration or Caucasians. The more they express such xenophobic arguments, however, the more they are drawn to the side of the critics of the regime. The nationalists on this part of the spectrum, e.g. Yuri Ekishev, are often members of Russian Orthodox Church splinter groups (Mitrofanova 2016: 116–117). In Russian militant nationalism, religious motives have tended to be secondary to racial or political ones. Neo-Nazis are often neo-pagans rather than Orthodox believers, and most of them are uninterested in religion, according to Aleksandr Verkhovskii. Since the beginnings of the Putin era, the only group that was an exception to this was Nikita Korolev’s terrorist band, which explicitly avowed Orthodoxy; but even for them, the racial or nationalist motivation prevailed, and they cannot be described as ‘Orthodox terrorists’. In any case, the present boom in militant Orthodox groups cannot be compared with the wave of violence committed by racist groups in the late 2000s. The contemporary revival of Orthodox fundamentalism is obviously connected with the shifts that have occurred in state propaganda topics, away from opposing immigrants and towards a hatred of the West. The government’s trifling with the engagement of religion in politics is a response to modernisation—i.e. an attempt to return society to a ‘golden era’—and, as such, propaganda and the real application of religious ideas have their limits (Melnikov 2017). The coalition Russian National Front and its organisations In December 2014, there emerged in Moscow a coalition of Orthodoxmonarchist and nationalist-Stalinist organisations, known as the Russian National Front (Russkii natsionalnyi front, RNF) and comprising Great Russia (Velikaya Rossiya, VR), Sergei Kucherov’s Assembly of the Russian People (Sobor russkogo naroda), Yurii Ekishev’s People’s Militia of Russia

188  Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism (Narodnoe opolchenie Rossii, NOR), Vladimir Filin’s Movement For Nationalisation and Deprivatisation of the Country’s Strategic Resources, Kiril Barabash’s group ‘For Responsible Government’ (ZOV), Leonid Simonovich-Nikshich’s Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers (Soyuz Pravoslavnykh Khorugvenostsev), Chernaya sotnya, Aleksandr IvanovSukharevskii’s People’s National Party (Narodnaya natsional’naya partiya) and the Russian Imperial Movement (Rossiiskoe imperialnoe dvizhenie, RID). The main force in this coalition is Andrei Savel’ev’s Great Russia. All of these organisations support Novorossiya and object to the Kremlin’s foreign policy, which they find insufficiently hard and imperial. The Orthodoxmonarchist organisations, which clearly play first fiddle in the coalition, include Great Russia, the Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers, the Russian Imperial Movement and the People’s Militia of Russia (previously, under Kvachkov’s leadership, it tended towards Stalinism). By contrast, ZOV, the Movement for Nationalisation and Deprivatisation of the Country’s Strategic Resources and the Assembly of the Russian People all assume positions of left-wing imperial nationalism. Great Russia This main component of the Russian National Front emerged in May 2007 from the political structures led by Dmitrii Rogozin and out of Belov’s DPNI. They tried to register as a political party but were declined. The founding congress was attended by Rogozin, Belov, Saval’ev, Vitalii Averyanov, the co-author of the ‘Russian doctrine’ (he later joined the Izborsk Club, Izborskii klub), and Vyacheslav Maltsev, then deputy speaker of the Saratovskaya oblast’ Duma and later an opposition activist and founder of Artpodgotovka. As VR was emerging, activists of Aleksandr Shtilmark’s Chernaya sotnya joined and the party started to accentuate the religious component: for instance, they chose the labarum (military standard) of Emperor Constantine the Great as their symbol (Maltsev 2017). Since its inception, VR has been led by Andrei Savel’ev, who in 1997 was one of organisers of the Union of Orthodox Citizens (Soyuz pravoslavnykh grazhdan) and in 2003 was elected to the State Duma on the ticket of Rogozin’s party Rodina and became the deputy chair of the Committee on Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs and Relations with Compatriots. When there was a rupture in Rodina in 2004, he sided with Rogozin. In 2003, Belov became his parliamentary assistant, but Savel’ev later accused him of opportunism (Petkova 2017). Savel’ev wrote several books, such as The Image of the Enemy: Racial Science and Political Anthropology (Obraz vraga: Rasologiya i politicheskaya antropoologiya) and became VR’s chief ideologue, defending the so-called ‘Russian doctrine’, an attempt to bring together ethnic-nationalist and conservative-Orthodox notions. Beyond involvement in street politics (e.g. attendance at Russian Marches and other events), VR focuses on providing Russian nationalism’s

Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism 189 ideological foundations with a theoretical basis, publishing books and popular articles and organising conferences and round tables. In December 2011, VR promoted Leonid Ivashov as a presidential candidate, but his registration was prevented, and VR later distanced itself from Ivashov and his subsequent pro-regime activities (Nordfront 2016). Compared to Rogozin’s political projects, Savel’ev’s have been more xenophobic and more oppositional. His xenophobia most often targets people from the Caucasus (irrespective of their citizenship) and Central Asia, as well as Jewish people, and there is a strong anti-immigrant rhetoric overall.2 Savel’ev insists that the state be secular, yet demands its leadership to espouse Orthodox religion. He argues that Russia has an imperial identity, which should be renewed within the borders of the former Soviet Union. His view of the United States of America is hostile; he is somewhat more moderate towards Europe, but he nevertheless thinks that Russia should reorient herself from the West to the East as a priority (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2009: 16–20). In an interview for the Swedish magazine Nordfront, Savel’ev argued that Russia’s chief issue is its leadership, which is hostile to the country: ‘Putin has cultivated more than 100 billionaires, allowing them to legalise money stolen from the nation and the state. Our task is to destroy this oligarchy—that is why we are constantly talking about nationalising the power and the property of the oligarchs. I consider the main enemy of Russian people to be Vladimir Putin and his circle, including the sham political parties, sustained by the oligarchs and paid from the national budget, which this oligarchy has usurped. Putin is […] the architect of an immigration policy that has filled Russia with immigrants who do not desire to adapt and assimilate in our country’ (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2009: 16–20). Savel’ev has said that he was often dismayed when he had to explain to the European far right that ‘…Putin is certainly not an opponent of American expansion, but rather its humble servant. He is not the person to renew Russia’s greatness, but rather someone who conducts genocide of the Russian majority and destroys state and legal institutions. Unfortunately, the anti-American ‘right-wing’ forces in Europe seek to idolise Putin, and by doing so support the worst enemy of the Russian people’ (Nordfront 2016).3 Savel’ev is a monarchist and, in fact, in Madrid in 2005 he swore allegiance to the head of the Russian Imperial House, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2009: 16–20). He sees a tsarist autocracy as the ideal arrangement of politics and society, and patriotism as a method of countering anarchism and destruction (Savel’ev 2017); hence he is a gosudarstvennik (see Chapter 7 for an explanation of this term). According to Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova, he is known for speaking in defence of Italian fascism, which he sees as ‘a continuation of

190  Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism the European tradition and a dynamic answer to the challenges of the time, by having implemented a conservative paradigm of statehood’. Under his leadership, Great Russia does not promote violence, but its leaders, including Savel’ev, do have a positive relationship with violence. For instance, Savel’ev approved of the pogroms in Kondopoga as a symbol of resistance to ethnic ‘banditry’4 and described Kondopoga as a ‘Hero City’ (a classic Soviet-era designation for cities that suffered most during World War II, called the Great Patriotic War by Russians), saying that the nation was ‘revived’ in the town (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2009: 16–20). Savel’ev admires Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who he claims would make a great president of the Russian Federation—‘…unlike Putin, who has handed over our sovereignty to the world oligarchy’ (Nordfront 2016). He has nearly 9,000 followers on the Russian social network VKontakte, which makes VR the most popular actor of the opposition Orthodox-monarchist camp in Russia. Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers The Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers (Soyuz Pravoslavnykh Khorugvenostsev, SPKh) is a society of Orthodox fundamentalists, and this group became particularly famous for their participation at Russian Marches, carrying their banners in front of the procession. The organisation was founded in 1992 by Leonid Simonovich (Nikshich), who continues to serve as its leader. At 70 years old, Simonovich also leads another group that seceded from the Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods. The foundation of the Union was allegedly blessed by John (Snychev), Russian Orthodox Church Metropolitan of St Petersburg and Ladoga. The core of SPKh was constituted a few years later, and the foundation of the organisation was officially announced at a monarchist congress in 1995 (Orden drakona 2010). Like many other activists, Simonovich enjoyed close links with Nikolai Kuryanovich, with whom he was involved in the leadership of the St Sergius Union of Russian People (Sviato-Sergievskii soyuz russkogo naroda), but Simonovich did not command much authority in these circles. Other SPKh leaders are Igor Miroshnichenko (who has led the project ‘Russian Symbol’ since 2003 and also manufactures Orthodox, monarchist and nationalist merchandise) and Valerii Levchenko. The aims of this society include the ‘consolidation and propagation of Orthodoxy’, support for an autocratic monarchy (samoderzhavie) and ‘imperial Russian patriotism throughout the territory of the Russian empire’. They wish to rehabilitate the tsars, especially Ivan the Terrible (they defend the ‘tsarebozhnichestvo’), and, in their own words, fight against the degradation of the Russian nations, homosexuals, ‘the Satanic teachings flowing from the West’ and attempts to rehabilitate Lenin’s ‘God-destroying’ teachings. Simonovich suspects Lenin of having conducted Satanism, including human sacrifices, and wants his body removed from its mausoleum.

Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism 191 SPKh has several dozen members, and its chief activity is the organising of cross-bearing processions on dates connected with the tsar’s family history. In October 2016, for instance, they took part in the unveiling ceremony for an Ivan the Terrible memorial in Orlov, where Ivan had ordered a fortress to be built to defend what was then the southern frontier. Since 2017, SPKh has opposed the film Matilda, burning its promotional posters (previously they burned posters for Harry Potter films and Madonna). According to Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova, these are relatively radical ethnic nationalists. They are strongly anti-Semitic, but they show less xenophobia than others towards people from the Caucasus and Central Asia, even though they do oppose ‘foreign’ migrants. Their rhetoric is substantially anti-Communist; they argue in favour of emotional links between Russia and Serbia (Simonovich-Nikshich considers himself half-Serbian) and idealise important figures of militant Russian nationalism (e.g. Nikita Korolev, one of the few militant nationalists to avow Orthodoxy). They tend not to incite violent racist acts, though there have been exceptions to this: in 2006, SPKh members were involved in the dispersal of a gay pride march in Moscow, but RONS members played the main role there (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2009). At the 2008 Russian March, Simonovich advocated pogroms against Caucasians and Central Asians. As far as the conflict in the Donbass is concerned, they are unreserved supporters of Novorossiya and admirers of Igor Girkin, who, they say, committed the greatest acts of heroism in recent times. They have even written a ‘poem’—The Tale of Igor’s Campaign—to celebrate him (YouTube 2014a). Given its exalted fundamentalism, SPKh does not command much authority among the nationalists and tends to be viewed as a mascot of the Orthodox nationalists thanks to its visual features: banners in front of processions, black clothing with Orthodox styling, hats and T-shirts bearing the legend ‘Orthodoxy or Death’. On the VKontakte social network, SPKh has only about 300 largely inactive fans (e.g. there have been three posts since 2010). SPKh cultivates links with Vladimir Osipov’s group Christian Revival (Khristiyanskoe vozrozhdenie) and other marginal groups.5 They have no political ambitions and hence pose no perceived danger to state authorities. They tend not to publicly discuss their position towards the Putin regime. Their relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church is as follows: they enjoy the support of the Church’s fundamentalist wing, but they consider the Church’s leaders as ‘Judeophile cosmopolitan liberals’ (Soyuz Pravoslavnykh Khorugvenostsev 2017). The Russian Imperial Movement Founded in 2002 in St Petersburg by Stanislav Vorobev, RID also has a branch in Moscow, led by Pavel Vasil’ev. The main objective is the renewal of the Russian Empire (i.e. by retaking the ‘lost territories’) and of the monarchy. Although posing as an opposition to Putin’s regime, in the early days

192  Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism of the conflict in Ukraine RID proved useful for the Kremlin, recruiting and training volunteers for the war in the Donbass. The movement emphasises Orthodoxy, monarchism and ethnic nationalism (the God-Tsar-Nation triad). When the Imperial Legion ceased its activities in the Donbass, RID’s involvement also subsided, but in 2017 it was mentioned in the media in connection with a group of Swedish neo-Nazis who allegedly were preparing terrorist attacks (see Chapter 9). In its manifesto, RID argued as follows: The kleptocratic regimes, which have appeared on the body of the historic Russia, are living out their last days. Their economic policy brought the Russian populations of these pseudo-states [i.e. the Yeltsin and Putin regimes] to abject poverty and lawlessness. […] Liberalism is impotent and democracy, the great lie of our times, contains the elements of its own destruction. […] Our slogan is that of the great Russian saint, John of Kronstadt: ‘In hell there is democracy, in heaven there is a kingdom’ (Pravyi vzglyad 2017a). People’s Militia of Russia The former GRU colonel Vladimir Kvachkov commands significant respect and authority among Russian nationalists of virtually every ideological stripe. He started his political activities from an imperial-nationalist, Stalinist position, as an opponent of the liberals, until he was arrested on suspicion of having orchestrated an assassination attempt on Anatolii Chubais, then director of the state-owned energy company, RAO EES Rossii—more importantly, Chubais was one of the key figures in the privatisations that took place in Russia in the early 1990s. In March 2005, a mine supposedly exploded near Kvachkov’s official vehicle, and shots were allegedly fired at the car carrying his bodyguards. During a search of Kvachkov’s house, explosives were allegedly found. However, the courts acquitted him twice. In December 2010, he was arrested again for attempting to organise an armed uprising and recruiting people for terrorism. In 2009, Kvachkov founded the Minin and Pozharskii Public Militia (Narodnoe opolchenie imeni Minina i Pozharskogo, NOMP). According to materials published on the internet, the aim of NOMP was to ‘restore the territorial integrity of the Russian nation [sic]—the Great Russians and other original nations of Russia, the Ukrainians and the Belarussians’. (Thus, the ‘Great Russian nation’ would exist as one large state.) NOMP leaders demanded ‘the recall of citizen Putin from the post of prime minister and an inquiry into his criminal activities’ (Lenta.ru undated, b). According to the FSB, Kvachkov built up a network—i.e. NOMP—of former and serving members of the security forces in various regions of the country. The prosecution claimed that, upon a signal from Kvachkov, these ‘militias’ were to seize and disarm military barracks in the regions and then march on Moscow, collecting other insurgent units along the way. The FSB alleged that

Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism 193 it foiled these plans by arresting a group of people in Vladimirskaya oblast’ who supposedly were planning an uprising to violently overturn Russia’s constitutional system under Kvachkov’s leadership (Lenta.ru undated, b). In February 2013, Kvachkov was sentenced to 13 years for attempted armed uprising;6 later his sentence was reduced to eight years, only to be extended by two further years in February 2017 for incitement to hatred. In February 2015, the Moscow City Court declared NOMP a terrorist organisation and banned it. Ideologically, NOMP was based on a mixture of imperial nationalism, anti-Semitism, radical opposition to Putin’s regime, Orthodoxy and leftist economic arguments (nationalisation and struggle against oligarchs). When Kvachkov was imprisoned and his organisation banned, the initiative was taken by a long-time NOMP activist, Yurii Ekishev, who renamed it the People’s Militia of Russia (Narodnoe opolchenie Rossii, NOR). Its programme was the same radical opposition to the regime, but showed greater influence of Orthodox-monarchist ideas. During the 1990s, Ekishev was an organiser of the Orthodox-monarchist movement (he led the movement Orthodox Unity) in his native city of Syktyvkar (in the Komi Republic), where he also led a branch DPNI. In 2007, he was sentenced to two years in prison for inciting national hatred. At the time of his arrest, he worked as an aide to Deputy Rogozin (Rodina). Upon his release, he remained in Moscow, where he founded the movement Para-Bellum. He is a member of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (Russkaya pravoslavnaya tserkov’ zagranitsei, an organisation originally founded by Soviet émigrés, which continued to exist after the Soviet Union’s demise and whose membership is not limited to exiles) and has edited the nationalist magazine Shturmnovosti (SOVA 2016b). In June 2016, Ekishev was arrested again, this time for publishing two anti-Semitic articles, and in May 2017 he was sentenced to one and a half years in prison. In November 2017, his sentence expired (he had already spent much of the time on remand), but upon release he was immediately re-arrested and charged with inciting national hatred. Ekishev is unsparing in his criticism of Putin’s regime. On his blog, he wrote: ‘the Putin system is not only inefficient; it is murderous of Russian people and any national-social activity. The only condition for the functioning of Putin’s system is a blind and apathetic obedience and humility of the popular masses, who are unable to influence the lethal decisions being made about their way of life, traditional values and economic prosperity’ (Ekishev 2015). The current activities of NOR are primarily aimed at supporting their imprisoned leaders, Kvachkov and Ekishev, and attendance at public events such as Russian Marches. Group pushing for the referendum ‘For Responsible Government’ This association first emerged under the name Army of the Popular Will (Armiya voli naroda, AVN), at some point during the late 1990s. It was

194  Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism founded by Yurii Mukhin, an anti-Semitic journalist, former editor of the magazine Duel, and writer (largely of conspiratorial tripe). Mukhin has defended the 1930s purges as a just struggle against the ‘fifth column’ and wrote in his book that ‘only under Stalin, who assumed the strictest control over the secret services and conducted purges often and adamantly, did the bodies of state security work not for themselves but for the good of the nation’ (LitMir 2014). The AVN’s first public event was a demonstration in front of the Polish embassy on National Unity Day in November 2005, where they demanded ‘admitting the lie of Katyn’, because Mukhin was convinced that the Katyn massacre was the work of the Nazis (in reality, NKVD, the Soviet secret police, committed the mass murder of Polish nationals). Also speaking at this rally was Andrei Savel’ev, then still a State Duma deputy. In October 2010, a court judged the AVN extremist and banned it. The AVN was never influential, but its adherents often attended opposition rallies and demonstrations. Kirill Barabash’s appearances at rallies, where he spoke about the necessity for government change and argued that ‘in case of failure we’ll have to take up arms’, were also described as extremist (Kurilova and Tschernykh 2017). Some members of the banned AVN moved into the new ZOV group. The ideological position of this nationalist-Stalinist organisation (Azar 2015a; Sulim 2017) was underpinned by the argument that the general public has no real way of controlling elected politicians. For that reason, the movement proposed a constitutional change, allowing referendums to be called, by means of which citizens could retrospectively evaluate the performance of public officials, including the president, and even give them prison terms. After the name of the association was changed to ZOV, it was led by former lieutenant colonel Kirill Barabash, the association’s webmaster Aleksandr Sokolov (who also worked as an editor for RosBiznes Konsalting, a large Russian media group) and Valerii Parfenov. In July 2015, the leadership was arrested, and in August 2017 they received sentences: Barabash and Parfenov four years each, Sokolov three and a half years, and Mukhin four years suspended (suspended supposedly for health reasons). It is noteworthy that Aleksei Navalnyi appeared as witness for the defence at the trial. Other organisations in the Russian National Front Another initiative forming part of the Russian National Front is Vladimir Filin’s ‘Movement for Nationalisation and Deprivatisation of the Country’s Strategic Resources’, which calls for a struggle against corrupt officials and insatiable oligarchs. Its main objectives include nationalisation and the elimination of the oligarch class. This is a left-wing group, rather than rightwing, with a vague programme and slogans such as ‘people’s court for the corrupted and the oligarchs’ and ‘the state is for the people, not the people for the state’. They also demand that Putin and Medvedev resign from government because they are ‘thieves and Russophobes’.

Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism 195 The People’s National Party (Narodnaya natsional’naya partiya, NNP) does not play a major role in the Russian National Front coalition. It was founded in the mid-1990s, taking an openly racist, international ideology as its basis, but it does not fit with any of the ideological segments of the coalition. It witnessed its greatest rise in the late 1990s, when it incorporated skinhead groups such as Russian Goal (Russkaya tsel’) as its youth wing. Maksim Martsinkevich (see Chapter 3) started his political career there. In 2003, the People’s National Party leader, Aleksandr Ivanov-Sukharevskii was gravely injured in a bomb attack. This curtailed the party’s activities for several years, until Ivanov-Sukharevskii re-emerged with a fresh wave of anti-regime and anti-Semitic utterances (YouTube 2007). Although IvanovSukharevskii has some recognition thanks to his past activities, the People’s National Party is marginal overall, it lacks a social media profile, and its website is devoid of content. The last organisation deserving of brief note is Sergei Kucherov’s Assembly of the Russian People (Sobor russkogo naroda). In the late 1990s, Kucherov was involved in Stalinist projects such as the Stalinist Bloc for the Soviet Union and the National-Sovereign Party of Russia (Natsional’noderzhavnaya partiya Rossii) and later also in the Chernaya sotnya-style Union of Russian People. When that splintered into several organisations, all bearing the same name, he supported the pro-regime wing led by Leonid Ivanov. The Assembly of the Russian People has about 600 followers on social media and shows left-nationalist tendencies; it is loyal to the regime. Union of Russian People Modelled on the tsarist-era, Chernaya sotnya-style Union of Russian People of 1905–1917, an organisation of the same name (Soyuz russkogo naroda, SRN) appeared after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, posing as the ‘successor’ to the 1905–1917 organisation. The Union was founded in November 2005 on the basis of several Orthodox-monarchist organisations, including Aleksandr Shtilmark’s Chernaya sotnya, which itself had split off from Pamyat’ in the early 1990s. During the Yeltsin era, the Union was a classic monarchist outfit, but in the party spectrum as a whole it was marginal. The death of its leader, Vyacheslav Klikov, in June 2006 created tensions in the organisation. Elected as new SRN leader was Leonid Ivashov, who previously worked at the defence ministry, where he had achieved the rank of general (later he briefly led the Military-Sovereign Union of Russia, Voenno-derzhavnyii soyuz Rossii). Internal disputes continued to paralyse the organisation, however. Some of the radical senior figures in SRN led a ‘resistance’ to Ivashov’s leadership from autumn 2006, describing his election as a provocation by the secret services. These included Konstantin Dushenov from St Petersburg, who was a key propagandist of a fundamentalist movement within the Russian Orthodox Church from the late 1990s until the mid-2000s, i.e. the

196  Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism time of his joining the SRN (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2009: 140), Mikhail Nazarov (hailing from the Donbass, he emigrated to Germany in the 1970s; he returned to Moscow in the 1990s and founded the publishing house Russkaya ideya), and, most importantly, Aleksandr Turik from Irkutsk, an Orthodox activist since the Soviet era, who in 1992 allegedly helped prepare volunteer units for the war in Transnistria and in 2004 agitated on behalf of Sergei Glaz’ev presidential candidacy in Irkutsk oblast’. Discord continued in SRN throughout 2007. At a congress in Irkutsk, the Union split into a more moderate wing led by General Ivashov (SRN-I) and the Dushenov-Nazarov-Turik radicals (Kozhevnikova 2008). Dushenov, who after the split led the North-West section of the radical SRN branch, himself left the organisation in 2008. Ivashov’s SRN-I likewise fell apart, and since then Ivashov has focused on providing political commentaries written from a gosudarstvennik perspective, defending Stalin, authoritarianism and Russia’s imperial ambition. For a short time, this created the illusion that the gulf between the supporters of Ivashov on the one hand and those of Turik and Nazarov on the other could be bridged. However, fragmentation continued. The post-Ivashov SRN-I split into supporters of moderate ethnic nationalism, willing to collaborate with the state (led by Sergei Kucherov) and supporters of a new leader, Boris Mironov, who supported radical ethnic nationalism, strong anti-Semitism and opposition to the state. Boris Mironov is a veteran of the Russian nationalist movement. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, he was involved in various nationalist groups (e.g. National-Sovereign Party of Russia, NDPR), but in 2004 he was charged with inciting hatred (he accused Putin of ‘Jewish fascism’). He is a Holocaust denier. Some of his books, such as A Sentence for Those Who Kill Russia (Prigovor ubivayushchim Rossiyu), were declared extremist and banned. His wife, Tatyana, is also active in SRN; she led Kvachkov’s election campaign and disseminated publications about a ‘Jewish–Freemasonic conspiracy’. Their son, Ivan Mironov, was sentenced to one year in prison, supposedly as an accessory in the attempt on Chubai’s life (where Kvachkov was the main accused). Boris Mironov became a member of the SRN Main Council in November 2005 (Kozhevnikova 2009b, 2010). In autumn 2009, there were no fewer than four organisations using the SRN brand (Sergei Kucherov’s SRN, Turik and Nazarov’s SRN, the Mironov couple’s SRN and Merkulov’s SRN). Furthermore, the ‘Zarubin group’ seceded from the Turik-led branch. The Turik-Nazarov branch was the most conspicuous in the media and the one that presented itself most actively. It cooperated with DPNI and Igor Artemov’s RONS, and it participated in Russian Marches and other events. Ideologically it adhered to the postulates of the Orthodoxy-authoritarianism-nation triad. Its nationalism was, and continues to be, an ethnic, biological one. Its anti-Semitism is very strong, permeating every other aspect of its ideology and informing its negative posture towards the Soviet era (allegedly a conspiracy of Russia’s internal and external enemies) and the present political regime

Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism 197 (Putin and Medvedev are supposedly Jews), including its constitutional system (deemed illegitimate). They see Russia as a ‘country occupied by anti-Russian forces, controlled from behind the scenes by the world’s Satanists’. The anti-immigrant and anti-Caucasian position of this SRN branch is likewise informed by anti-Semitism: the government, controlled by Jewish circles, is allegedly flooding Russia with millions of foreign usurpers, who steal, murder, rape and transform themselves into a ‘fifth column’ of foreign forces. The execution of the tsar’s family is seen as a sacrifice for which the Russian nation must collectively repent. Monarchy is the only acceptable system of government. This SRN is one of the few organisations to openly and demonstratively cultivate tsarist symbolism (imperial toponyms); it also demands a return to the Julian calendar. It does not directly promote racial, political or other violence (according to its ideologues, the party does not support national uprising as a method of regime change), but it does legitimise some forms of violence. Its programmatic manifestos have proposed to establish military-patriotic camps, modelled on those created by other militant groups, but the SRN has not implemented them. People with a history of violence (former members of RONS or ‘Cossack’ organisations) do join SRN, but if these leaders or the rank-and-file have previous convictions, it is typically for xenophobic propaganda (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2009: 181–184).

Russian marches since 2005 On 4 November 2005, Russia officially initiated a new holiday, ‘Russian Unity Day’, to commemorate the end of the so-called smuta and the banishing of the Poles from the Kremlin in 1612.7 The intention of the state ideologues was to suppress memories of the anniversary and celebrations of the Bolshevik power takeover, a key political holiday of the Soviet Union that was celebrated at about the same time (7 November). Russian Unity Day became the main holiday of the Russian militant nationalist right, which appropriated it from the Kremlin and used it to attract publicity. It has allowed them to present their ideas in public and spread awareness of their activities, and has also served as the main recruitment opportunity for the various militant organisations. Each year, everyone is reminded on 4 November that no other movement in Russia has as many ‘young political soldiers’ as militant nationalists do (Popkov 2017). Over the years, these Russian Marches (Russkii marsh) have also served as the chief indicator of the relationships within and conflicts between the individual organisations and activists (i.e. major criteria included their position towards Putin’s regime and, later, the war in Ukraine); allowed militant nationalists to compare forces; and showed the overall dynamism and evolution of this segment of the political spectrum. The historically first Russian March was organised by pro-Putin groups. The authorities allowed it on the basis of an application filed by the Eurasian Youth Union. It was attended by 2,000–3,000 people, most of them

198  Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism NS skinheads. Taking place in central Moscow, the march went from Chistye prudy metro station to Slavyanskaya Square, and Antifa attempted to disrupt it at several points. It concluded in a rally, where the speakers included Pavel Zarifullin (for the Evraziiskii soyuz molodezhi), Egor Kholmogorov and Konstantin Krylov (nationalist journalists), Aleksandr Belov (Potkin) and Viktor Yakushev (a veteran of the Pamyat’ movement). They called for the re-taking of lost Soviet territories, the expulsion of the ‘occupiers’ and liberation from ‘internal and external oppression’. The speech by Belov, whose organisation, DPNI, was at that moment poised to emerge as the dominant force within the radical nationalist militant camp, met with the greatest success. Back then, the main Russian television stations ignored the march. After the rally, its organisers were briefly detained by the authorities (SOVA 2005). By 2006, the pro-Kremlin Eurasian Youth Union was excluded from the organisation of the Russian March, which was coordinated by the DPNI instead; under pressure exerted by the authorities, the organisers decided to join the march organised by the People’s Will party, led by ‘systemic nationalist’ Sergei Baburin, for which a permit had been issued. The march was attended by about 1,000 people, including several State Duma deputies (Baburin, Alksnis, Savel’ev, Kuryanovich, Rogozin and Makashov) and about ten nationalist organisations. For the first time as a DPNI leader, Belov gave vent to his anti-Semitic rhetoric. His speech was very emotional, with Vladimir Surkov, the Kremlin ideologue and political technologist at the time, the main target of his rebuke. Many participants were NS skinheads. There was also an alternative march on Slavyanskaya Square (about 200 people), organised by a group of Orthodox-monarchist organisations, who had split off from the organisation committee of the Russian March. Some radical neo-Nazi groups called on their supporters to boycott the march and instead to attack an anti-fascist rally at Bolotnaya Square, but the police prevented this, apprehending almost 600 people. At this Russian March, Slavic Union symbols and its leader were absent, even though Demushkin had been one of the organisers (SOVA 2006). The November 2007 Russian March in Moscow was moved to Taras Shevchenko Embankment; it was organised by a coalition of nationalist organisations led by the DPNI, with about 3,000 people attending, most of them NS skinheads. The participants chanted neo-Nazi and xenophobic slogans, and there was a rally after the march, but supporters of the NSO, who made up about one-third of the participants, left in protest. Speakers included Andrei Savel’ev (then State Duma deputy) Yurii Gorkii (then of Partiya zashchity rossiiskoi konstitutsii, or Party for the Protection of the Russian Constitution, but the intentionally chosen acronym PZRK Rus also denotes a portable anti-aircraft missile system), Dmitrii Demushkin (Slavic Power), Ivan Strukov (the Russian National-Bolshevik Front, Russkii natsional-bol’shevistskii front), Aleksanr Sevastyanov (NDPR) and also the extremist activist from Texas, Preston Wiginton, who became known for

Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism 199 claiming in a post on the Stormfront forum that ‘Russia is the only nation that understands RAHOWA [Racial Holy War]’ (Holthouse 2008). There was again an alternative, Orthodox-monarchist rally at Slavyanskaya Square, attended by only about 50 people. There were no serious incidents at this Russian March (SOVA 2007). The organisation of the November 2008 Russian March was complicated by the rift in the DPNI. The official permit for the event was granted only to the People’s Union (Narodnyi soyuz) coalition and the group of people around the magazine Russkii obraz, led by Goryachev and associated with the Union. By contrast, Belov’s and Basmanov’s DPNI and Aleksei Kanurin’s Russian DPNI announced that they would hold their own rallies without official permission. The National Union march again took place at Taras Shevchenko Embankment, with the attendance of 700–800 people (largely NS skinheads). Leaders of virtually all organisations involved spoke at the rally: Baburin and Alsknis for the People’s Union, Dmitrii Taratorin for Russian Image, Kuryanovich for his branch of Union of Russian People, Leonid Simonovich for the Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers, Valentin Lebedev for the Union of Orthodox Citizens, Vladimir Kvachkov for Minin and Pozharskii Public Militia (he claimed that ‘Russia must free herself from the Judaistic yoke’) and Vladimir Osipov (Christian Revival). The unofficial march organised by Belov’s DPNI and Demushkin’s Slavic Union attracted about 500 people, including Aleksei Navalnyi. Many of the participants were NS skinheads; some of them were arrested or dispersed by the riot police for making Nazi salutes and other provocations. Furthermore, police confiscated Russian flags from participants in the metro as they travelled to the march. Those who remained walked to Smolenskaya station, and detentions of participants continued throughout the march. Among those detained were Demushkin (Slavic Power), Basmanov (DPNI), Vladimir Tor, Georgii Borovikov (RFO Pamyat’) and, at a later point, Belov (DPNI). The third 2008 Russian March was planned by the rebellious ‘Russian DPNI’ as a flash mob, but the initiators failed to meet. Oleg Kassin’s People’s Assembly (Narodnyi sobor) also attempted to organise a Russian March. A group of about 250 Orthodox nationalists found its way blocked by riot police, and so only a small number managed to reach the Kremlin, the planned destination, where about 15 people, including SRN leader Mikhail Nazarov, were apprehended. At the end of the 2008 National Unity Day, a concert entitled ‘I am Russian’ (Ya-russkii) by the band Ivan tsarevich was organised by the Kremlin-backed group Young Guard, where young militant nationalists were expected but failed to show up. During the whole day, at marches and outside of them, the police detained skinheads and other nationalists. About 500 people were apprehended in Moscow alone (SOVA 2008); however, there were also Russian Marches in other cities, with the participation of more than 2,000 people in total. In November 2009, there were once again several nationalist Russian Marches. The largest took place at the Moscow housing estate Lyublino,

200  Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism with 2,500–3,000 people present. Many of them were football hooligans and skinheads, who chanted racist and vulgar slogans. Most of them did not stay for the rally that followed the march. A competing rally by Russian Image was held at the same time. Speakers included Demushkin, Ermolaev (DPNI), Ekishev, Kvachkov, Wiginton, Krylov, Artemov, Borovikov and, of the locals, Aleksei Mazur, who was connected with DPNI. Demushkin proclaimed that a government that does not protect its nation deserves to be overthrown and called on the rally’s participants to arm themselves. The main triumph of the Russian Image rally was a concert by the band Kolovrat, which had not publicly performed for many years. The concert was preceded by speeches: Ilya Goryachev (Russian Image) and two unknown activists from the regions. This was followed by a performance by the band Chuk sprava (linked with Russian Image) and more speechifying by Evgenii Valyaev and Resistance (Soprotivlenie) member Aleksandr Vasilev. The rally climaxed with the Kolovrat concert, seen by up to 2,000 people. The rally organised by the Eurasian Youth Union in central Moscow was a much more modest affair and lasted for only an hour. Approximately 100 people assembled, chanting slogans such as ‘Glory to the Empire! Russians, arise!’ and ‘Putin is a sovereign dictator, Medvedev is our president’. There was also a traditional, cross-bearing procession organised by Orthodox monarchists, which garnered dozens of participants. The pro-Kremlin youth organisations, Young Russia and Nashi, also held competing rallies (SOVA 2009). In 2010, the main Russian March was organised by the coalition of the same name, led by DPNI and Russian Image. Other organisers included Slavic Union (renamed after the May 2010 ban on Slavic Power), Roman Zentsov’s Resistance (Soprotivlenie), Kvachkov’s Minin and Pozharskii Public Militia, Krylov and Kholmogorov’s Russian Social Movement (Russkoe obshchestvennoe dvizhenie, ROD), Borovikov’s RFO Pamyat’, the Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers, the Orlov Front (Orlovskii front, a neo-pagan group sharing the ideology of the Northern Brotherhood) and others. Taking place in Lyublino, it was attended by up to 5,500 people, a record turnout to date. Most of them were young people who were not members of any parties and bore various symbols (a Celtic cross, a Kolovrat—a Slavic pagan symbol serving as a kind of ‘Slavic swastika’—and so on) but there were also symbols of European nationalist movements and coalition projects organised by Russian nationalist organisations (e.g. Russian Runs). Speakers at the rally included Borovikov (RFO Pamyat’), Belov (DPNI), Dmitrii Bakharev (Slavic Power), Vladimir Tor (DPNI), Kvachkov (NOMP), Evgeni Yakimov (Ya-russkii profile on VKontakte social network), Aleksei Mazur (DPNI activist), Ekishev (Parabellum, NOMP) and Demushkin (Slavic Power). Two other nationalist events were held in Moscow that day. There was a traditional cross-bearing procession of about 200 people with the Icon of Our Lady of Kazan at the Boulevard Ring. Organised by Gennadii

Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism 201 Salnikov’s group ‘Borodino-2012’, it was not authorised, but nobody prevented it from happening. Another rally, ‘For conservatism, against agents of influence’, was organised by the Eurasian Youth Union with a turnout of 80–100 people (SOVA 2010). In November 2011, the main Russian March was once again held in Lyublino. It attracted record participation of 6,000–6,500 people, which has not yet been bettered. It was co-organised by the newly established ‘Russians’ coalition, the Moscow Defence League (Daniil Konstantinov) and the Russian Social Movement. It was here that the slogan ‘Stop feeding the Caucasus’ first appeared. It later became a favourite anti-Caucasian and anti-immigrant rallying cry, expressing the main agenda of the ethnic nationalists during this period, who believed that the federal budget was too generous towards the republics of the North Caucasus. Appearing with speeches were Vladimir Tor and Alla Gorbunova (ROD), Ivan Mironov, Thibaut de Chassey (leader of the French Renewal (Le Renouveau français) organisation),8 as well as Aleksei Navalnii, Aleksandr Belov and Daniil Konstantinov (Moscow Defence League). The last three mentioned attacked the United Russia party, with Belov asking those present to take to the streets after the elections. The rally culminated in appearances by Georgii Borovikov—perhaps taking inspiration from interwar Germany, he spoke of the necessity of founding elite paramilitary units that would protect Russian Marches and other events and generally ensure public order in Russia—and Demushkin, who appealed to the state leadership to resign (SOVA 2011). In November 2012, the turnout at the Russian March was somewhat smaller than the previous year at approximately 5,500 people. It was organised by the ‘Russians’ movement (the rally was led by Gorbunova and Ermolaev), together with Sergei Baburin’s moderate Russian All-People’s Union (Rossiiskii obshchenarodnyi soyuz, ROS). Because the latter had reasonably good relations with the authorities, he obtained a permit to hold the event close to the Kremlin (the march went from Yakimanskaya Embankment to Krymskyi Val Street) rather than at the Lyublino housing estate. Participants included a substantial group of NS Straight Edge activists. Once again, there was no shortage of Nazi and radical nationalist symbolism at the march. According to SOVA, this was a more aggressive march than in previous years, with slogans such as ‘white race, pure blood’. The speakers at the rally after the march were also radical: Belov (‘Russians’) called Putin ‘an enemy of the Russian people’, on whom genocide is being perpetrated; Vladimir Tor, who presented himself as the National Democratic Party leader, called for an end to the ‘migration wave’, the introduction of a visa regime with countries of Central Asia and an end to subsidies to the Caucasus; and Mironov, the chair of SRN, compared the state with a ‘criminal organisation’ and appealed to participants to take power into their own hands and create a ‘Russian government’. Other speakers included Baburin, Orthodox activist Mikhail Nalimov, ‘Banner-Bearers’ leader Simonovich,

202  Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism Roman Zheleznov (who was later active in Ukraine in the Azov battalion and the Russian Centre) and Georgii Borovikov (who conveyed the greetings of all ‘political prisoners’, including the NS terrorist Nikita Korolev, and called for a ‘Russian national revolution’). Kirill Barabash, of the group ‘For Responsible Government’, also recommended that participants take power into their own hands. This was followed by speeches by Yurii Ekishev (NOMP); the ‘Holy Russia’ leader Ivan Otrakovskii; Ivan Mironov, a ROS leader, and others. Demushkin read the rally’s resolution. Although the rally itself went off without incidents, later attacks on Antifa were reported, and some people were badly wounded. Mikhail Nazarov’s Union of Russian People, with the help of ‘Borodino-2012’ (Gennadii Salnikov) and the People’s Assembly (Oleg Kassin), planned a parallel cross-bearing procession on the Boulevard Ring, but in the end there was only a small procession of about 50 people, taking a different route. And finally, in Pushkinskaya Square, there was a rally of about 500 people to support Vladimir Zhirinovskii’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), with his trademark jingoism (SOVA 2012a). In 2013, the Russian March was influenced by the violence that occurred in the Moscow borough of Biryulevo (see Chapter 3). Organised by the ‘Russians’ movement, Krylov’s National-Democratic Party and Baburin’s Russian All-People’s Union, it took place once again in Lyublino. Turnout was about 6,000, yet the organisers expected more, given the sharp increase in xenophobia at the time. However, they managed to appeal only to some of the young militants who had ignored the previous year’s march due to the willingness of some of the nationalists to cooperate with the liberal opposition. Still, radical youth were the overwhelming majority of the participants; they called for violence to be committed against Caucasians and other ethnicities. The participants’ radicalism and unwillingness to adhere to the rules elicited dissatisfaction among some of the organisers. In addition, in 2013, the tradition of nationalist marches as alternatives to the main Russian March was renewed. The first of these took place near the metro station Oktyabrskoe pole, having been organised by the Russian Coalition of Action (Russkaya koalitsiya deistviya), which then included NOMP (Yurii Ekishev), Great Russia (Andrei Savel’ev) and Aleksandr Amelin’s movement Russian Rebirth (Russkoe vozrozhdenie). The turnout was 550–600 people. Another, called Tsarist Russian March, only attracted 120–150, largely Orthodox banner-bearers and members of Aleksei Khudyakov’s anti-immigration outfit Moscow Shield. Compared to the Russian March in Moscow, the St Petersburg’s march was more aggressive, as many of the nationalists refused to obey the organisers of the pro-Kremlin party Rodina and created disorder. Several dozen participants were apprehended by the police for attempting to hold their own, unauthorised demonstration; another 40 people were dispersed in Palace Square where they were attempting to dance to hard bass music. Some of the demonstrators then tried to provoke a pogrom in Udelnaya

Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism 203 market, and there were several assaults on people of ‘non-Slavic origin’ in the metro (what the racists called the ‘white carriages action’). In any case, the nationalists evaluated the 2013 marches as relatively successful (SOVA 2013b). Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine has created a ‘Ukrainian schism’ among the Russian militant nationalist right, and there were several competing Russian Marches in November 2014. The more traditional, ethnic-nationalist, anti-immigrant event in Lyublino was attended by about 2,000 nationalists, and that year it was pro-Ukrainian for the first time—or at the very least, the demonstrators rejected Girkin and Novorossiya. It was organised by the National-Democratic Party (which later sided with Novorossiya) because the ‘Russians’ movement failed to obtain a permit to hold the event. Speakers included Krylov and Tor (National-Democratic Party), Ermolaev, Demushkin (‘Russians’), Aleksandr Sevastyanov (former NDPR leader), Matvei Tszen (ROD), Vladimir Istarkhov (Russian Right Party), Gorbunova (ROS) and Bobrov (National-Socialist Initiative). In Lyublino, some DNR and LNR (Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics) supporters who opposed Igor Girkin joined the rally. Another Russian March was held at Oktyabrskoe pole, under the banners of Novorossiya and slogans supporting Girkin and the separatist ‘republics’, DNR and LNR. The turnout for this march was larger than before (estimated at 1,200 people, as compared to 600 in the same place in 2013). This has been explained by the fact that Igor Girkin had promised to appear at the march. He cancelled at the last moment, allegedly either because he disagreed with the ideas of some of the organisers concerned with overthrowing the regime in Russia, or because the leadership of this march had been assumed by Andrei Savel’ev, the head of Great Russia (Maltsev 2015). In attendance were organisations that later formed the Russian National Front: Russian National Unity, the Orthodox fundamentalists led by Dmitri ‘Enteo’ Tsorionov and others. Demonstrators displayed symbols of DNR, LNR and the Odessa People’s Republic, as well as Serbian and Hungarian flags (in support of Jobbik). Speakers included Valentina Bobrova, who opened the march with a minute’s silence to commemorate those fallen in Novorossiya, Vladislav Kuroptev (for the Orthodox banner-bearers), an unnamed chaplain of the separatist battalion Leshii, Yurii Ekishev (NOMP), Kvachkov’s wife, Nadezhda (she read her husband’s letter from prison), Andrei Savel’ev (Great Russia), Mikhail Ochkin (this time on behalf of the Slavic Literature and Culture Fund, Fond slavyanskoi pismennosti i kultury), Elena Rokhlin (daughter of General Lev Rokhlin), Pavel Vasilev (RID) and others. Foreign speakers included the Belgian pro-Russian extremist Chris Roman (of the pseudo-thinktank Euro-Rus) and the leader of the Danish National Front, Lars Wittman. The rally ended by adopting a resolution in support of Novorossiya. There was also an official Unity Rally in central Moscow, attended, according to what is likely a substantially overstated police estimate, by about 75,000 people. The LDPR cancelled its traditional rally, joining the

204  Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism Unity Rally instead. The leaders of the pseudo-opposition parties (e.g. LDPR, the Communist Party of Russian Federation, Just Russia) called for the recognition of the ‘elections’ that took place in the self-declared separatist republics, DNR and LNR. Mikhail Nazarov’s Union of Russian People also held its traditional cross-bearing procession, attended by few (SOVA 2014b). In November 2015, there was another march in Lyublino, organised by the ‘Russians’ coalition, which by this time had been banned. Given that the leaders of opposition nationalists were under prosecution, the turnout was weak at about 700 people. Held under the slogan ‘Away with the dictatorship!’, the 2015 Russian March was, much more conspicuously than in earlier years, opposed to the Putin regime. A rally after the march was led by Yurii Gorskii, with speeches by Istarkhov, Ilya Sotnikov, neo-pagan nationalist Dmitrii Melash, Denis Romanov-Russkii and others. At Oktyabrskoe pole metro station, meanwhile, another rally, ‘Russian March for Russian revenge’, organised by nationalists sympathising with Novorossiya, was held by the Russian National Front coalition and attended by about 350 people. The march was followed by a rally near Shchukinskaya metro station, with slogans testifying to the worldview of the participants: ‘Kiev is a Russian city!’, ‘Russia without Jewry’, ‘Russia, Ukraine, Belarus – for a united Rus’. Kirill Barabash, the head of the group ZOV, led the rally. Most of the speakers censured the Lyublino Russian March, accusing its participants of giving up on Russian nationalism. In fiery language, Valerii Levchenko of the Orthodox banner-bearers announced the upcoming battle with the Antichrist; Vladimir Filin (Movement for Nationalisation and Deprivatisation) opposed Russia’s military operation in Syria, arguing that the fate of Russians in the Donbass was a priority. There were also speeches by Aleksandr Ivanov-Sukharevskii, a veteran of the Russian nationalist movement; Yurii Ekishev (NOR), former LDPR State Duma deputy Nikolai Kuryanovich; Kvachkov’s wife, Nadezda; Elena Rokhlina; Sergei ‘Spider’ Troitskii and Pavel Vasil’ev, the Moscow coordinator of RID. There was also an openly pro-Putin Russian March for a Russian World (Russkii marsh za russkii mir), organised by Mikhail Ochkin and attended by about 100 people. The symbols of Russian National Unity and Novorossiya flags were displayed. The rally was led by Valentina Bobrova (on behalf of the ‘Russian World’ movement, which grew out of the movement to aid Novorossiya), with speeches by LDPR State Duma deputy Maksim Shingarkin, Yurii Gvozdev, a representative of a group supporting ‘prisoners of conscience’ (among other things, he appealed to those present to collect funds for the Nazi skinhead Vasilii Krivets and a NSO-Sever member, Vladimir Tamamshev). Ochkin himself is a former skinhead, whose nickname was Silver; in 2004 he founded the DPNI youth wing and was one of the leaders of the druzhina, which was an attempt to create an enforcement unit in the DPNI. In 2005, however, he left DPNI and organised an un-registered party, ‘Our Russia’, which opposed the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. His close associate,

Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism 205 Valentina Bobrova, helped organise a Russian March in Voronezh in 2012. She later moved to Podolsk in Moscow oblast, where she and Ochkin organised ‘humanitarian aid’ for the Donbass (Maltsev 2015). The biggest event of the 2015 National Unity Day was the official march and rally, ‘We Are United’, under the banner of Putin’s All-Russian Popular Front, which attracted about 30,000 people. The media coverage focused on National Liberation Movement (Natsional’no-osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie) members carrying placards with slogans such as ‘Putin is our national leader’ and ‘Our column against the fifth column’, as well as on Anti-Maidan organisations (see Chapter 7) and the Night Wolves led by Zaldostanov, who rode at the front of the march. Also attending were about 150 members of Nikolai Starikov’s Great Fatherland Party (Partiya velikoe otechestvo), army veterans and others (Batalov 2015; BBC 2015; SOVA 2015a). Due to the rift among nationalists caused by the ‘Ukrainian question’, in 2016 there were once again several Russian Marches. The event organised by opposition nationalists in Lyublino was attended by about 800 people. The slogans were similar to those of the previous year, mostly targeting the Putin regime. The rally was led by Yurii Gorskii, and speakers included Istarkhov, the Communist State Duma deputy Aleksandr Gruzinov, Denis Romanov-Russkii (formerly of ‘Russians’, now of the Party of Nationalists), neo-pagan Dmitrii Melash, Vladimir Ratnikov (Black Bloc), Ilya Sotnikov (NS autonomists) and Ivan Beletskii (now a Party of Nationalists member). Representatives of the liberal movement PARNAS were also present. ‘Russia without liberasts, kremlinites and banderovtsi’,9 a parallel event in Oktyabrskoe pole, attracted about 320 supporters of the Russian National Front, the Monarchist Party of Russia and the Union of Russian People, who marched under slogans such as ‘Russia needs a tsar’, ‘Freedom to Kvachkov and Ekishev’ and ‘Away with the rule by oligarchs’. Andrei Savel’ev proclaimed that his party considered the Russians and the Ukrainians one nation. Miroshnichenko, the banner-bearer, congratulated the citizens of Orel for the monument to Ivan the Terrible and proposed to construct another one celebrating Ivan and his oprichniki at Lubyanka (FSB headquarters). There were fierce opposition speeches: Kirill Myamlin (Russian National Front) criticised capitalism and proclaimed that a Hasidic sect had usurped the government in Russia. The official rally, ‘We are united’, brought together various pro-Kremlin groups: Sorok sorokov, carrying icons (about 40 people); members of Just Russia; Gosha Tarasevich with his handful of supporters constituting the South-East Radical Block; the Great Fatherland Party led by Starikov (about 100 people); and Rodina (about 120 people). A group of about 40 National Liberation Movement supporters carried flags and slogans supporting Putin. In Suvorovskaya Square, there was a small event ‘For Russian solidarity’, attended by about 200 people, including adherents of Igor Girkin’s Novorossiya movement and members of the National-Democratic Party (SOVA 2016b).

206  Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism The most recent Russian March in Lyublino in November 2017 was a disgrace for the opposition nationalists. Their traditional leaders such as Demushkin and Belov were behind bars, and many other activists were either in exile or in prison. Those who remained at liberty in Moscow warred for control over the remains of the nationalist movement prior to the march. The main dispute was between Vladimir Basmanov (Nation and Freedom Committee, the exile organisation of Forces of the Good; Komarnitskii’s Black Bloc sided with Basmanov) and Ivan Beletskii (the Party of Nationalists), supported by the Russian Human Rights League, NS autonomists of the Intransigent League and supporters of Wotan Jugend and the exile Russian Centre. Each has described the other as ‘curatorial’ in speeches: the expressions ‘curatorial march’ or ‘curatorial organisation’ are meant to denote events or organisations controlled by ‘curators’ emanating from the secret services. In these paranoid and spy-mad circles, ‘curator’ and derived words are favoured as stigmatising expressions. Both Beletskii and Basmanov appealed to their supporters to march under their side’s own banners, which they had to describe on the internet in detail, because the ‘street’ nationalists were not familiar with the symbols of their new organisations. At the beginning of the march, the Basmanov supporters (less than 100 in all) quarrelled with the police over their flags and then refused to take part in the march. This quarrel gave the police the excuse to shut down the Russian March and make arrests. Thus, in the end, the march consisted of only about 200 people who had managed to walk through metal detectors in time and form a column. This was the first time since the 2014 ‘Ukrainian schism’ that an alternative march of ‘anti-Ukrainian’ nationalists (see below) attracted more people than the ‘main’ march. The slogans at the Lyublino march were anti-Putin, against the war in Ukraine and against the Caucasus. The nationalists called for the release of their leaders from prison and celebrated the deceased neo-Nazis Borovikov, Korshunov and Bazylev (Popkov 2017). The alternative march in Oktyabrskoe pole was attended by about 370 people. It was led by the banner-bearers with icons depicting Tsar Nicholas II. Here too the participants hailed their heroes: Vladimir Kvachkov; Aleksei Mozgov, the murdered field commander of the separatist unit Prizrak; Viktor Ilyukhin, a nationalist Stalinist and a State Duma deputy for the Communist Party (lionised for his opposition to Putin); and the army General Lev Rokhlin, killed in 1998. There were calls for nationalisation, Orthodox and monarchist expressions (Vsevolod Chaplin was among those who carried posters in support of ‘Orthodox values’), Novorossiya flags and leaflets supporting Igor Girkin. The rally was led by Kuryanovich and Savel’ev, with speeches by Vladimir Filin (Movement for Nationalisation and Deprivatisation) and Ivan Otrakovskii (Holy Rus’ – Svyataya Rus). The National Liberation Movement assembled its supporters at Sportivnaya metro station. About 150 people showed up, led by the anti-Semitic poet Ilya Ragulin. Posters supporting Putin’s policy and slogans such as ‘Fatherland, freedom, Putin’ were sighted at the rally (SOVA 2017c).

Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism 207

Conclusion Virtually all of the anti-Putin militant nationalist groups described in this chapter adhere to the principle of ethnic Russian nationalism. They are differentiated, however, in terms of ideology: there are those nationalists who oppose immigration and are indifferent to religion, and those who espouse Orthodox-monarchist ideas. The two groups differ on two issues in particular: their positions towards the war in the Donbass and cooperation with the liberal opposition. The first group opposes Russia’s aggressive policy in Ukraine, which thus shifts it towards a willingness to cooperate with the liberal opposition. Among Orthodox monarchists, typically the opposite holds true: they criticise Putin as too soft on foreign policy and therefore reject any cooperation with the liberals. Intense anti-Semitism often accompanies Orthodox-monarchist events. This brings them close to the Chernaya sotnya movement of tsarist Russia, and indeed many of these organisations seek to act as intellectual heirs to Chernaya sotnya. This, however, provides the main impediment to their growth among Russian nationalists. Their ideological fixation on adoring the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, Orthodox fundamentalism and Protocols of the Elders of Zion-style anti-Semitism earn them the mockery rather than the admiration of the younger generation, as seen in, for instance, the response of the autonomous nationalists to the Orthodox banner-bearers. For this reason, these organisations are unable to attract the young militant activists who continue to gravitate to the anti-immigrant associations, despite their fragmentation and repression by the state. The anti-immigrant appeal of these organisations now takes a back seat to support for imprisoned nationalists and resistance to Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime. Yet, on the other hand, it is precisely the inability of the Orthodoxmonarchist organisations to rally a significant number of young militants around themselves—let alone inspire them to march in the streets—and the fact that they are often redolent of the discussion groups of old anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists that the state’s security forces leave them alone for the most part. Some better-known activists and theorists are an exception to this, although they receive their sentences (typically suspended) for their xenophobic and anti-Semitic publications, not for violent or criminal conduct.

Notes

1. In Orthodox terminology, strastoterptsy are saints who died a martyr’s death but not directly in the name of their Christian faith (in contrast to martyrs proper). 2. Consider his explanation of the ‘immigrant question’ in Russia: ‘The Russian people are not adapted to being slaves. Hence the ruling oligarchs in Russia need new slaves. And people who save themselves by fleeing extreme poverty very conveniently serve the role of slaves. And once they adapt, the Russians will become an oppressed minority. Now they are an oppressed majority’ (Velikaya Rossiya 2015).

208  Anti-Putin militant right-wing nationalism 3. Savel’ev went on to say: ‘There is no doubt that the thieves and traitors will re-elect Putin president. But he is not our president and he has never been elected legitimately. All the elections, together with the political system, have been turned into falsehoods—presidential elections first of all. Usurpers are sitting everywhere and the only people who vote are the “administrative resources” and their lackeys and guest workers. […] Their system is disintegrating in front of our very eyes: betrayal and theft have become a pass to the higher echelons of power and big business. Their time is nearly over—the problem is that our fatherland might be “over” with them. They might dismember Russia, as they dismembered the USSR in 1991’ (Velikaya Rossiya 2017). 4. There were substantial clashes between ethnic Russians and the Caucasian diaspora in Kondopoga in September 2006, in response to the alleged criminal behaviour of the latter; see Chapter 3 for details. 5. Osipov (born 1944) has been a fundamentalist Orthodox journalist for many years and his ideology is similar to Simonovich’s. His movement’s social-media profile is as unpopular as SPKh’s, with less than 300 followers. Other groups include Josif Volotskii’s Oprichniki brotherhood, founded in 1992, which is closely related to the neo-Nazi Orthodox sect, the ‘Church of the Truly Orthodox Christians of Russia’, led by Amvrosii (‘Sivers’, real name Andrei Smirnov, who, among his other acts, ‘canonised’ Adolf Hitler). 6. His supporters included the reserve colonel Leonid Khabarov, who supposedly attempted to start an armed uprising in Ekaterinburg in 2011, which later earned him a prison sentence of several years (Gorlov 2014). 7. Similar holidays existed in the past. Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich set 22 October (of the old Russian calendar) as the Day of the Icon of Our Lady of Kazan, connected with the 1612 events, when the priest Pozharskii entered the Moscow district Kitai-Gorod with this icon prior to the expulsion of the Poles from Moscow. 8. A Catholic, monarchist, ‘paleo-conservative’ (or conservative nationalist) movement, it poses as a reactionary organisation opposing the principles of the French revolution, but it lacks a militant drive (Renouveau français undated). 9. These are all derogatory terms; liberast is made up of ‘liberal’ and ‘pederast’, while banderovtsi originally meant the supporters of Stepan Bandera, but by extension is used to cover any expression of Ukrainian nationalism.

9

Russia’s support for militant nationalism abroad

In previous chapters we have noted that, in recent years, militant right-wing extremism has established a prominent position in Russia’s political landscape. Combined with the overall role of Russia as a superpower, this has made Russia’s right-wing extremist groups desirable partners for players in right-wing extremism in other countries. Concurrently, the official authoritarian powers in Russia have, overtly or covertly, supported—and continue to do so—extreme right organisations abroad. There are a number of reasons for this support. It allows Russia to weaken its international rivals and obtain information from groups that oppose their domestic regimes. The support also puts these foreign groups under an obligation, which can be leveraged for propaganda or classic subversion. During the Yeltsin era and into the 2000s, Russian militant neo-Nazi groups also had another motivation: they wished to win the recognition of their counterparts abroad, and thus to be taken more seriously domestically. It is probable that anti-Putin activities carried out by Russia’s right-wing extremists outside Russia were infiltrated by Russia’s intelligence agencies. In sum: Russia has become a place where certain influential evolutionary trends in right-wing extremism have appeared, and they have influenced the strategies and tactics of right-wing extremists further afield. This chapter examines Russia’s support for militant extremism abroad. We demonstrate these phenomena in several countries where they have manifested themselves most conspicuously and, in conclusion, note the overall trends in Russian-sponsored right-wing extremism. Whereas the Kremlin suppresses militant nationalists at home, it encourages similar groups in Europe and North America. Understandably, this support is often granted to groups that are sympathetic to Russia and its president’s authoritarian regime; however, support for potentially anti-Russian neo-Nazi groups—in pursuit of a ‘chaos strategy’—is not out of the question. In particular cases, we can ask whether Russia’s tactic is merely to support kindred actors showing authoritarian tendencies, or whether it is to destabilise the situation in a country (this might be motivated by Russia’s imperial ambitions or, at least, by its efforts to exert influence there). Trustworthy and verifiable information is often difficult to obtain, and one must proceed from the overall context in which these organisations operate.

210  Russia supports militant nationalism abroad

Poland Viewed from a European perspective, Russo-Polish relations are encumbered by extraordinary historical baggage, and there is much mutual distrust and even antagonism; there are nonetheless several militant nationalist groups in Poland whose activities are clearly congruent with Russian interests. They primarily serve to legitimise Russian policy in the ex-Soviet part of the world through organising Polish delegations and observers for falsified/illegitimate elections and, more recently, as an instrument for stirring up Polish–Ukrainian disputes (including the spread of anti-Ukrainian xenophobia, the destruction of Ukrainian memorials, etc.). The overwhelming majority of these associations cannot be classified as either left or right, as they combine ideological elements of both extremes. Change and associated groups The key pro-Russian actor in Poland is the political party Change (Zmiana). Its leader, Mateusz Piskorski, was even arrested in May 2016 on suspicion of spying for Russia. Allegedly, his activities included legitimising Russian interests in Poland and spreading Russian propaganda in the media and via respectable-looking think tanks. The party emerged in February 2015 as an openly pro-Russian, anti-Western outfit, growing out of what remained of Lepper’s radical populist Self-Defence party (Samoobrona; for the party and its contacts with Russia, see Pankowski 2010: 148–150), the young communists and neo-fascists of the Falanga and marginal groups such as the Patriotic Union (Legion patriotów). Change’s ideology is based on a hatred of NATO, the United States of America and Ukraine, and on support for Putin and his regime, as well as for other authoritarian regimes, such as Assad’s in Syria (Cieśla 2017). In the late 1990s, Piskorski was an active member of the neo-pagan, panSlavic group Niklot, and he worked as an editor on the neo-Nazi magazine, Odala. It was his pan-Slavic worldview that allowed him to establish the first contacts between Polish and Russian radicals. Niklot later cooperated with Lepper’s populist Self-Defence party, leading Piskorski to enter politics: in 2005, he was elected to the Polish Sejm on behalf of the party, moved from Szczecin to Warsaw and became an adviser to Andrzej Lepper, the leader of Self-Defence. From 2005 to 2007, Self-Defence formed a coalition with Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) and the League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin), and found itself part of the ruling power in Poland (Cieśla 2017). In parallel, Piskorski cultivated contacts with Dugin’s groups in Russia, such as the Eurasian Youth Union. Piskorski first appeared in Russia in August 2000 as a member of Niklot, escorted by Polish skinheads. Starting in 2001, he regularly visited Moscow (Shekhovtsov 2016b). His main contacts included Yurii Bondarenko, the nationalist-monarchist director of a Russian state fund, the Centre for

Russia supports militant nationalism abroad 211 Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding, and Aleksei Kochetkov. During the 1990s, the latter was active in Barkashov’s Russian National Unity; he took part in the defence of the Russian White House in October 1993 and then, until 2013, was director of the Russian ‘election monitoring organisation’ CIS-EMO, which endorsed elections in the unrecognised republics of South Ossetia, Transnistria, and elsewhere.1 It was in cooperation with CIS-EMO that Piskorski, acting in his capacity as a member of parliament, went to Transnistria in December 2005. He lauded the democratic standards of the elections there – allegedly more democratic than those in Poland – and promised to encourage Polish recognition of Transnistria’s independence. His career as a member of parliament ended with the early elections in 2007, as he failed to be re-elected to the Sejm (Cieśla 2017). From the beginning of the war in the Donbass, Piskorski supported Novorossiya and Russian military aggression. He visited Donetsk several times, meeting Donetsk People’s Republic (Donetskaya Narodnaya Respublika, DNR) leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko and collecting money to aid the separatists. He also appeared in media outlets such as Russia Today and Sputnik, where he was presented as an important Polish geopolitical analyst. In autumn 2014, the European Centre for Geopolitical Analysis (founded by Piskorski) and the Eurasian Observatory for Democracy & Elections ‘think tank’ (founded by Luc Michel, the Belgian neo-fascist) organised an observation mission for (illegitimate) parliamentary elections in the occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasti, with the separatists posing as members of DNR or Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR). In November 2014, Piskorski and Polish Member of the European Parliament Janusz Korwin-Mikke appeared in Damascus, Syria, at an ‘anti-terrorism conference’ (Shekhovtsov 2016b). Other Change party officials include founder of the Movement for Social Justice and communist, Jacek Kaminski; former press officer of Lepper’s Self-Defence, Tomasz Jankowski (formerly a member of the AllPolish Youth, Mlodziei Wszechpolska); Janusz Niedźwiecki; former youth movement activist, Jaroslaw Augustyniak; head of the Kursk association to protect Soviet memorials in Poland, Jerzy Tyc; Boźena GaworskaAleksandrowicz (who, in April 2015, took part in a separatist congress of the People’s Council of Bessarabia in Odessa); the director of the Russian Culture and Education Association in Bialystok, Andrzej Romańczuk; Bartosz Tomassi (associated with the Stalinist organisation Communist Youth of Poland); and Ludmila Dobrzyniecka, a Stalinist who has been active since August 2016 in the Prizrakunit in Luhansk. Piskorski founded his European Centre for Geopolitical Analysis (ECAG) in January 2007, which poses as an influential, independent think tank. Its ostensible purpose is to provide ‘election monitoring services’, but it mostly focuses on disseminating pro-Russian publications and media output. The creation of seemingly reputable, fake think tanks is a favourite Russian tactic, tried and tested in Poland and beyond. Such institutions are also active

212  Russia supports militant nationalism abroad in Germany and Italy (Piskorski has been personally involved in both of them), and their officials go on propaganda tours of Moscow, Chechnya, Crimea and DNR/LNR. In Germany, the Deutsches Zentrum fur Eurasische Studien is led by Manuel Ochsenreiter, a nationalist editor at the magazine Zuerst! (Shekhovtsov 2016a). In Italy, there is an ECAG clone—Instituto di Alti Studi in Geopolitica e Scienze Ausiliarie, or the Institute of Advanced Studies in Geopolitics and Auxiliary Sciences (ISAG)—associated with the magazine Geopolitica. ISAG was founded in 2010 on the initiative of two Italian neo-fascists, Tiberio Graziani and Daniele Scalea; Scalea is also involved in the London-based pro-Russian think tank called the Centre for the Study of Interventionism, as well as the Paris-based Institute of Democracy and Cooperation (Institut de la démocratie et de la coopération), led by Natalia Narochnitskaya. Eliseo Bartolasi, a Dugin sympathiser and frequent visitor to the Donbass (as a correspondent for the Italian version of Sputnik), also collaborates with Tiberio Graziani and Daniele Scalea. Bartolasi is also involved in the Lombardy-Russia Cultural Association (Associazione Culturale Lombardia Russia), which is associated with the Lega Nord party. ECAG and Change cultivate close ties with Dugin’s Eurasianist groups in Poland, represented by Marcin Martynowski (formerly active in Niklot and Self-Defence), Przemysław Sieradzan and Kornel Sawiński. As of early 2018, Sawiński is the leader of the Polish ‘Strasserists’, i.e. left-wing neo-Nazis associated with the music band of Krakow skinheads, Sztorm 68 (Wenerski and Kacewicz 2017). Zadruga, Falanga and the Camp of Great Poland The group Zadruga draws upon the legacy of the interwar fascist organisation bearing the same name. The modern-day version was founded in Wroclaw in 2006, with the aim of unifying all Slavic countries and peoples into one state headed by Russia (they do not consider Ukraine or Belarus as independent nations). Zadruga rejects Christianity and defends neo-paganism and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, according to which there is a ‘Jewish conspiracy’ that aims to destroy Slavs with the aid of the European Union, NATO and other actors. Zadruga organises paramilitary training near the border with Ukraine and closely collaborates with Russian neo-Nazis (e.g. Michalkov, Petrovskii) of the former reconnaissance and sabotage company Rusich in the LNR. Yan Petrovskii, Michalkov’s deputy commander in Rusich, maintained contact with Zadruga and Falanga. When Rusich left the Donbass in summer 2015, Petrovskii travelled to Norway, where from early 2016 he was involved in the patrols of the Soldiers of Odin. At least once in January 2016, he stayed in Warsaw and Bialystok, where he met members of Zadruga and Falanga who accompanied the music band Russkii styag (Russian Flag). In October 2016, he was deported from Norway back to Russia, and as of February 2018 he lives in St Petersburg (Pigni 2017). On the

Russia supports militant nationalism abroad 213 Russian social network VKontakte is a profile entitled DSHRG Rusich— Support from Poland—which has about 500 followers (https://vk.com/ rusiczpolska). Petrovskii’s visits to Poland were supposedly organised by the neo-Nazi Mariusz Nowak, working with Zadruga. Nowak is an activist of the association National Dawn (Narodowy Świt)—an imitation of Greece’s Golden Dawn—which co-organised a pro-Putin demonstration in front of the Ukrainian embassy in Warsaw in 2014. Falanga was founded in 2009 by a Warsaw University student, Bartosz Bekier. The name refers to an organisation of the same name dating from interwar Poland: the fascist Ruch narodowo-radykalny Falanga, which existed from 1935 to 1939 and became notorious for organising pogroms on Jews. Since the beginning of the war in the Donbass, Falanga has pursued an anti-Ukraine campaign (in May 2014, a few Falanga activists even travelled to the DNR to fight on the separatists’ side) and, together with another Polish organisation, the National Movement (Ruch Narodowy) and the Hungarian Jobbik party, incited pro-Polish and pro-Hungarian separatism in Galicia and Zakarpattia in western Ukraine. Falanga members have vandalised Ukrainian memorials in Poland, organised anti-Ukrainian events in Polish cities with Ukrainian minorities and called for the occupation of western Ukraine. In 2014 they came up with what they called ‘anti-Banderite volunteer patrols’:2 the Falangists moved near the Ukrainian border, dressed in military uniforms, pretended to prevent the infiltration of banderovtsy (illegal immigrants) from Ukraine into Polish territory and held mock paramilitary training camps (Nikonorov 2015). Bekier started his political activities around 2003, first in the All-Polish Youth and then in the National-Radical Camp (Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny), from which he was expelled over his Eurasian syncretism and ideological collaboration with the Maoists, National Bolsheviks and Eurasianists. Bekier is an editor at the disinformation portal of Polish extremists, Xportal.pl, and other pro-Russian internet media outlets. In May 2014, he too travelled to Donetsk, where he spoke at a rally. He maintains contacts in the DNR, for example with the ‘DNR parliament’ speaker Denis Pushilin, with whom he conducted an interview (Shekhovtsov 2014b). He also has some links in the Middle East (in general, Falanga supports Bashar al Assad and Iran as allies in the ‘struggle against Zionism’). In June 2013, Bekier met with Syria’s prime minister and deputy foreign minister and also spent some time at a Hezbollah base in Lebanon. According to Lenta.ru, Bekier has argued that Putin is a good national leader because he supports traditional values, does not allow gay parades and will not fall on his knees in front of the United States of America (Cieśla 2017). Similar to two other organisations discussed in this section, the Camp of Great Poland (Obóz wielkej Polski, OWP) is named after an organisation dating from the period between the two world wars. Like Change, Zadruga and Falanga, its ideology is based on Eurasian syncretism. In September 2014, OWP organised several small rallies in Warsaw, Krakow and Lublin,

214  Russia supports militant nationalism abroad calling on the Polish government to recognise the independence of the DNR and LNR. It also demanded that all relations with the present Ukrainian government be severed. OWP’s main activities are organising anti-Ukrainian rallies and destroying Ukrainian memorials, with the aim of disrupting official Polish-Ukrainian relations. The present leader of the movement is Dawid Berezicki. In 2016, he conducted an interview with Igor Girkin, which was later published on Bekier’s Xportal.pl (cf. Wenerski and Kacewicz 2017). An important member of the OWP leadership (some of whom live permanently in Norway) is the former employee of the Communist secret police, Wojciech Wojtulewicz, who came to OWP from Piskorski’s Change. Another leading figure is Dawid Hudziec, a neo-pagan, pan-Slavist and Eurasianist who operates in the DNR as a ‘war correspondent’ (i.e. he administers the Polish version of the website Novorossia Today there; cf. Gasior 2015), and he promotes the DNR/LNR and the partition of Ukraine between Poland and Russia. He also maintains friendly links with Aleksandr Zakharchenko and Dmitrii Pushilin, among others. Some OWR members fight in DNR units; others travel to Moscow, Crimea and Chechnya, where they pose as journalists and experts. Often they go on these journeys together with members of Change. In 2012 and 2013, OWP members participated in paramilitary exercises near Moscow. In March 2017, a scandal broke when Ukrainian hackers published a communication by Aleksandr Usovskii, a self-appointed political technologist who was recruiting agents of Russian influence in Central Europe, who managed to extract an (insignificant) amount of money from Konstantin Malofeev’s business interests to sponsor pro-Russian organisations. His main contacts in Poland were OWP people; specifically, he donated money to Wojtulewicz to organise the protests in front of the Ukrainian embassy in Warsaw (Reszka and Holcova 2017). Usovskii, a citizen of Belarus, is a former member of the National-Socialist Society and contributed to its newspaper, Korpus, but he is better known as the author of nearly twenty pseudo-historical books in which he expresses adoration for Stalin and claims that Hitler was provoked into war by British and American capitalists.

Hungary Given the contemporary Hungarian leadership’s defiance of the European Union and Budapest’s open distancing from progressivist policies coming from Brussels, Hungary is for Putin’s Russia an exceptional object of interest. The criticisms voiced by a number of Western European politicians regarding the allegedly authoritarian tendencies of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s successive governments logically create a situation where Budapest might be willing to become friends with Moscow. Since 2009–2010, the key Hungarian radical nationalist organisation has been the parliamentary Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik). However, recently the movement seems to have abandoned its radical-nationalist

Russia supports militant nationalism abroad 215 position, aiming more at the political centre. It achieved its greatest electoral success in 2014 when it polled just over 20% of the vote in parliamentary elections, placing it second after Orbán’s Fidesz party. As Jobbik becomes more moderate, it vacates a space that can be filled by smaller pro-Russian extremist nationalist organisations, whose programmes exhibit classic racist and anti-Semitic characteristics. Jobbik During the mid-2000s, Jobbik (Movement for a Better Hungary) was searching for a place in Hungarian politics. It had to contend with its failure in the 2006 parliamentary election, which it contested in a coalition with the MIÉP party as MIÉP–Jobbik a Harmadik Út, but their alliance polled only 2.2% of the vote and it lacked money. Also, its orientation was anti-Russian because Hungarian nationalism tended to be critical of Russia for historical reasons. A remarkable change was in the offing, however. This must be connected with the activities of Béla Kovács, who was, in turn, a sponsor of the movement, the person responsible for Jobbik’s foreign agenda after he joined the movement in 2005, and finally a Minister of the European Parliament after successfully contesting the 2009 elections. As of this writing in February 2018, he has been the subject of a judicial investigation for several years over his alleged cooperation with Russian secret services, which earned him the fitting nickname KGBéla (in Hungarian, Kágébéla). A decade of his activities in Jobbik could not but leave marks on the party. According to unconfirmed information, back in the 1980s, i.e. before the fall of the Hungarian socialist regime, Kovács was recruited by the KGB through his wife Svetlana Istoshina, who allegedly was a KGB running agent (and, incidentally, was previously married to a Japanese nuclear scientist and to an Austrian crime boss). Kovács himself is a Soviet officer’s son. He has repeatedly stated that he spent the years 1988–2003 in the Soviet Union/Russia managing various businesses, but it is unclear exactly what he was doing, or where. When, after returning from Russia, he joined Jobbik in 2005, he began to steer it towards a pro-Russian position. The circle of his contacts was broad: he had ties with Polish politicians (his main contact then was Mateusz Piskorski; cf. András 2014; Pányi 2017), and later he was one of the founders of the Alliance of European National Movements (founded in 2009 by Jobbik, the French National Front, the Swedish National Democrats, the Italian Fiamma Tricolore and the Belgian National Front). In December 2010, Kovács opened an office in Berehove, Zakarpattia oblast’, Ukraine, in the local branch of Jobbik (Jobbik Kárpátalja), but he had to shut it down in March 2014 under pressure from the Ukrainian authorities. In 2014 he went to Crimea to observe the ‘referendum’ there on joining Russia; two months later, in May 2014, Hungary’s attorney-general announced that Kovács was suspected of spying for Russia. In October 2015, the European Parliament lifted Kovács’s immunity (Synitsyn 2017).

216  Russia supports militant nationalism abroad Jobbik’s turn towards a pro-Russian policy started after its leader, Gábor Vona, visited Moscow in December 2008, a trip organised by Kovács. Jobbik gradually started to support Putin’s regime openly. Since the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war, leading Jobbik members have expressed support for the annexation of Crimea and the pseudo-Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics; Jobbik’s Krisztina Morvai, Minister of the European Parliament, was among those who backed the separatist leaders there (LB.ua 2017). In autumn 2014, the ‘elections’ in Donetsk and Luhansk were observed by Kovács and Márton Gyöngyösi. In 2014, a Jobbik delegation (Vona, Gyöngyösi and Kovács) even asked in Moscow for support for the autonomy of Hungarian Ruthenians in Ukraine’s Zakarpattia oblast’ (Juhácz, Győri, Krekó and Desző 2015), an area which Jobbik considers a part of Hungary. In April 2014, Tamás Gaudy Nagy, Minister of the European Parliament, made a speech at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in which he praised Russia for annexing Crimea, because Crimea was, in Jobbik’s view, Russian; Zakarpattia, similarly, should be Hungarian (Shekhovtsov 2014c). The party even planned to support a volunteer unit, the Legion of Saint Istvan, to support the Donbass separatists, but the idea was not realised. Jobbik senior figures are in personal contact with Aleksandr Dugin, who in 2013 invited the Jobbik leader, Gábor Vona, to Moscow to speak at Lomonosov University, where Dugin then worked. In his lecture, Vona argued that Russia was a protector of European traditions and values (Shekhovtsov 2014a). Several pro-Russian Hungarian social media groups and disinformation initiatives are linked with Jobbik; examples include the popular Facebook group, We Stand by Russia, founded by Jobbik activist Maté Kovács (Juhácz, Győri, Zgut and Desző 2017). Pro-Russian militant nationalist organisations in Hungary With Jobbik recently turning towards the centre of the political spectrum, some extremist and paramilitary organisations, which sometimes have links with Jobbik, are becoming the main propagators of Russian influence in Hungary. These are, primarily, the Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement and some smaller paramilitary groups (e.g. the Army of Outlaws, the Wolves and the Hungarian Self-Defence Movement). The Wolves (Farkasok), led by Gábor Barcsa-Turner, were founded in 2011 as a ‘youth organisation, training with airsoft guns’. There are professional trainers involved, including Zsolt Dér, a member of the Army of Outlaws and a veteran of the Balkans wars, who wanted to go to the Donbass to fight on the separatists’ side but ultimately remained in Hungary and became assistant to Hungarian parliament Deputy Speaker Tamás Sneider (the former leader of a skinhead group in Eger, northern Hungary), who is a member of Jobbik. The Hungarian Self-Defence Movement (Magyar Önvédelmi Mozgalom) was founded in 2014 by Jobbik member Attila László. It is a reincarnation

Russia supports militant nationalism abroad 217 of sorts of the Hungarian Guard, founded by Jobbik in 2007, which subsequently split into several groups and was banned by authorities (Juhácz, Győri, Zgut and Desző 2017). One of these secessionist paramilitary bands is led by Barna Csibi, who moved from Romania to Zakarpattia oblast’ in Ukraine to join forces with the Donbass separatists and defend the local Hungarians from Ukrainian nationalists. Csibi’s view of Russia is evident from his remark that ‘Vladimir Putin is the only person to support the autonomy of Eastern European Nations’ (Nolan 2014). The Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement The Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement (Hatvannégy Vármegyei Ifjusági Mozgalom, HVIM) derives its name from the administrative division of pre-WWI Hungary, which was made up of 64 counties. Its declared objective is a revision of the 1920 Trianon Treaty, through which Hungary lost many territories, and the unification of all Hungarians in one state. It was founded in 2001 by nationalist activist László Toroczkai, who remained its leader until 2013. At that point, he became the mayor of Ásotthalom, a town near the border with Serbia, and in that office he became particularly notorious for producing a militant anti-immigration video. In 2016, he became the deputy chair of Jobbik. The present HVIM leader is Gyula Győrgi Zagyva. The movement runs the website deres.tv and the internet radio station Szent Korona Radió, whose founder and editor-in-chief is Gábor Barcsa-Turner, who is both deputy chair of HVIM and the leader of the Wolves. Beyond its anti-immigration rhetoric (since 2014), the movement focuses on inciting nationalist unrest in neighbouring countries that have strong Hungarian minorities; the Ukrainian nationalist organisation Karpatska Sich in turn warned HVIM and Jobbik to refrain from any activities in Zakarpattia oblast’. In February 2015, HVIM and the Jobbik youth wing organised a protest against the drafting of Zakarpattia ethnic Hungarians into the Ukrainian army, and in the same year they also held a rally in Budapest in support of Aleksandr Zakharchenko of the separatist DNR to thank him for negotiating the release of captured Ukrainian army soldiers of Hungarian origin (Juhácz, Győri, Krekó and Desző 2015). Force and Determination In July 2017, a news report ran in Hungarian and international media about the emergence of a new extreme-right party that would seek voters’ favour in the 2018 elections under the name Force and Determination (Erő és Elszántság). It intends to promote the idea of ‘ethnic self-defence’ against immigrants and the Roma, as well as the preservation of the ‘rights of the white European man’. One of the leaders of this new outfit is Zsolt Tyirityán, the leader of the Army of Outlaws (Betyársereg), which is the main component of the new party. Tyirityán, who has a history of militancy (e.g. in 2006–2009 he was jailed for

218  Russia supports militant nationalism abroad an attack on Roma), announced at the launch of the party a war on liberalism, which he described as the culprit for the loss of national consciousness and racial identity among the population. Also incorporated into the party is the lesser-known radical university-based group Identitesz, led by university student Balász László. Inspired by right-wing ultra-conservative thinkers such as Oswald Spengler, Carl Schmitt and Aleksandr Dugin, this is a Hungarian branch of the identitarian movement that seeks to make racism a respectable ideology. Hungary’s identitarians enjoy close links with the neo-Hungarist Pax Hungarica Movement. With its openly racist rhetoric, Force and Determination seems more radical than any other political organisation that has sought parliamentary representation since the fall of communism. The movement’s strategic aim is probably to appeal to the more radical segment of Jobbik’s electorate because that movement has become more moderate. According to some Hungarian journalists, such tactics might be congruent with the strategy of Orbán’s ruling party Fidesz, which sees Jobbik as its competitor (Hungarian Spectrum 2017). The Army of Outlaws was founded by László Toroczkai in 2008, but later Zsolt Tyirityán, a former member of Hungary’s special forces, took the helm. The group organises paramilitary training and openly declares its readiness to commit political violence. Its members include former security forces servicemen and sportsmen. It defends white supremacy, anti-Semitism and anti-Roma sentiments, organises violent attacks on the Roma (or threatens to do so), and prepares for guerrilla warfare. The organisation is able to mobilise about 200 people on short notice. It consists of a loose alliance of various nationalist cells (‘clans’) that are subordinate to the leader. Boasting its contacts with unnamed ‘Russian patriots’, the Army of Outlaws is entirely open to Russian propaganda, which it embraces and disseminates further. Tyirityán programmatically emphasises the negative role of the West, describing NATO as the aggressor in the conflicts now unfolding, including the one taking place in Ukraine. He has called the Euromaidan a putsch organised by the United States of America and the European Union against the legally elected (though corrupt) Ukrainian government. He sees Putin’s regime as a guarantor of peace and order and Russia as a global player that provides a desirable counterweight to the United States of America. The organisation’s website includes the report of an Army of Outlaw member about his trip to Russia, describing it as a country of ‘law and order’ and ‘normality’, where ‘it is not fashionable to be gay and being a patriot is not illegal’, as contrasted with the West, infected as it is with liberal values (Juhácz, Győri, Zgut and Desző 2017). The Hungarian National Front The Hungarian National Front (Magyar Nemzeti Arcvonal, MNA), a paramilitary neo-Nazi group, was founded as early as 1989 and has acted independently of other militant nationalist circles. Allegedly, it was linked with

Russia supports militant nationalism abroad 219 agents of the Russian military intelligence service, GRU, and staff at the Russian embassy in Budapest. For instance, GRU officers, enjoying diplomatic cover from the Russian embassy, allegedly took part in the MNA airsoft gun training sessions in 2010–2012. In ideological terms, the MNA draws upon the legacy of ‘Hungarism’. This is a Hungarian version of Nazism, promoted in the 1930s by Ferenc Szálasi, the leader of the Arrow Cross Party (Nyilaskeresztes Párt), which, late in World War II, organised a putsch that installed a pro-Nazi puppet government in Hungary that lasted from October 1944 to March 1945. The MNA is led by the nearly 80-year-old István Győrkös (whose son has also been involved in the MNA leadership), who, as a minor, took part in the 1956 Hungarian uprising, for which he was jailed. While in prison, he became acquainted with the former leaders of the Arrow Cross Party regime, from whom he adopted Hungarist ideas. Sometime after 2000, he moved from Győr to the town of Bőny in northern Hungary, where he and his supporters organised paramilitary training camps on his land. It was here that GRU agents often visited him, sometimes several times in a year (András and Pányi 2016). In autumn 2016, police officers arrested him for illegal possession of arms; Győrkös resisted and shot one policeman dead. He is now in custody, awaiting sentence. In 2012, the MNA split in two because some members objected to the friendly relations between Győrkös and Gyula Thürmer, the chair of the small Hungarian communist party, called the Workers Party (Munkáspárt). The secessionist group is led by Gábor Szalma, who also took over the MNA website, Jövőnk.info (for that reason, Győrkös founded a new one: Hidfő, which translates as the Bridgehead). Although Jövőnk.info displays sympathies towards Russia and Putin’s regime, it is primarily geared towards Hungarist propaganda and cannot be described as an agent of Russian influence. By contrast, Győrkös’s site Hidfő is, according to Hungarian experts, an instrument used by Russian intelligence agencies to orchestrate disinformation campaigns (András and Pányi 2016). Analysts of the Hungarian think tank Political Capital have noted that the ‘professional and constantly updated contents [of Hidfő], its occasional exclusives, articles on topics concerned with energy policy, geopolitics, economic and foreign-policy issues suggest a much deeper background than is typical of the information sources of such groupings. This suggests that Hidfő is not just a website of Hungarists, but also a public message board and propaganda website of Russian intelligence agencies active in Hungary’ (Juhácz, Győri, Zgut and Desző 2017). The website is presently hosted on a Russian server (hidfo.ru) and is updated almost daily, even though Győrkös is in custody. According to the investigative journalism website VSquare, Győrkös has cultivated contacts not just with Russian secret services, but also with Béla Kovács. Allegedly, in the early 2010s, their families were close, but later ended their relations for unknown reasons (Pányi 2017). Also testifying to the personal ties between the various figures of Hungary’s militant nationalism is the

220  Russia supports militant nationalism abroad fact that Zsolt Tyirityán was a member of MNA between 1995 and 2000 and described Győrkös as a ‘deeply religious man who loves his family, and a true patriot’ (Juhácz, Győri, Zgut and Desző 2017).

Serbia Outside the ex-Soviet Union, Russian nationalists have traditionally had the strongest links with Serbia, thanks to the Russophile mood among the majority of Serbian society, based, first, on the argument of the common identity of the Orthodox Slavs and, second, on the image of Russia as the saviour of the Balkan Slavs from the Ottoman Empire. This image is recast today in the idea of Russia as a protector against the United States of America, NATO and the European Union, or, plainly said, ‘the West’, which allegedly undermines Serbian rights by siding with the plan to create a Greater Albania and, by exporting decadent Western values, destroys the traditional Serbian national and religious identity. These mutual sympathies were already apparent during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, when Russian volunteers—mostly of an Orthodoxmonarchist persuasion—fought on the Serbian side. In September 1992, the Russian Voluntary Unit-1 (Russkii dobrovolcheskii otryad) was formed in Herzegovina. Its core consisted of a few individuals from St Petersburg, whose trip to the Balkans was facilitated by the firm Rubikon, led by Yuri Belyaev. Belyaev, already active at that time among radical nationalists, later founded the Freedom Party (Partiya svobody), a militant St Petersburg organisation that lasted from 2001 to 2009 and particularly attracted nationalist-socialist skinheads (after its demise, its members transferred to the Northern Brotherhood). The Russian Voluntary Unit-1 was headed by Valerii Vlasenko, a former marine and veteran of the conflict in Transnistria. The unit had only about 15 people and fell apart in late 1992. Soon enough, at the turn of 1992–1993, the Russian Voluntary Unit-2 was formed, once again with Belyaev’s help. Also known as the Tsar’s Wolves (Tsarskie volki), its core was made up of veterans of the Transnistria conflict. It was commanded by Aleksandr ‘As’ Mukharev, whose deputy, Igor Girkin, was to become notorious later (Polikarpov 2004; Vladimirov 2014).3 At the same time, in January 1993, there appeared in Višegrad the ‘Cossack’ unit, First Cossack Sotnya (Pervaya kazachya sotnya), comprising about 40 people and commanded by Aleksandr Zagrebov, an Afghanistan veteran who in 1992 fought the Croatians in Krajina. Other small groups of Russian volunteers were active throughout 1993 around Srebrenica; Belyaev was once again instrumental in the creation of these units. Russian volunteers also worked with Žejlko ‘Arkan’ Ražatović’s Serbian Volunteer Group (the Tigers) and Vojislav Šešelj’s White Eagles in south-eastern Bosnia, where they were charged with protecting and accompanying convoys for the Republika Srpska Army as part of Arkan’s smuggling operations. (Vojislav Šešelj was the chair of the Serbian Radical party.)

Russia supports militant nationalism abroad 221 Aleksandr Barkashov allegedly also recruited volunteers via his Russian National Unity organisation, and in 1993 supposedly attempted to form a Russian National Legion, but was unsuccessful (Koknar 2003; Varykhanov 2003; Polikarpov 2004). Serbian nationalist organisations The dominant players among the Serbian nationalists are those who push for a Greater Serbia; this is combined with monarchist traditions and a veneration of the interwar Chetnik movement. Ideologically, the various organisations differ in the degree of their populism and Orthodox fundamentalism. Some form of nationalism is typical of most of the relevant actors within the Serbian party system: nationalism is avowed by the government Serbian Progressive Party, which split off from the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), as well as by the post-Milošević Socialist Party of Serbia, led by Ivica Dačić, who enjoys close links with members of the Russian government. Other Serbian parliamentary parties such as SRS, the Democratic Party of Serbia (Demokratska stranka Srbije, DSS) and the Serbian Movement ‘Doors’ (Srpski pokret Dveri) are right-wing populist or conservative nationalist outfits, which can be described as belonging to the radical right, but they are not militant extremists (Stojarova 2012: 144–158, 2013: 35). The individual members or organisational components of the coalition led by the government Serbian Progressive Party (Srpska napredna stranka, SNS), which, in the most recent parliamentary election in April 2016, polled 48.3% of the vote, must be described as strongly pro-Russian. This sentiment is the strongest in the Serbian People’s Party (Srpska narodna partija), led by Nenad Popović—who is also the director of the Association for RussoSerbian Friendship and in March 2014 observed the Crimea ‘referendum’— and political entities created by the oligarch Bogoljub Karić, who for some time evaded prosecution by hiding in Russia. According to available sources, Russian links with Serbian nationalist organisations are coordinated by Sergei Zheleznyak, the deputy speaker of the Russian State Duma, who often publicly comments upon events in the Balkans, particularly in Serbia and Montenegro. Zheleznyak was also a guest at the pre-election SNS congress in spring 2016 (Petrovskaya and Janković 2017). The SRS, which polled 8.1% of the vote in the 2016 election and was placed third with 22 seats, was founded in 1991 and took an active part in the Yugoslav war. Since its inception, the party has been led by Vojislav Šešelj, a scandal-ridden nationalist who was investigated for war crimes in the Hague (he was acquitted in March 2016). Šešelj has maintained contact with Russian nationalist and populist politicians, including Vladimir Zhirinovskii, since the mid-1990s. Whereas the SRS stands on a platform of secular populist nationalism, the other political nationalist groups (Dveri and Obraz) promote a so-called Saint Sava nationalism, i.e. a clerical nationalism that is linked with Orthodox

222  Russia supports militant nationalism abroad religious fundamentalism. The last nationalist group in the contemporary Serbian parliament is a coalition between the DSS and Dveri, which together polled 5.0% of the vote in the 2016 elections (Dveri won seven seats, and DSS won six seats). DSS is openly pro-Russian and anti-Western, and, like the SNS, this group signed a cooperation agreement with United Russia. The party’s chair, Sanda Rašković, and other leaders often visit Russia and Crimea. Dveri is a radical right-wing group led by Boško Obradović, which in 1999 emerged out of the student magazine of an Orthodox nationalist youth association. Like several other organisations, Dveri draws upon the legacy of the Orthodox fundamentalist nationalist philosophy conceived by Nikola Velimirović, a bishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church who died in 1956 and is considered one of the main Serbian anti-Western thinkers and the founder of the inter-war Saint Sava nationalism. Some members of the movement observed the illegitimate Crimean referendum in March 2014 (Centar za evroatlantske studiĭe 2016). In addition to these parties, there are a number of interlinked non-parliamentary nationalist parties or movements in Serbia. For example, the Narodni slobodarski pokret was established in December 2016 by renaming Miroslav Parović’s organisation Third Serbia (Treća Srbija), which had previously split off from the Dveri movement (Parović was one of its founders). Involved largely in local politics, the leaders of this party often visit Russia. In December 2014, for instance, Parović was received by the political authorities in Crimea and Sevastopol; later, a French National Front Minister of the European Parliament invited him to the European Parliament. In October 2014, Parović organised the conference New Europe, which had as its theme the creation of a Paris-Berlin-Moscow-Belgrade axis. The Serbian League (Srpska liga) was formed in 2015 by breaking away from Parović’s Third Serbia. It is headed by Aleksandar Džurdžev, who is also one of the leaders of the Serbian-Russian Movement (Srpsko-ruski pokret) and openly advocates an alliance between Serbia and Russia, modelled on that between Russia and Belarus (Đurđev 2016). In July 2016, a Serbian League delegation visited the occupied Donetsk (Ishchenko 2017). In November 2015, Vladan Glisić, a former Dveri leader who in 2012 stood for election as president on a Dveri ticket, established his National Network (Narodna mreža). The Serbian Assembly Zavetnici (Srpski sabor Zavetnici), one of the most visible pro-Russian organisations in the country, was founded in 2012, with nationalist students as its target group. Formally a political party, it polled only 0.7% of the vote in the 2016 elections. Appearing in its leadership are Stefan Stamenkovski, Milica Džurdžević and Milica’s father Rajko Džurdžević, a former activist of Šešelj’s SRS (Centar za evroatlantske studiĭe 2016). The origin of Zavetnici is rather opaque. Officially, it was founded by young people, but it is probable that older and more experienced figures stand behind and exploit the enthusiastic youngsters who are the public face of the party. This organisation commands a

Russia supports militant nationalism abroad 223 certain mobilising potential. The chronological sequence of the following two events is also of interest: first, in early November 2016, a delegation of this party went to Moscow, where they met Zhelezniyak, the State Duma deputy speaker. In December 2016, the Zavetnici leadership met the leaders of other Serbian pro-Russian organisations in Belgrade to unite and coordinate actions against the European Union and NATO. In addition to Stamenkovski, this meeting included Vladan Glisić (National Network), Miroslav Parović (Narodni slobodarski pokret) and Miša Vacić (previously of the 1389 Serbian National Movement [SNP 1389], now of the Assembly of the Serbian Right [Sobor srpske desnice]). The truly militant Serbian groups—i.e. Obraz, SNP 1389, SNP ‘Naši’ and Serbian Action (Srpska akcija)—are marginal. The Orthodox fundamentalist nationalist movement Obraz was founded in 1993 by Nebojša Krstić to promote Saint Sava nationalism and strong anti-Semitism.4 In 2001, Obraz members attracted attention by their participation in the violent suppression of an attempted gay pride march in Belgrade. In the same year, Krstić died and the leadership was assumed by Mladen Obradović, then a theology student. In 2012, Serbia’s Constitutional Court banned the movement, but since 2017 it has been active again under the name Otadžbinski pokret Obraz (Homeland Movement Obraz), still under Obradović’s leadership. Obraz is characterised by its violence against the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender community; Obraz members were involved in disrupting the first gay pride parade in Belgrade in 2010 (there were two previous attempts to organise a parade in 2001 and 2009, but they failed due to strong nationalist resistance and the police’s inability to protect the march). In 2010, nearly 6,000 police officers faced the same number of nationalist protesters (150 officers and 20 civilians were injured). Obradović was tried for his participation in these clashes (Nasković 2017). Further gay pride parades were banned in Belgrade until 2014, and they have been held regularly since, largely without incident. Founded in 2004, the SNP 1389 movement carried out a number of nationalist and homophobic provocations. They have publicly denied the Srebrenica massacre and protested against the extradition of General Ratko Mladić to The Hague, often in cooperation with SRS, Obraz and Dveri. They violently attacked the participants of a gay festival in Belgrade in September 2008. In 2012, the Serbian Constitutional Court refused to ban the movement (Ustavni sud 2012). According to their own website, they maintain contact with the Camp of Great Poland (OWP) and Róbert Švec’s Slovak Revival Movement (snp1389.rs). For a long time, SNP 1389 was led by Miša Vacić, who in the past received a suspended sentence for discrimination, arms possession and obstruction of official business. The notorious Serb National Movement Naši was founded in 2006 after the model of Kremlin youth organisations (hence its name, which is adopted from that of the Russian organisation, Nashi). Naši’s leader is Ivan Ivanović, previously investigated for authoring a list of ‘thirty Serb-haters’ and suggesting their extermination. The movement promotes cooperation with

224  Russia supports militant nationalism abroad Russia and the integration of Serbia within Eurasia, and it fights against integration into the European Union and NATO. Some of its members are skinheads or football hooligans, who were previously involved in homophobic violence in Belgrade (Centar za evroatlantske studiĭe 2016). The militant nationalist Srbska akcija group has a similar orientation. In January 2018, mentions appeared in the media of the paramilitary Serbian Honour (Srbska čast), allegedly linked with the ruling circles in Republika Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and, in this sense, is potentially a tool of destabilising the political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The movement is led by former Serbian specnaz (special forces) member, Bojan Stojković, and the Bosnian branch is led by Igor Bilbija from the city of Prijedor; Bilbija was previously tried for organised crime activities. There is speculation that, in Bosnia, this association acts in the interests of Milorad Dodik, the current president of Republika Srpska, one of the two constituent entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina created according to an ethnic principle after the signing of the 1995 Dayton Agreement (the other entity being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina). Specifically, it has been suggested that Serbian Honour is intimidating opposition to Dodik. There has also been speculation in the media about Stojković’s links with the Russian Humanitarian Centre in his hometown of Niš and with Russian veteran associations—in December 2015 he met a delegation of the association Heirs of Victory (Nasledniki pobedy), led by Valerii Kalyakin, who gave Stojković a medal for organising anti-NATO protests. This Humanitarian Centre allegedly provided him with uniforms for the members of his group, who were supposedly trained at the Humanitarian Centre base (this is a claim made by Bosnia’s security minister, Dragan Mektić). Many Serbian Honour members have a significant criminal past. Although they pose in military uniforms, weapons in hand, they claim to be members of a humanitarian organisation (Klix.ba 2018; RBC 2018; Mondo.rs 2018; Grani.ru 2018; Telegraf 2018). Serbian nationalists in the Donbass in the role of foreign fighters Russian volunteers were involved in the 1990s Yugoslav wars, and, similarly, Serbian volunteers and mercenaries appeared in the ranks of the so-called ‘Crimea militia’ and later in the Donbass, in the DNR/LNR combat units. The total number of Serbs involved has been estimated at 250–300. First, several dozen arrived in March 2014 to oversee the course of the Crimea ‘referendum’; they were in the Priest Lazar Unit commanded by nationalistBratislav Živković. In late June 2014, they joined the Donbass separatists and renamed themselves the Jovan Šević Unit, named after the commander of a Serbian hussar regiment commander who swore vassalage in the mid-eighteenth century to Russia and was involved in the creation of the militarised area known as Slavo-Serbia, which included part of what is today the Donbass (Informator 2014). The leader of the Serbian radicals,

Russia supports militant nationalism abroad 225 Vojislav Šešelj, even proclaimed that Serbians have a right to a ‘Serbian country’ in eastern Ukraine (Ishchenko 2017). In October 2014, most of the fighters of the unit returned to Serbia. Živković reappeared in the media in November 2017, when he was apprehended on Romania’s Black Sea coast for photographing army radar facilities. He was deported back to Serbia and banned from entering Romania for fifteen years (Obozrevatel 2017). In November 2014, another unit of Serbian volunteers was created, called the Serbian Hussars or the Serbian Hussar Regiment, named after a unit of the same name once established by order of Tsar Peter the Great. This unit was supposedly led by Ivan Ivanovič, nicknamed ‘Kum’ (Godfather), but nothing is known about its activities. Serbians have also appeared in other separatist units. For example, Nikola Perović, who formerly served in French special units, appeared in the small Unité Continentale (Continental Unit), founded by French neo-Eurasianists linked with the movement Jeunesses identitaires (Young Identitarians). The unit, part of the Prizrak brigade, was disbanded in January 2015. Some of the Frenchmen supposedly later joined the ‘Don Cossacks’. According to Anton Shekhovtsov, their arrival in the Donbass was organised by Mikhail Polynkov, the ‘chief of the mobilisation department’ in Girkin’s Novorossiya movement, who continues to recruit volunteers for the Donbass, mostly from Russia (Shekhovtsov 2014f; Reshetnyak and Shandra 2016). Nikola Mirković, an activist who lives in France, is a member of the association Solidarité Kosovo (a satellite of the Bloc Identitaire) and the leader of VOSTOK France Solidarité Donbass, and also has links with French Eurasianists and identitarians. He has met with Aleksandr Zakharchenko in Donetsk. The impact of these units on the overall course of the war has been practically nil, but they have often been used in Russian propaganda. The Russian organisation Kosovo Front (Kosovskii front), active in the Balkans since 2008 under the leadership of Aleksandr Kravchenko, a volunteer of the Yugoslav wars in which he served with Girkin (Centar za evroatlantske studiĭe 2016; Stelmach and Cholodov 2017), also recruited Serbian volunteers. Connected with the Kosovo Front is the Patriotic Front (Patriotski front), an association of former servicemen from the Serbian security forces, which cooperates with the Russian association Flag (Styag, a nationalist fraternity of Chechnya and Afghanistan veterans).

South-Eastern Europe: Greece and Bulgaria The dominant force in pro-Russian far-right extremism in Greece is no marginal party, but the parliamentary Golden Dawn (Chrysí Avgí). Incidentally, pro-Russian sympathies are typical of the majority of Greece’s political parties, of various ideological stripes, from the government’s farleft Syriza to its coalition partner, the right-wing populist Independent Greeks (Anel), which previously signed a memorandum on cooperation with United Russia.

226  Russia supports militant nationalism abroad Golden Dawn started to play an important role in Greek politics in 2012, when it polled 7.0% of the vote, receiving twenty-one seats in the 300-seat parliament. Its conduct was scandalous even by Greek standards, in a country where people are used to all sorts of things: Golden Dawn leadership was arrested and charged with violent crimes and organising a criminal network. Despite this, the party defended its position in the September 2015 election, gaining 7.0% of the vote and eighteen seats. Golden Dawn maintains contact with Russia’s Aleksandr Dugin, whose Eurasianist ideas are quite popular in Greece. Anel Minister of Defence Panos Kammenos, one of the most pro-Russian members of the government, also boasts contact with Dugin, and Golden Dawn supposedly had contacts with Russian Image in the past. Dugin met Golden Dawn leaders in May 2014 to discuss the situation in Ukraine, bilateral relationships between the two countries and other issues. Dugin also conducts a public correspondence with the arrested Golden Dawn leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos. Golden Dawn criticises sanctions against Russia and advocates a struggle against ‘American and European hegemony’. Russia, the party says, is Greece’s natural ally in its struggle against American expansion and the ‘culture of usurers and decadence’. There has been speculation about direct or indirect funding of the party by the Kremlin. Although Golden Dawn’s xenophobic and anti-Muslim policies are not entirely in accordance with the Kremlin’s endeavours to defend non-racist conservative doctrines, Putin’s statism and authoritarian nationalism is clearly a source of fascination for Golden Dawn, whose members describe Putin as a potential ‘saviour’ of Greece’s economy. However, they do not emphasise religious Orthodoxy (Lawrence 2013; Gais 2015; Political Capital 2016). In Bulgaria, the entity that has long served as the main contact with Russia is the nationalist party Attack (Ataka), which has been sitting in parliament since 2005. It has been part of the United Patriots (Obedineni patrioti) bloc since 2017, and of the governing coalition; its partners are not pro-Russian, however. The party advocates for Bulgaria’s withdrawal from NATO and the European Union, and it openly supports Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the Donbass separatists. Party members, including the leader, Volen Siderov, participate in pro-Russian conferences or ‘observation missions’ in Crimea or DNR/LNR. For example, Pavel Chernev and Kirill Kolev observed the March 2014 Crimea ‘referendum’, while Georgi Sengalovich did the same for the autumn 2014 ‘elections’ in Donetsk (Shekhovtsov 2014e, 2014f; Bechev 2015). As the European migration crisis unfolded, nationalist organisations appeared in Bulgaria, and there has been speculation about Russian support for them, be it in terms of funding or military training. So far, these rumours are unproven. Attention has been drawn to two linked anti-immigration vigilante associations in particular: the Bulgarian National Movement Shipka (Balgarsko natsionalno dvizhenie Shipka) and the Military Union Vasil Levski (Balgarski vojinski sayuz Vasil Levski), founded in 2014 under the leadership

Russia supports militant nationalism abroad 227 of Vladimir Rusev (Papakochev 2016). In late June 2016 in Burgas, the members of the former attacked demonstrators who protested the arrival of Russia’s Night Wolves in Bulgaria (Mediapool.bg 2016).

Germany It is a historical paradox that Russia’s right-wing extremists have established some of their closest links with their partners in Germany, and that some contemporary German extreme-right groups support Putin’s regime. Admittedly, that regime strongly emphasises conservative values, yet it also celebrates the traditions linked with the victory of the Soviet Union over Hitler’s armies during the Great Patriotic War (the Russian designation for World War II). Groups with specific historical experiences—e.g. Russian Germans who gradually moved into German territory (Haltaufderheide 2016) and the Russian diaspora in Germany, in which branches of Russian extreme-right groups, notably Pamyat’, have been active since the 1990s— have played an appreciable role in the establishment of contact between the German and Russian extreme right. As in other European countries, the war in Ukraine has split the German extremists into those who are impressed by the traditionalist Ukrainian extreme-right and neo-Nazi organisations, and those who show sympathies towards the pro-Kremlin separatists. The links between the German and Russian militant far right were first created in the early 1990s and soon produced shared platforms. The first substantial activity of the German extreme right in Russia had, however, a different aim, and it capitalised on Russia’s weakened position after the disintegration of the Eastern Bloc: this was the aid provided to Russia’s Germans to facilitate their resettlement in Germany. German right-wing extremists came up with the idea, which was unacceptable to Russia, to resettle Russian Germans from the Volga region and Central Asia into the area of former East Prussia, today’s Kaliningrad oblast’. Germany could then, the extremists argued, annex the territory. In 1991, the National-Democratic Party of Germany (National demokratische Partei Deutschlands, NPD) established the Friendship and Relief Organization East (Freundschafts und Hilfswerk Ost), which was to be active among the Russian Germans, and other German extreme-right parties and organisations have founded similar outfits. The chair of the German People’s Union, Gerhard Frey, attempted to negotiate support for his demands with Vladimir Zhirinovskii in Moscow but was unsuccessful. In 1993 in Schwarzborn, the German-Russia Joint Venture – Support Association for North-East Prussia (Deutsch-Russischen Gemeinschaftswerk – Förderverein Nord-Ostpreußen) was established, with the involvement of former extreme-right terrorist Manfred Roeder (Bundesamt für Verfassungschutz 1996: 187–188). These attempts at irredentism were unsuccessful. The initiatives just described exerted virtually no influence over the non-negligible number of Russian Germans who have gradually resettled in Germany since the 1980s.5

228  Russia supports militant nationalism abroad The establishment of connections between Russian and German extremeright groups continued. In 1993 in Moscow, representatives of the National Offensive (Nationale Offensive) and Aleksandr Barkashov’s Russian National Unity agreed to cooperate despite the fact that, in December 1992, National Offensive was banned in Germany. Until the mid-1990s, several other German extreme-right groups expressed their support for Russian National Unity, including during the latter’s involvement in the ‘war for parliament’ in 1993 (Fromm and Kernbach 1994: 88). A truly distinctive platform for cooperation between Russian and German extreme-right groups was only established in the second half of the 2000s. In August 2006, the German-Russian Peace Movement of European Spirit (Deutsch-Russischen Friedensbewegung Europäischen Geistes e.V.) was established, proclaiming as its purpose the strengthening of the relationship between the ‘fraternal nations’ of Russia and Germany and the creation of a Berlin–Moscow axis. On 31 March 2007, the movement organised a meeting in Hilburghausen, attended by notable figures of the extreme right, including Manfred Roeder, lawyer Jürgen Rieger; and singer Frank Rennicke. Roeder, the chair of the German Civic Initiative (Deutsche Bürgerinitiative), talked with Slavic Power’s Dmitrii Demushkin at this meeting (Maegerle 2009: 467–468). Further cooperation between German and Russian right-wing extremists has been sponsored by the Continent Europe Foundation (Kontinent Europa Stiftung), led by the Swedish businessman, Patrik Brinkmann. Established in 1994, the foundation’s intention was to help create a European sense of belonging based on ethnopluralism. Its activities have been marked by an anti-American bias. Russia was to be included in the European cooperation. The foundation’s council included Vyacheslav Dashichev (a former adviser to Mikhail Gorbachev, who appeared at several events organised by the Russian far right) and Aleksandr Kamkin, a foreign representative of the National Patriotic Russian Front Pamyat’. Kamkin also spoke at the Festival of Nations, organised by the NPD in 2007 in Jena (Behörde für Inneres und Sport 2008). In return, several members of the Continent Europe Foundation and Manfred Roeder spoke at the conference ‘The Future of the White World’, organised in June 2007 in Moscow by the journal Athenum (Behörde für Inneres und Sport 2008). Finally, in 2008, a NPD delegation, led by Jens Pühse, negotiated with Movement Against Illegal Immigration (Dvizhenie protiv nelegal’noi immigratsii) representatives in Moscow (Maegerle 2009: 463). Acting in collaboration with Russian Germans, representatives of the Russian association Russovet took part in the neo-Nazi anti-war day in Dortmund in 2009, among other events (Russovet.tv 2009). It is not without interest that the NPD, which in 2008 established the Working Group of Russian Germans, having as its aim the promotion of good relations with Russia (Haltaufderheide 2016), used Russian-language leaflets in its domestic campaigning. When a new successful right-wing populist group—the Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland)—emerged, many Russian Germans

Russia supports militant nationalism abroad 229 with extreme-right leanings sided with the organisation (Haltaufderheide 2016). Alternative für Deutschland is not extremist, however. The relationships between activists of Russian and German nationalist organisations with links to militants naturally continue to evolve. In November 2017, representatives of the Russian Imperial Movement participated in the congress ‘Together for Europe’, organised by The Right (Die Rechte) party near Dortmund (Pravyi Vzglyad 2017b). Links with Russia continue to be typical of some of the militant subcultures in Germany. The intensive discussions during the 1990s and the early 2000s among German neo-Nazis concerned with whether Russians and Slavs in general can be understood as racially equal, Arian partners, ended in a consensus: cooperation was possible (Antifaschistisches Info-Blatt 2017: 21). As a result, there were in the 2000s joint musical projects between the German and Russian White Power scene (e.g. a split-CD by the German band Nahkampf and Russia’s Kolovrat in 2001, and the appearance of the German band Oidoxie at a concert in Moscow in 2006) (Apabiz e.V. 2002: 446; Maegerle 2009: 468). In 2012, there was a joint project by the bands Kategorie C, Moshpit and Brainwash. Today the cooperation between German and Russian extreme-right activists develops most dynamically in the area of martial arts, in which many extremists are involved; there is, however, strong resistance among martial arts practitioners who do not wish to be associated with the extreme right. The German extremists favour certain clothing brands, suh as the Russian brand White Rex, allegedly founded on the symbolic date of 14 August 2008; Denis Nikitin is the person behind the company (Runter von der Matte 2017). White Rex sponsors various mixed martial arts tournaments; for example, the traditional ‘Fight of the Nibelungs’, most recently held in October 2017 in Kirchhundem. According to experts, the tournaments are organised by people with a Hammerskins background (Claus 2017). Nikitin himself visited a fight sports seminar, organised by Young National Democrats (Jungen Nationaldemokraten), a NPD youth wing, in Lower Saxony (Janzen 2017).

The Czech Republic Among the far right, the tradition of Czech-Russian ties reaches back to the interwar period. The White Guard armies and the Czechoslovak legions fought Bolshevism together, and there was a substantial Russian émigré community in Czechoslovakia, some members of which had extreme-right leanings. General Radola Gajda played a specific role in this Czech–Russian connection when he became the leader of the National Fascist Community, the most important fascist formation in Czechoslovakia between the two world wars (Pejčoch 2011: 41–125). After the fall of communism, the Czech extreme right split into several ideological currents during the 1990s. Some of them drew on the legacy of pre-WWII Czech and Moravian fascism; beyond worshipping this heritage,

230  Russia supports militant nationalism abroad some of them supported foreign campaigns, e.g. Russia’s anti-Islamist struggle in Chechnya and the activities of Serbian groups in former Bosnia and Herzegovina (Mareš and Vejvodová 2015: 108). The first Czech translations of Dugin’s works appeared in the late 1990s among Czech extreme-right conspiracy theorists of nationalist and anti-Semitic persuasions (Mareš 2003: 386–391; Nový dnešek 1998). In the early 2000s, Czech militant neo-Nazis started to collaborate with Russian partners. In a 2001 publication, Možnosti našeho boje v současnosti (Options for our struggle today), the pseudonymous author, Whitecop, recommended training for armed struggle, with the help of a national-socialist organisation in the former Soviet Union, i.e. veterans of Afghanistan and former KGB agents (Whitecop 2001). In 2003–2004, the band Kolovrat gave concerts in the Czech Republic; its frontman, Denis Gerasimov, was later given a suspended fifteen-month sentence for supporting and promoting a movement having as its aim the suppression of human rights and freedoms, and he was expelled (Obvodní soud pro Prahu 1 2007). In the second half of the 2000s, the Autonomous Nationalists movement gained strength not just in the Czech Republic but also everywhere else in Central Europe. The rally organised by Autonomous Nationalists in the Czech City of Kladno on 29 September 2007 was attended by members of the Russian organisation Movement Against Illegal Immigration (Dvizhenie protiv nelegal’noi immigratsii) (Nejvyšší správní soud 2010). In the late 2000s, the Czech National Offensive and its Russian counterpart (i.e. nationalist-socialists) were in intense contact. National Offensive representatives visited Moscow, and Kolovrat dedicated a song to the Czech National Offensive, the name of which translates as ‘Czech Knights’ (Mareš 2014: 76). When the police rounded up leading Czech neo-Nazis in 2009, a rally in their support was organised in Moscow and the Russian nationalist-socialists published an interview with one of those arrested, Patrik Vondrák, on its website. The same website supported the Czech Workers Party (Dělnická strana), which was dissolved by the judiciary, not least due to its links with neo-Nazis (Mareš and Vejvodová 2011: 86). In 2011, there developed in the Czech Republic a strong hard bass scene, evidently inspired by Russia; it did not last long, however. In 2013, Russian neo-Nazi Sergei Busygin, organised a Czech branch of Wotan Jugend, garnering about six members. In the Czech Republic, Wotan Jugend took part in several demonstrations and sold promotional items. Its members were soon sentenced for propaganda-related offences, however, and Wotan Jugend ceased its activities (Městský soud v Praze 2015). The organisation White Rex maintains contact with the neo-Nazi segment of the mixed martial arts community in the Czech Republic (Ministerstvo vnitra 2018: 40). Unlike the anti-Putin neo-Nazis in Russia, the new formations emerging among the Czech extreme right support the Kremlin’s course, including siding with the separatist ‘republics’ in eastern Ukraine. Some of them

Russia supports militant nationalism abroad 231 are paramilitaries who have constituted themselves in response to the Ukrainian conflict, two of which are noteworthy: Czechoslovak Reserve Soldiers Against the War (Českoslovenští vojáci v záloze proti válce) and its splinter group, Czechoslovak Reserve Soldiers for Peace (Českoslovenští vojáci v záloze pro mír). Their ideology is difficult to determine: they combine elements from the heritage of the Communist armed forces, strenuous nationalism and resistance to migration and Islamisation. The group arose in protest against NATO’s potential war with Russia, something that was discussed in connection with the Russo-Ukrainian conflict (Liedekerke 2016: 29). Although direct support from Russia remains unproven, these groups do make use of the ideology and rhetoric of contemporary Russian expansionism. Another paramilitary formation, the National Militia (Národní domobrana), was founded in 2015 by the extreme-right party National Democracy (Národní demokracie). Some of the members of the Czechoslovak Reserve Soldiers Against the War moved over to the National Militia. Thanks to the membership Nela Lisková, the leadership of the organisation established contact with the so-called ‘Representation Centre of the Donetsk People’s Republic in the Czech Republic’ (Ministerstvo vnitra ČR 2017: 13). However, the Czech foreign fighters in the Donbass separatist units have not been linked with organised far-right extremists; rather, these fighters are individuals with leftist leanings, frustrated with their own lives and the political developments (Mareš 2017).

Slovakia In Slovakia, the links with Russia became conspicuous in connection with the schools of Russian martial arts, first organised around 2010 by the nationalist Slovak Revival Movement (Slovenské hnutie obrody). Fans of Stenka, a martial art, came together on this basis. In 2012, the RussoSlavic Corps was created and held joint paramilitary training for Slovak Stenka fans and the Russian Dobrovolets Unit and Styag organisation (Ruský štýl boja 2012). Slovak Revival Movement maintains links with the People’s Assembly (Narodnyi sobor) in Russia. One of the individuals who received training in Russia through Slovak Revival Movement was Peter Švrček, who in 2012 founded the paramilitary organisation Slovak Recruits (Slovenský branci, SB; Meseznikov and Bráník 2012: 20). However, when the People’s Assembly sought to influence Slovak Recruits’ activities, their collaboration allegedly broke down. Slovak Recruits then expelled its most extreme members and those who went to fight in the separatist units in the Donbass (Struhár 2016). Another Slovak paramilitary organisation, Action Group Resistance (Akční skupina Vzdor), was founded in Kysuce in 2011, drawing upon the earlier organisation, Kysuce Resistance (Kysucký vzdor), which dated from 2007. It was allegedly inspired by the Hungarian National

232  Russia supports militant nationalism abroad Front, with which it cooperated. Ideologically, it combined pan-Slavism with neo-Nazi elements (Struhár 2016). It used the same wolf symbol as the Russian organisation Resistance (Ministerstvo vnútra SR 2016: 108).

Transnational trends of Russian origin in the European militant extreme right We believe that the data collected here suggest that the Russian influence over the evolution of right-wing extremism in Europe in particular, but also throughout the world in general, has been substantial.6 Here it is necessary to distinguish (1) clandestine Russian state support for anti-regime groups, such as appeared in Hungary, where the Russian secret services supported the MNA; (2) cooperation between pro-Kremlin groups from Russia or Novorossiya and similarly-minded entities abroad (e.g. links between the Czech National Democracy and pro-Putin groups); and (3) links between Russian anti-Putin groups and their foreign partners (e.g. the relationship between White Rex and the Young National Democrats in Germany). In geopolitical terms, it is important that Russian influence over right-wing extremism is apparent both in countries where there is a long tradition of pro-Russian actors in politics (e.g. Serbia and the Czech Republic) and in countries where pro-Russian sympathies among the far right have not had a historical tradition or have been limited (Hungary and Germany). We can identify the first substantial wave of transnational cooperation in the early 1990s, i.e. at the time when the Russian extreme right established itself. A second wave came in the second half of the 2000s, with the context provided by the contemporary rise of the Russian militant spectrum—this rise has won it popularity not just at home but also abroad. This wave was unified (and continues to be unified) by the various conceptions of Eurasianism. A third wave came in response to the crisis in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. However, this crisis has also created a split within the global extreme right, which has resulted in a segment that sympathises with the Kremlin (with which pro-Putin and imperial elements of Russian right-wing extremism cooperate) and a pro-Ukrainian segment (with which Russian neo-Nazis cooperate). Russia is also repeatedly a source of tactical and strategic trends that have influenced militant right-wing extremism abroad. In the second half of the 2000s, prominent examples included the extraordinarily brutal steps taken by Russian neo-Nazis against their opponents (e.g. terrorism, murders and arming) that in Central Europe were promoted by extremists as the so-called ‘Russian way’ (Mareš 2014: 81). In the early 2010s, there was a temporary though remarkable cultural-political phenomenon: the performances of hard bass music, suggesting the international capacity of the extreme right to mobilise. Large groups of masked football hooligans danced to hard electronic music in public spaces. Some of the lyrics in

Russia supports militant nationalism abroad 233 Russian referred to neo-Nazi motives. The aim was to demonstrate unity and masculinity, and the performances entailed a certain threatening message. Hard bass events were recorded on video and distributed on the internet. In 2010, hard bass spread through Russia, and in 2011 the phenomenon quickly reached the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (e.g. Serbia, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Slovakia and the Czech Republic); attempts were also made to introduce hard bass to some Western European countries (Smolík and Kajanova 2011: 473–475). However, it did not last, and performances have been rare since 2010. The spread of Russian influence among martial arts fans with extremist leanings has been more pervasive, notably through the White Rex organisation. In the 2010s, the international potential of Russian right-wing extremism was manifest in the provision of paramilitary training in Russia for interested parties from various places in the world (e.g. Partisan camps organised by the Russian Imperial Movement). The trainees in some instances caused violence in their home countries (as shown by the Swedish case—see Note 6). The conflict in Ukraine brought to the extremists a welcome opportunity to make war, but it split the extreme right: the engagement of various ultra-right or Dugin-influenced Eurasian units on the separatist side in the conflict in Ukraine has been balanced by the presence of neo-Nazi foreign fighters on the Ukrainian side. It is a political paradox that, in the separatist units, combatants from the extreme right and the extreme left—sometimes from the same country—fought side by side (Mareš 2017). Today, however, attempts can be observed transnationally to unite the extreme right of imperial and neo-Nazi persuasions.

Notes

1. The next year, Kochetkov became the editor-in-chief of the Russian National Unity main organ, Russkii poryadok, but later they took his party card away due to allegations of cooperating with the government authorities. Since 2013, he has led the pro-Kremlin People’s Diplomacy Fund (Reszka and Holcova 2017). 2. The term ‘Banderite’ is used to refer to Stepan Bandera and his political movement, and by extension to any expression of Ukrainian nationalism. 3. Vladislav Kassin, Vladimir Vlasov and Mikhail Klevachev—Russian National Unity sympathisers—supposedly served in the Tsar’s Wolves. The latter two were subsequently charged in Russia with committing a bomb attack on a train on the Moscow–Grozny line in June 2005, in which several dozen people were injured; in 2007 they were sentenced to 18 years in prison (Soyuz solidarnosti s politzaklyuchennymi undated). 4. It was precisely the Serbian Obraz that inspired Ilya Goryachev and Nikita Tikhonov to found a magazine of the same name in Moscow, from which later emerged the political organisation and militant group BORN (see Chapter 3). 5. Their number is estimated at approximately 2.2 million people today. 6. Russian influence is also apparent among militants in many other countries not discussed in this chapter. For example, in Italy, a small neo-fascist party, Forza Nuova, changed during the crisis in Ukraine from its original

234  Russia supports militant nationalism abroad pro-Ukraine orientation to a pro-Russian one (Shekhovtsov 2018: 188–189). When in 2017 an American internet provider stopped the American neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, it found a temporary refuge on a Russian domain, until that was quickly shut down by the Russian government (Kottasová 2017). A serious problem appeared in Sweden when, on 5 January 2017, two Swedish neo-Nazis, Anton Thulin, aged 20, and Jimmy Jonasson, aged 50, attacked an asylum centre in Gothenburg. The two had previously participated in a paramilitary course, Partisan, organised by the Russian Imperial Movement (Feder, Mannheimer and Lytvynenko 2017). A curious situation appeared in Israel when young immigrants from Russia and Ukraine—some of them of Jewish origin—were active in the neo-Nazi organisation Patrol 36 in Israel during the years 2006–2007. They avowed a struggle on behalf of the white race, perpetrated anti-Semitic acts of vandalism and used neo-Nazi symbols. The police soon broke up the gang (Kapusňak 2011).

Conclusion The Russian militant right and Vladimir V. Putin’s conservative authoritarianism

The main focus of this book has been on the phenomenon of the contemporary Russian militant right. It is a topic that is presently given significant attention in political science, and yet it seems to us insufficiently described and conceptualised. Our ambition as authors of this book has been primarily to describe this specific actor of modern Russian politics, but here in the conclusion it makes sense to attempt to grasp it conceptually as well. This means to consider three broad analytical frameworks: (1) the militant right as a specific family of doctrines; (2) non-democratic regime theory, including the theory of opposition in such regimes; and (3) what are called ‘Russian studies’. This conclusion, then, sums up the findings of the preceding chapters; yet, with respect to the three research perspectives just outlined, it also aims to articulate the relationship between, on the one hand, the phenomenon of the contemporary Russian militant right and, on the other, the conservative authoritarian political model of the contemporary Putin regime, or the Russian traditionalist narrative more broadly. It might surprise the reader that, of these three conceptual frameworks, we start by addressing the second and the third. We do this because they can be interconnected. In Russian studies, the issue of a non-democratic model of governance and the degree to which its identity is autochthonous has always been a privileged one; conversely, much of the non-democratic regime theory, including its concepts and categories, has been built on data obtained from analysing the evolution of traditional and modern political regimes in Russia, starting with the notion of tsarist autocracy (for a classic account, see Klyuchevskii 1911) to patrimonialism (cf. Fisun 2005 or Pain 2011) and, of course, totalitarianism (as well as revisionism) and ending with the concept of modern authoritarianism. Once we have made our comments from this perspective, we will address the first framework. However, even there, the Russian militant right is a traditional actor, without the empirical study of which the militant right Europe-wide would be less intelligible.

236  The Russian militant right and Putin

The Russian tradition of conservative authoritarianism and its militant legitimacy Let us start by arguing that, from the viewpoint of the Russian political tradition, the return to authoritarianism under President Vladimir V. Putin, after a decade of a transitive/hybrid regime under Boris N. Yeltsin, cannot be called surprising. This is all the more true given that the current success of Putin’s authoritarian project has proven false the contemporary theoretical and conceptual trends in the democratisation studies that prevailed in the 2000s and influenced discussions of the ‘colour revolutions’ and the notion of ‘democracy promotion’. There is no question today that Putin’s regime is authoritarian, and many papers employing the notion of ‘autocracy promotion’ (e.g. Way 2015) and discussing the ‘modern’ or ‘new authoritarianisms’ (including Cannady and Kubicek 2014, Guriev and Treisman 2015, Pomerantsev 2015, Shevtsova 2015 and Nisnevitch 2016) use Russia as an example. Naturally, the authoritarian practice of Putin’s regime has undergone development. In its early phase (the 2000s), it focused on institutional transformation: rather than being elected, governors were appointed; legislation concerned with elections and political parties was amended; legislative limits were placed on non-governmental organization activities; and the state began to control the mass media. In recent years, scholars have recorded more intense efforts than previously on the part of Russian elites to reinforce the mechanisms that support their grasp on power.1 This first became manifest in foreign policy, where Russia has taken a vigorous, assertive course (see its conflict with Georgia, the occupation of Crimea and the conflict in east Ukraine), and it later became apparent (from our perspective, crucially) in the care the elites have taken to construct a quasi-ideological basis for contemporary Russian authoritarianism, a basis that allows them to communicate with the majority in Russian society and to periodically renew their feeling that the current leadership in the Kremlin is irreplaceable. We believe it is no accident that this transformation went hand-in-hand with a Europe-wide awakening of populist and extreme-right movements, or, perhaps more aptly said, the strengthening of anti-liberal trends in European and world politics. Given that the authoritarian character of Putin’s regime is indubitable, we felt the need to ask the following questions: What is Putin’s current authoritarianism like? Are its characteristics grounded historically? Does it provide a key to the Russian political mentality? Is it conservative?2 And the final and crucial question: What is the relationship between Putin’s authoritarian regime and the radical or militant movements? *** The discussion of Russian authoritarianism, its conservative basis and its relationship both with other ideologies (liberalism,3 socialism, nationalism

The Russian militant right and Putin 237 and fascism) and with the very character of Russia’s polity are very distinctive chapters in Russian studies. There is an argument that fundamental conservative values, including an ardent national feeling, a respect for the transcendent and a mistrust of the idea of progress (or, more radically, any change whatsoever) plainly correspond to the key features of the Russian nation and its closed, separate and authoritarian political ‘tradition’ (Pipes 2005). Thus, we face the complex issues of mentality and political culture, or, in a potent but familiar expression, the alleged mystery of the ‘Russian soul’. In his analysis of Russian conservatism in the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, Russian historian A. S. Karcov identified three aspects of the issue: (1) an ideology of the mechanism of the state, (2) a philosophy of a traditional social ideal and (3) a specific political camp or movement (Karcov 2002: 41). Although these three aspects should share an ‘interest’, Karcov argued that one needs to bear in mind their distinctiveness and the volatility of their positions in any given historical situation. All of them responded to certain catalyst moments: the 1860s reforms, which called into question some symbols of the social order hitherto—symbols that nonetheless had seemed eternal to the majority of contemporaries; and the 1905 revolution, which removed the existing closed political structures and opened a stormy discussion about the desired political model for the future. In other words, the contemporary conservative reaction to these processes was elicited by fears that the existing socio-cultural and political arrangements would die; in addition, it was defensive in character. It was initially a passive rejection of change and a defence of the status quo; later, it became an active desire to return to the allegedly ‘true’ Russian values and traditions. The primary ideological attributes of Russian political conservatism4 were the inviolability of Orthodox religious dogmas, embodying the Russian spirit, and the harmony of these dogmas with the nation and state, which acted not just as their passive guardian, but as an active force promoting such values. This ‘ideocratic’ belief in harmony had both utopian (hyper-traditionalist or ultra-conservative; cf. Volkov 1998: 265–277) and realistic (moderate) aspects. Another characteristic of Russian conservatism was the conviction that Russia’s social order was organic, deep-rooted and static (change, shift and conflict were then viewed as socially pathological). Any change introduced from outside, then, was undesirable, as it was to the detriment of not just the ‘comfort’ but also the ‘health’ of the major strata in Russian society, which was considered superordinate to any given individual. The ‘Russian way’ was declared specific and different from any Western cultural approach, but also, for example, from an Islamic one (Grosul, Itenberg, Tvardovskaya, Shatsillo and Eimontova 2000). A crucial constitutive element for this ideology was provided by the image of the enemy, i.e. a radical or a foreigner (ideologically, a liberal or a socialist; religiously, a Catholic or an atheist; nationally, a Jew, a Pole or a Caucasian) who brought destructive values and ideas to Russia and disdained the traditional values of the Russian soul.5

238  The Russian militant right and Putin In the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century interpretations, these ideas were guaranteed by a non-competitive, apolitical model, which rejected parliamentarianism and defended the autocracy and position of the Romanov dynasty as the anointed representative of the monarchy. This model preserved the hierarchical arrangement and heeded the peculiarities of Russia’s economy, which was predominantly agricultural and in which the obshchina, or commune, was posited as the ideal. In foreign policy, it emphasised the right of the empire to dominance in the spheres of interest considered as its natural due. As far as our interest in the relationship between Russian authoritarianism and the radical/militant currents is concerned, during the 1905–1917 constitutional era, there was both an authoritarian conservative right (of which a radical and often militant current formed a subgroup) and a non-radical and non-authoritarian conservative right. The Black Hundred groups, briefly described in Chapter 2, were of the former group (or its subgroup); it was a distinctive movement that provided the contemporary tsarist regime with the services of a militant ‘vigilante guard’ to protect the monarchy and autocracy. Remarkably, however, if we compare the political capacities of the camp that rallied the supporters of the pre-revolutionary monarchy with those of the conservative supporters of a constitutional monarchy as postulated by the tsar’s 17 October 1905 Manifesto (especially the Union of 17 October), then the greater role systemically was played by the second mentioned, i.e. the Octobrists. How do we interpret this? We argue that it is no accident that the Union of 17 October is most often described as located on the ambiguous boundary between liberalism and conservatism (see e.g. Zevelev, Shelokhaev and Sviridenko 2000: 109–121). If we were to accept this understanding, then we would have to view Russian conservatism—a movement that in reality was multifaceted6 —as represented solely by reactionary and extremist groups such as the Black Hundred; all other entities that accepted to some degree the fundamental characteristics of parliamentarianism would, therefore, be viewed as liberals. And yet, at least some Russian conservatives were able and willing to adapt themselves to the conditions of a constitutional monarchy and to represent a political alternative to others in the nascent political spectrum, especially the liberals and the socialists. From the viewpoint of the system, then, it seems it was rather the liberals who faced a dilemma: Should they side with the conservatives, despite the latter’s reticence towards democratic procedures and values, or should they side with the socialists, despite their avowed intention to use the liberal model of government merely to realise their own ideal, which again was illiberal? However broad a view of Russian conservatism in 1905–1917 we take, through the lens of the events of 1917, they and the liberal camp were the vanquished. A temporary conclusion, then, could run as follows: given the pre-revolutionary era of Russian politics, the partnership between authoritarianism and conservatism is strong, but not exclusive, nor is this the

The Russian militant right and Putin 239 only possible partnership. If, however, conservative forces stand against a partnership between socialism and liberalism, then the space available for non-authoritarian conservatism is minimised. What is more, if a significant proportion of conservatives feel themselves to be above politics, i.e. if they disdain politics, then, logically, the activist militant movements become the main embodiment of conservatism. This is the conviction upon which the White Guard and later right-wing conservative émigré structures drew their legitimacy; they believed that, via their Eurasianist, fascist or individual militant activities, they acted as guardians of this tradition.

Post-Soviet Russian politics and the militant right as an opposition actor An opportunity to renew the traditions of Russian politics, interrupted for many decades by the October 1917 revolution,7 appeared in the late 1980s. Gorbachev’s perestroika, probably unintentionally, allowed for a process of revitalisation to unfold in Russian politics, which had all the characteristics of an era of transition, including the emergence of radical groups, as a specific sign of its desired political and ideological plurality and openness. The (self-) identification of the Russian militant right was not easy, however, as there appeared several new actors against whom the militant right had to define themselves. First of these was the post-perestroika ex-communist movement, which included players who—with their attempts to preserve the imperial accomplishments of the Soviet model—would, paradoxically, gradually become potential strategic partners for some Russian right-wing militants. It soon transpired, however, that for the militant camp the traditional opposition to liberals had greater prospects and facilitated its emergence. In Russia in the early 1990s, it was the economic reform team around Egor T. Gaidar that became the symbol of liberalism, and, indeed, liberalism— both domestic (post-Soviet) and imported (Western)—in its various shapes, transformations and symbioses, once again became the chief negative frame of reference for Russia’s militant right. Finally, the right-wing militants soon opposed the so-called pro-president entities (in fact, the state), which during the 1990s represented specific models for linking the presidential administration and the party-political scene. Incidentally, it was the synergy in the programmes of pro-president parties (Holzer 2004: 164–188), which consisted of a paternalist vision of a strong state and in this respect suited the expectations of many among the Russian public, that at the turn of the twenty-first century allowed the ambiguous Yeltsin era to issue into Putin’s authoritarian regime.8 In this sense, this regime change was not a watershed for the Russian militant right, as the array of its opponents was essentially unchanged. A shift occurred later, when Putin and those around him came up with the idea of defining their regime not merely in technocratic terms (in the sense that they offered efficient governance, different from the Yeltsin era)

240  The Russian militant right and Putin but also ideologically. This first manifested itself in a renewed sensitivity towards Russia’s foreign-policy interests and, subsequently, in the intention (albeit one that was carefully worded) to offer Russian society a state ideology. This new situation exposed Russia’s militant right to new, hitherto unknown dilemmas and temptations. In some respects, the new official ideology of the Kremlin, responding sensitively to the mentality of the Russian majority—and hence successfully managing the public discourse and acting as a symbolic source of legitimacy for the decision-making processes of Russian elites—became compatible with the traditional ideological basis of the Russian militant right. This was already evident in the metaphysical rhetoric that proposed a specific ‘third way for Russia’, the political essence and practical manifestation of which is Russian authoritarianism. This compatibility, however, also concerns at least some conservative values and symbols. Naturally, this was to be the one true conservatism, different from conservative theory and practice in the West. Indeed, in the Russian interpretation, there is virtually no conservatism left in the West, an opinion that does not entirely miss the point. The boom of Russian conservatism in the Putin era has resulted in a situation where many actors seek to pose as the champions of ‘true’ conservatism,9 ranging from the Kremlin and its circles, including the bureaucratic apparatus (a ‘court conservatism’ of sorts) to the party-political scene (with actors including Edinaya Rossiya, Rodina, Pamyat’, Spravedlivaya Rossiya and certain currents within the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, KPRF) to social movements focused on social policy (Soyuz otsov Rossii, Sem’ya, Lyubov’, Otechestvo, etc.) and the Orthodox Church to an ‘academic conservatism’, represented by, among others, the Centre for Conservative Studies at the Moscow State University, where Aleksandr Dugin worked until 2014.10 Understandably, such varied players and opinions have offered to make ad hoc alliances with the militants, and they continue to do so. In other cases, however, they have produced deep-rooted and lasting animosities. While the basis of Putin’s authoritarianism, which is depoliticised and oriented to the Russian mentality, has certainly been welcomed, some of Putin’s specific steps have been rejected, confirming to some Russian militants that this is a ruling elite with whom one cannot do business. *** This brings us to the analytical framework of the theory of opposition in non-democratic regimes, as introduced at the beginning of this chapter. This classic topic was developed in the early 1970s in works by Robert A. Dahl, Frederick C. Barghoorn, G. Ionesco, Isabel de Madariaga, Leonard Schapiro and H. Gordon Skilling, authors who often discussed the Soviet realities of the time. The classic approach to opposition in non-democracies respected the broad methodology as proposed by Juan J. Linz, which was based on a strict differentiation between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. In this methodology, the phenomenon of pluralism appeared as

The Russian militant right and Putin 241 the key criterion, producing the opposing concepts of pluralism (democracy), limited pluralism (authoritarianism) and monism (totalitarianism). Thus, the classic conceptualisation of opposition in non-democracies precluded the occurrence of a political or systemic opposition, employing instead concepts such as integral, factional and fundamental opposition (Skilling 1973: 92–94); or factional, sectoral and subversive opposition (Barghoorn 1973: 39–40, 45–82). However, during the 1990s, in evaluations of the political regime type, the traditional focus on the character of party-political competition started to be replaced by a new approach that emphasised the degree of respect given by a polity to a catalogue of human rights and freedoms. This narrative has created the notion of the ‘hybrid regime’ and–in the discussion of how Yeltsin’s regime should be categorised, for instance–has led to disputes over whether this was a semi-democratic, semi-authoritarian or a transitive regime. A paradox emerged: precisely at the moment when Yeltsin’s regime could be described as democratising—because it allowed for political pluralism—the general democratisation theory ceased to view the criterion of pluralism as decisive (or sufficient) and instead placed the emphasis on the criterion of human rights. In other words, it stressed the mentality of the given socio-political community. The story of Putin’s successful development of authoritarianism (Hassner 2008: 5–15) thus meant not just a change of governance in Russia, but also an effect on the criteria for classifying political regimes. In terms of the model of Russian opposition, this meant that Putin’s new regime quickly pacified the classical party-political and parliamentary opposition (the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia and the KPRF; cf. Gelman 2005 and Levintova 2011) and especially the liberal parties Yabloko and the Union of Right-Wing Forces (Soyuz pravykh Sil), which failed as early as the 2004 parliamentary election. It made non-parliamentary party-political opposition illegal—see the ban on Eduard Limonov and Maksim Gromov’s National Bolshevik Party—or marginal—consider the fate of Viktor Anpilov’s romantic-revolutionary party, Working Russia (Trudyashchayasya Rossiya), which tried to attract senior citizens, and, connected with it, Sergei Udaltsov’s Vanguard of Red Youth (Avangard krasnoi molodezhi). Richard Sakwa has described this as ‘the pressure of the regime party, established for the purpose of handling and unraveling political space’ (Sakwa 2007: 101–102). After the 2004 elections, the anti-Putin opposition gave up on any classical political contest. Its main strategy then became to create platforms to unite all those opposing the Putin regime, such as Mikhail Khodorkovskii’s foundation Open Russia, Ludmila Alekseeva and Georgii Satarov’s AllRussia Civic Congress, Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front, the movement Strategy 31, which fought for guarantees under Article 31 of the Russian Constitution (freedom of assembly) and Boris Nemtsov’s Komitet 2008, which focused on defending free elections. Most of these were ephemeral, as was Nemtsov’s and Kasparov’s Solidarity.

242  The Russian militant right and Putin Operating under the conditions of Putin’s depoliticised authoritarianism,11 Russian opposition itself depoliticised.12 Partly under the influence of external stimuli emanating from professional Western democracy-promoting actors, Russian opposition started to focus on human rights issues. The famous marshe nesoglasnykh (Marches of Dissenters), which dominated the wave of mobilisation after the electoral cycle of 2011–2012, deliberately avoided a political bent and were informal events (Rogoza 2012: 13). The civic protests against Russian elites’ cars, attempts to save the Khimki Forest and the projects Ros Pil (public oversight of corruption in public administration) and Ros Yama (urging the authorities to repair potholed roads) that used new social media, were also apolitical in character. With the exception of Aleksei Naval’nyi, who allegedly brought a ‘new quality of Russian opposition’ (Kwiatkowska 2012: 132),13 the most vocal opponents of the Kremlin to emerge included humanrights advocates Oleg Ponomariov and Ludmila Alekseeva. Celebrities such as the singer Egor Letov, the writer Viktor Pelevin and the TV anchor Viktor Shenderovich14 became symbols of how far people can distance themselves from the regime. Indeed, the most distinctive effort of the opposition, the platform Other Russia, which involved all key figures of the opposition (i.e. M. Kasyanov, Garry Kasparov, Eduard Limonov, Sergei Udaltsov) was announced at an international human-rights conference.15 The situation on the radical right is no exception to this. The authoritarian identity of the regime suits some of them well. That segment of the radical right which opposes Putin and his regime has not given up on providing an alternative to Putin—but it certainly does not attempt to be a political alternative. Putin’s model of governance corresponds to what has been called modern authoritarianism: it differs from classic authoritarianism in that it does not ban the opposition and it holds elections. What is absent in Russia today is an opposition that would be a real political alternative, embodied in parliament. From the point of view of that segment of the militant right that opposes the authoritarian regime, and for whom this opposition to the regime is currently the main (and indeed the only) topic, a paradoxical situation has arisen in that these militants have come closer to the liberal section of the political spectrum. The liberals, however, have always been one of the main enemies of Russian nationalism, and now in 2018 they are once again focusing on human-rights issues (continuing a tradition that dates back to opposition to Soviet power), which are, undoubtedly, not a favoured topic with the Russian right. All of this means that if we wish to find opposition to Putin’s regime, we must seek it, for instance, in identifying the conflicting factions within the governing structures, whose loyalty tends to be towards the form of the regime and its historical legitimacy, and not necessarily towards its current representatives (consider the notion of semi-opposition; Linz 2000: 161 ff.; Brooker 2000: 26 ff.). This means that we have to realise that, in the contemporary Russian situation, the potential for regime change is probably concealed in the stresses endured as part of the struggle for power within the contemporary ruling elites, rather than in public opposition to the regime.

The Russian militant right and Putin 243 What could most likely be brought to the table would be a realist model of change as proposed by ‘transitology’, which is remote from scenarios that emphasise human-rights narratives. We can also make the classic observation that such processes of transition usually do not issue into democracy, but merely into another type of non-democracy in which some segment of the Russian right might easily take part once again.

Russian militant right-wing extremism from the viewpoint of the study of political violence Militant activities by Russian nationalists over the last two decades are not a Russia-only phenomenon; they form an important part of extreme-right violence generally in the contemporary world. This importance is due, first, to the scope of the militant activities and the number of people involved; and, second, to the number of casualties for which extreme right-wing violence has been responsible. It is largely thanks to the violence actually perpetrated—in line with the notion of ‘propaganda by action’—that Russia’s extreme right has become truly influential. Although the movement has not produced substantial theoretical works on strategy or tactics, its various ideas (as expressed in Dugin’s works, justifications of Russian neo-Nazism, Strelkov’s analyses, etc.) have inspired actors outside Russia. This ‘propaganda by action’ was made possible by the fact that, in the late 2000s and early 2010s, a culture of violence developed in Russia. Continuing trends from the late-Yeltsin era, it involved gangs that did not have a developed ideological profile as well as neo-Nazi organisations, and, conceived broadly, it encompassed several tens of thousands of people if we include the supporters of Russian Marches, for instance (Zuyev 2013). Even the number of hardcore violent activists was not negligible in size, having been estimated at 5,000 people, of which several dozen were directly involved in murders. The Russian militant movement is responsible for more victims than the contemporary violence by right-wing extremists in the whole of the rest of the world. Naturally, the number of victims is subject to debate. However, even by the lowest estimates of about 600 fatalities between 2004 and 2014, as discussed by the Norwegian expert, Johannes due Enstad, the number is globally significant (Jakobsen 2014). A large part of this violence was committed by organized gangs and groups with terrorist leanings (Laryš and Mareš 2011). The large number of people injured, and the associated largescale intimidation, must also be taken into account. The impact on the particular communities under threat is difficult to judge because empirical data are lacking; however, available sources suggest that, in the communities of Caucasian and Central Asian workers in large Russian cities, people live in substantial fear of violence. These fears have not led to a large-scale exodus of these guest workers, but that is largely due to the socioeconomic context (Tipaldou and Uba 2014).

244  The Russian militant right and Putin Be that as it may, the violence perpetrated by the extreme right has created an atmosphere of terror in Russia, which affected their opponents and the target groups of the attacks. In terms of their modus operandi, supporters of Russian militant nationalism and neo-Nazism have primarily perpetrated pogroms and attacks on marketplaces, where the Central Asian and Caucasian community tended to concentrate (Zakharov 2015: 109–132); street violence by gangs against their victims; and selective attacks on political opponents (especially of the extreme left, but also on expert witnesses, for example). While a brutal murder of two hostages in front of cameras in 2007 was comparatively rare, it was quite inf luential in terms of its intimidation effect and the international response. Beyond violence perpetrated on Russian territory, the specific phenomenon of Russian extreme-right foreign fighters must be noted. A tradition dating to the wars in the former Yugoslavia has been transferred—in part via continuity of personnel—to the participation of Russian fighters in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has been estimated to be as many as 36,000 Russian fighters (these are the so-called proxies; other Russians served in regular units of the Russian army; see Enstad 2018). And, contrariwise, Russian volunteers recruited from the anti-Putin spectrum fought on the side of Ukraine. Such a situation, where an opposition neo-Nazi faction fights against the interests of the political regime on the battlefield, is comparatively rare in the world today. In the study of the Russian extreme right and their violence, the issue of their relationship with Putin’s regime is of special importance. In the early days of the Putin era, the security forces largely tolerated the brutal violence or were unable to confront it effectively. Repression increased from the late 2000s and peaked in the harsh measures taken against the neo-Nazi core during the Ukrainian crisis. During the same period, there was a rise of the ‘imperial Russian extreme right’ and of pro-Putin vigilante groups (in particular, the South-East Radical Block and the National Liberation Movement), who attacked opponents of the regime. In terms of trans-nationalisation, the ambition of the Russian militant right initially was to adapt to foreign trends and become involved in existing international networks (e.g. Blood & Honour/Combat 18). Today, it has become a source of inspiration itself: the notion of a ‘Russian way’ has become synonymous with an armed terrorist neo-Nazi struggle. Russian militants continue to provide combat training to their partners abroad, as seen in, for example, the activities undertaken by the Russian Imperial Movement. They have also exported their organisations and projects outside Russia (e.g. Wotan Jugend and White Rex). In this respect, contemporary Russian extreme-right militants are a very specific actor, one that is remarkable for scholars both as the subject of the comparative study of political extremism and of classic analysis undertaken in political science of modern Russian politics.

The Russian militant right and Putin 245

Postscript Opposition human-rights activist Ludmila Alekseeva famously said that democracy would rise in Russia in 2017. As a statement, it was gutsy, but it did not seem very realistic at the time—in any case, her prediction did not come true. It seems that in Russia—not just in Putin’s Russia but more generally— the achievement of a state where the overwhelming majority in society appreciates political pluralism and prefers a model that allows various platforms to coexist and produce government alternation is an impossible task. Such an open political model is not the arrangement preferred by the Russian militant right, either. This is not just about violence, which the militants do not hesitate to deploy to achieve their objectives. Indeed, this violence has a continuous tradition of 150 years in Russia; it was the essence of the experience of Soviet totalitarianism, which was the determining aspect of Russian society’s encounter with the phenomenon of modernity; it is typical also of actors in other parts of the political spectrum. Nor is violence avoided by public authorities, starting with the Russian state itself.16 In other words, the militant right does not have a monopoly on the use of violence in Russia. Scepticism concerning the establishment of democracy in Russia is also warranted by the programmatic directions taken by the radical right. They promote various models of political arrangement, but pluralism is not one of them. On the one hand, this allows the contemporary Russian militant right to ramble in their programmes; on the other it means that various contemporary issues (e.g., the conflict in eastern Ukraine) splinter, often irreconcilably, the Russian militant right. Nor is the opposition to Russian liberalism, or the liberally-oriented segment of Russian society, a unifying element any more. Contemporary Russian authoritarianism, including its anti-liberal rhetoric, suits some right-wing militants. To others, however, it is too closely linked with the Soviet regime, in particular, with its repressive apparatus (they see Cheka— (O)GPU—NKVD—MGB—KGB—FSB as a continuum) and hence they prefer to cooperate with the liberals rather than with the regime.17 This does not mean that these militants would accept the current shift of liberal opposition to the specific, apolitical doctrine of protecting human rights, which helped vanquish communism by formulating another comprehensive ideal and provides a concrete link with the West and its political values. Instead it allows temporary, pragmatic cooperation. This part of the Russian militant right seeks an alternative both to Putin’s authoritarianism and to liberal democracy. Its ideal is a society based on the conservative values of White Guard associations, one that venerates the pre-political, conservative model of the tsarist era and refuses to have anything to do with the Soviet Union, communism, the KGB–FSB or the cult of victory in the Great Patriotic War, and rejects any non-Slavic (i.e. ‘nonwhite’) immigration. According to this view, Russia belongs to Europe in terms of civilisation, but it must say no to Europe’s liberal-left, ‘neo-Marxist’ values. It must become a coherent alternative to Western-style liberal democracy and a model for the militant scene Europe-wide.

246  The Russian militant right and Putin

Notes 1. Incidentally, the shifts in scholarly interest are also remarkable: an emphasis on the ‘system’ and on the institutional aspects of a non-democratic regime implies an emphasis on its technical parameters, suggesting a view according to which non-democracy can be overcome. By contrast, an emphasis on procedures used to achieve legitimacy implies a focus on the political aspect of the phenomenon, and hence a more primordialist position and a tendency to see in non-democracies a variable, yet historically grounded, phenomenon. 2. For the right wing and conservatism as an example of a right-wing doctrine, see the interesting recent works by Bartyzel (2016), or Wielomski (2017). 3. Consider such figures of conservative liberalism (or, if you will, liberal conservatism) as B. N. Chicherin, A. D. Gradovskii or P. B. Struve. 4. The conservative camp established itself largely against the background of the Slavophile movement. Figures such as N. J. Danilevskii, N. N. Strakhov, K. N. Leont’ev and L. A. Tikhomirov (the author of the 1904 work Monarkhicheskaya gosudarstvennost’, a manifesto of Russian monarchism) have turned Russian conservatism into an integral philosophical and aesthetic view, criticising the ‘novelties’ on the Russian ideological scene (nihilism, radicalism and relativism) and endorsing historicism as the essential method for uncovering the essence of Russia’s social order. The legal-theoretical line was represented by such figures as S. S. Uvarov (the author of the ‘theory of official nationality’) and K. P. Pobedonostsev. Attempts to mediate conservative ideas to the broad masses were typical of N. Katkov or M. O. Menshikov. Some of these figures (e.g. Katkov) were also claimed by Russian liberalism, with reference to their pro-Western orientation (see Note 3 above). 5. The only complicating element in this vision was the traditionally multinational character of the Russian state. Hence imperial nationalism, employing the concept rossiiskii rather than russkii, seemed a potential solution. 6. In his description of the Russian conservatism of the early twentieth century, A. S. Karcov employed three imaginary axes. According to the degree of possible change, he identified (1) moderate, protectionist and ultra-conservative currents; according to the view of the status of social groups in the tsarist autocracy, he distinguished (2) social (elitist) conservatism and political (statist) conservatism; and according to the origin of the idealised cultural-political model he noted (3) ‘domestic’ and ‘western’ conservatives (Karcov 2002: 44–55). 7. Let us ignore for the moment the classical debate as to whether the Soviet Union was or was not a continuation of tsarist Russia. 8. A non-statist, or non-authoritarian, conservatism failed to establish itself in post-Soviet Russian politics: parties of the Christian-democratic camp failed to become more than second-rank actors and largely sought refuge in various alliances with the liberals. For example, the Orthodox Russian Christian-Democratic Movement (Rossiiskoe khristiansko-demokraticheskoe dvizhenie) led by V. Aksyuchits, D. Dudek and G. Anishchenko was a member of the movement Democratic Russia, and the most important Christian-Democratic party in the 1990s, the All-Russian Christian Union (Vserossiiskii khristianskii soyuz), was a confessional affiliate of Yabloko (Barygin 1999: 150–153). 9. There are a number of descriptions and classifications of contemporary Russian conservatism, and their authors often tend to defend particular interests. For example, the classification by Aleksandr Shchipkov (2014: 114–117), adviser to the speaker of the State Duma, distinguishes between the following: antiquarian conservatism, focused on certain phases of Russian history and represented by those who want to renew the monarchy; situational conservatism, which seeks to resolve urgent political matters by strengthening the centralisation of power

The Russian militant right and Putin 247 and deploying conservative rhetoric to this effect; conservative communism, linked with efforts to renew the Soviet Union; Eurasianist conservatism; national conservatism; conservatism ‘close to the Church’; and liberal conservatism (‘neoliberalism’). The Russian political scientist, Aleksandr Shestakov (2003), meanwhile, distinguishes national-patriotic conservatism (that emerged among right-wing dissidents in the 1960s and 1970s, represented by A. Solzhenitsyn and especially V. Rasputin); social-patriotic conservatism (KPRF); civilisational conservatism (neo-Eurasianism as represented by A. Dugin, S. Kurginyan and A. Panarin); nomenklatura conservatism (based on the idea of ‘social stability’); and liberal conservatism. 10. In classifying Russian conservatism, Dugin himself places emphasis on ideological and strategic factors, and in this sense he distinguishes between fundamental, liberal, social and revolutionary conservatism (Dugin 2009). 11. Part of this has been the regime’s anti-opposition strategy, which responded adroitly both to the activities undertaken by internal opposition and to the external discourse of democratisation. Among the instruments most often cited as strengthening the legitimacy of authoritarian rule are the construction of a non-partisan umbrella organisation covering the whole nation, the All-Russia People’s Front; the establishment of a youth organisation (Nashi); and the creation of the Potemkin opposition (March 2009). On the contemporary authoritarianisms’ ability to learn lessons from ‘colour revolutions’, see e.g. Finkel and Brudny (2012: 15–36). 12. It is true, however, that even those opposition activities which consciously eschew political topics are criminalised by the regime. 13. Allegedly, because this nationalist and technocrat—who established himself on the issue of fighting corruption, is an agitator and is, essentially, solitary— has a very interesting political past. He was expelled from Yabloko for nationalism and, in 2007, he was temporarily involved in the Narod movement and subsequently in both the nationalist Slavic Union and the Movement Against Illegal Immigration. 14. For the stories of contemporary Russian dissidents, see the well-written account by W. Paniuszkin (2011). 15. Involved in this platform were, among others, the United Civil Front, the National Bolshevik Party, the Russian National-Democratic Union, Working Russia, the Vanguard of Red Youth, the youth movement Obrana and certain Yabloko members. It is true that two sections—human rights and political— were created within this platform, but the former was more active. 16. Admittedly—and unlike classic authoritarian regimes—modern Russian authoritarianism uses violent repression exceptionally, in selected cases, against chosen individuals, who, furthermore, are often ‘punished’ in a non-violent fashion (Guriev and Treisman 2015: 2–4; Varol 2015: 1678–1679; Roylance 2014). 17. See as an example the programme of the Russian Centre (http://russ.center/ru/ programma), which is otherwise militant, even neo-Nazi.

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Interviews Interview with Aleksandr Verkhovskiy, Summer 2009. Interview with Stanislav Fedorchuk, August 2017.

Index

Abramov, F. 32 academic conservatism 240 Action Group Resistance (Akcni skupina Vzdor) 231 Ad Marginem 45 Agrarian Party of Russia 14 Akhmetov, Rinat 173 Aksakov, Ivan Sergeevich 6 Aksenov, Sergei 168, 170, 179 Aksyuchits, V. 246 Aleksandr II 24, 41 Aleksandrovich, Sergei 41 Alekseev, Valentin 57 Alekseeva, Ludmila 241, 242, 245 Alferov, Aleksandr 144 Alksnis, V. 36 All-Russia Supporters Union (Vserossiiskoe ob’edinenie bolel’shchikov, VOB), 160 All-Russian Union of the Russian People 27 All-Great Don Army (Vsevelikoe voisko donskoe) 133 All-Polish Youth 213 All-Russia Civic Congress 241 All-Russia People’s Front 247 All-Russia Supporters Union (Vserossiiskoe ob’edineniebolel’ shchikov, VOB) 95–96 All-Russian Christian Union (Vserossiiskii khristianskii soyuz) 246 All-Russian Fascist Organisation 29 All-Russian Fascist Party 30 All-Russian Fascist Union 30 All-Russian National Movement (Obshcherossiiskoe natsionalnoe dvizhenie, OND) 131, 170 All-Russian Popular Front 205

All-Russian Public Organisation of the Disabled 59 All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments 35 Alternative for Germany (Alternative fur Deutschland) 228–229 Anishchenko, G. 246 Annenkov, Pavel Vasil’evich 6 Anpilov, Viktor 241 Anti-Maidan 68, 132, 165–167, 170–171, 179 anti-Puti militant nationalism 181–207; militant violent organisations 184–185; Orthodox-monarchist organisations 185–197; pro-Ukrainian camp 181–185; Russian Marches 197–206; Russian National Front and its organisations 187–195; ‘Russians’ movement 182–183; see also pro-Putin militant nationalism anti-Semitism 27 Antonov, M. 33 Antonov, Rostilav 71 Anufriev, Artem 123–124 Appolonov, Viktor 103 Armstrong, Benedict 9 Army of Outlaws (Betyarsereg) 217, 218 Army of the Popular Will (Armiya voli naroda, AVN) 193–194 Arrow Cross Party 219 Artamonov, Vladimir 114 Artemov, Igor 36, 51, 54, 55, 113, 128, 162, 183; see also Russian AllNational Union Artpodgotovka 57, 80, 188 Asgard Reich (Asgardareikh) festivals 15 103

276  Index Assembly of the Russian People (Sobor russkogo naroda) 187, 195 Association of Russian Artists 32 Association of White Political Prisoners 103 Astashin, Ivan 117 Ataka 226 Ataka 28 (band) 85 Atakaand 70–71 Augustyniak, Jaroslaw 211 authoritarian conservative right 238 authoritarianism 19; conservative 236–239; Putin’s success in 241 Autonomous Combat Terrorist Group (Avtonomnaya boevaya terroristicheskaya organizatsiya, ABTO) 117–118 Autonomous Nationalists movement 230 autonomous neo-Nazis 84, 87–91 Autonomous Slavic Resistance (Avtonomnoe slavyanskoe soprotivlenie) 117 Averyanov, Vitalii 188 Azarov, Nikolai 172 Azov 184 Babin, Ilya 102 Babka-Front 113 Baburin, Sergei 36, 167, 198, 199, 201 Baburova, Anastasiya 63 Badyuk, Sergey 92 Bagrov, Ilya 114 Bakharev, Dmitrii 200 Baklagin, Maksim 64 Bakunin, Mikhail Aleksandrovich 24 Baltic Avant-Garde of Russian Resistance 141 Banda Borovikova-Voevodina 108 Banda Moskvy 85 Bandera, Stepan 103, 164, 233 Banderite 233 Barabash, Kiril 188, 202, 204 Baranov, Anton 103 Baranovskii, Aleksei 33, 62, 67 Barcsa-Turner, Gabor 216, 217 Bardin, Bavel 69 Barghoorn, Frederick 240 Barkashov, Aleksandr 39, 49, 59, 60, 81, 134, 136–137, 174, 186, 221, 228; see also Russian National Unity Barkashov, Petr 137 Barygin, I.N. 15 Basmanov, Vladimir 47, 48, 56, 58, 66, 68, 71, 89, 139, 141–142, 169, 175, 183,

184, 206; see also Movement Against Illegal Immigration ‘Batman’ 134 ‘Battle for Donbass’ 68, 129, 175 Batyuk, Svyatoslav 115 Bazylev, Maksim ‘Adolf’ 59–60, 185 Bednov, Aleksandr 134 Befreier, Aspis Leonis 145 Beketov, Igor 163 Bekier, Bartosz 213 Belaya staya 121 Beletskii, Ivan 57, 141, 154, 205, 206 Belinskii, Vissarion Grigor’evich 6 Belov, Aleksandr 46, 47–49, 52, 56, 79, 83, 128, 139, 140, 182, 188, 198, 200, 201; see also Movement Against Illegal Immigration Belov, V. 32, 33 Beloyer (clothing brand) 103 Belyaev, Yurii 81, 106, 139, 220 Benoist, Alain de 34 Berdyaev, Nikolai Aleksandrovich 25 Berezicki, Dawid 214 Berezikova, Yulia 165 BHR Records 85 Bilbija, Igor 224 Bilotserkovskya, Nataliya 176 Biryulevo Front (Biryulevskii front, BF) 115–117 Black Bloc 57, 68, 89–91, 184 Black Corps (magazine) 102 black diggers 110 Black Eagle Legion 42 Black Hundred (Chernaya sotnya) 25–27, 238 Black Hundred: The Rise of the Extreme Right in Russia (Laqueur) 2 Blok Yavlinskii-Boldyrev-Lukin 14, 15 Blokhin, J. 36 Blood & Honour Russia (Krovi chest’ Rossiya) 85–87, 114 Bobrov, Dmitrii 51, 53, 54, 68, 82, 83, 93, 108, 128, 183, 203; see also National-Socialist Initiative Bobrova, Valentina 68, 132, 203, 204–205 Bogachev, V. 37 Bognadov, Ilya 142 Boiko, Vladimir 173 Boiko-Velikii, Vasilii 179 Bolotov, Valerii 169, 179 Bolsheviks 10, 11, 17 Bondarenko, Elena 180

Index 277 Bondarenko, Yurii 210 Bondarev, J. 33 Bondarik, Nikolai 53, 68 BORN (Combat Organisation of Russian Nationalists, Boevaya organizatsiya russkikh natsionalistov) 62; history 64–66; links and supporters of 66–68 Borodaev, Aleksandr 66 Borodai, Aleksandr 169, 180 ‘Borodino-2012’ 202 Borovikov, Dmitrii 84, 110–111 Borovikov, Georgii 51, 53, 54, 108–111, 183, 200, 201, 202; see also RFO Pamyat’ Botkin, Vasilii Petrovich 6 Brainwash (band) 91 Brangolf (magazine) 102 Branikald (band) 102 Bratkiewicz, Jaroslaw 16, 17, 38 Bratrstvo (Brotherhood) 139, 155 Brezhnev, Leonid 11 Brinkmann, Patrik 228 Brumel, Igor 178 Budanov, Yurii 130 Budnikova, Sofia 141 Bukreev, Sergei 149 Bulgaria, militant nationalism in 225–227 Bulgarian National Movement Shipka (Balgarsko natsionalno dvizhenie Shipka) 226 Burmistrov, Vladimir 56 Burtov, Anton 58 Buryatski, Said 86 Busygin, Sergei 103, 106, 230 Byshok, Stanislav 68 Call of Youth (Klichmolodosti) 103 Camp of Great Poland (Oboz wielkej Polski, OWP) 213–214, 222 Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding 211 Change (Zmiana) 135, 210 Chaplin, Vsevolod 64, 206 Cherepkov, Viktor 79 Cherkezov, Varlaam Nikolaevich 24 Chernaya sotnya (Black Hundred) movement 26, 153, 188, 195 Chernev, Pavel 226 Chernomyrdin, Viktor 14, 15 Chicherin, B.N. 246 Christian Revival (Khristiyanskoe vozrozhdenie) 191

Christian State – Holy Rus’ (Khristianskoe gosudarstvo – Svyataya Rus’), 161–163 Christian-Democratic party 246 Chubais, Anatolii 192 Chuk sprava (band) 200 church nationalism 25 Chursin, Oleg 178 CISEMO International Election Monitoring Organisation 68 Citadel anti-immigration project 57, 68 Civic Corpus 144 Civic Corpus of Azov 184 Civic Patrol (Grazhdanskii patrul’) 71 ‘the Cleaners’ (Chistilshchiki) 119 Codreanu, Corneliu 156 collaborationism 31 colour revolutions 84 Combat Organisation of Russian Nationalists (Boevaya organizatsiya russkikh natsionalistov, BORN) 62, 82, 169 Combat Terrorist Group (Boevaya terroristicheskaya organizatsiya), 54, 82, 84, 108–111 Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, KGB) 173 Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia 31 Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) 14, 48 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Kommunisticheskaia Partia Sovietskovo Soiuza, KPSS) 11, 34 Confederation of Equal and Free Eastern Slavic Countries 101 Congress of Russian Communities (Kongress russkikh obshchin) 48 Congress of the Nations of the Soviet Union (Kongress narodov SSSR) 17 conservative authoritarianism 236–239 conservatives 6 Continent Europe Foundation (Kontinent Europa Stiftung) 228 Coordinating Council of the NationalPatriotic Forces of Russia 17 Coordination Council of National Forces (Koordinatsionnyi sovet natsional’nykh sil, KSNS) 58 Corionov, Dmitrii 158–159 Cossacks 31, 38, 47, 49, 133, 136, 162, 171, 225 Crack (band) 84

278  Index Crimea, annexation of 126–129 Csibi, Barna 217 CSKA (football club) 92 Czech National Democracy 232 Czech National Offensive 230 Czech Republic 229–230 Czech Workers Party (Delnicka strana) 230 Czechoslovak Reserve Soldiers Against the War (Ceskoslovenšti vojaci v zaloze proti valce) 231 Dahl, Robert 240 Danilevskii, N.J. 246 D’Annunzio, Gabriele 156 Dashichev, Vyacheslav 228 Datsik, Vyacheslav 135 Davidenko, V. 39 Dayton Agreement (General Framework Agreement for Peace and Herzegovina) 224 De Chassey, Thibaut 201 Decemberist uprising of 1826 5 Delo.ua (website) 67 Delyagin, Mikhail 153 Democratic Party of Serbia (Demokratska stranka Srbije, DSS) 221 Democratic Russia 13, 37, 246 Demushkin, Dmitri 46, 49–51, 53, 58, 59, 66–67, 81, 82, 112, 128, 139, 140–141, 182–183, 198, 200; see also Slavic Union/Slavic Power Der, Zsolt 216 Deutsches Zentrum fur Eurasische Studien 212 Dima Yakovlev Act 165 Dimitriev, Igor 172 Dinamo (football club) 95 Dobrov, Vyacheslav 53 Dobrzyniecka, Ludmila 211 Doctrina.ru (website) 186 Dodik, Milorad 224 Dolgov, Konstantin 170 Donaldson, Ian Stuart 85 Donbass: militant nationalists on DNR/NRL side 133–138; occupation of 126–129 Donbass People’s Militia 137 Donbass Rus’ 176 Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic 173 Donetsk People’s Republic 55, 67, 95, 127, 161, 169, 174–177

Donetskii kryazh 173 Doumer, Paul 30 Dremov, Pavel 136 dual Russia 8 Dubrovin, Aleksandr 26 Dudek, D. 246 Dugin, Aleksandr 2, 34, 134, 136, 153, 154–155, 218, 226, 247 DukhVoina (Spirit of the Warrior) tournaments 91 Dushenov, Konstantin 45, 186–187, 195 Dveri movement 221 Džurdžev, Aleksandar 221 Džurdževic, Milica 221 Džurdževic, Rajko 221 ‘E’ (anti-extremism section) 66 Ekishev, Yurii 186, 187, 193, 200, 203, 204 Emelyanov, V. 36 E.N.O.T. Corp. 134 Ermolaev, Vladimir 48 Ermolov, Aleksei 80 ‘Ermolov’ project 63 Erzunov, Sergei 62, 63 Esers 10 Essence of Time (Sut’ vremeni) 67 Eurasian Observatory for Democracy & Elections 211 Eurasian Youth Union (Evraziiskii soyuz molodezhi, ESM) 129, 134, 155–157, 174, 184, 200 Eurasianism 2, 12–13, 28–29 Euromaidan 80, 103, 139, 146, 162, 170 European Centre for Geopolitical Analysis (ECAG) 211 Evola, Julius 156 Evtushenko, Dmitrii 51, 53, 66, 139 extremist organisations 46–71; BORN (Combat Organisation of Russian Nationalists, Boevaya organizatsiya russkikh natsionalistov) 64–66; For Honour and Freedom (Za chest’ i svobodu) 56–57; militant wings/sections of 107–118; Movement Against Illegal Immigration (Dvizhenie protiv nelegal’noi immigratsii, DPNI) 47–49; National-Socialist Society (Natsional-sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo, NSO) 58–61; raids as strategy of 68–69; RFO Pamyat’ (Russkii Front Osvobozhdeniya Pamyat’) 53–54; Russian All-National Union (Russkii obshchenatsional’nyi soyuz,

Index 279 RONS) 51, 54–55; Russian Image 62–64; Russian Imperial Movement (Russkoe imperskoe dvizhenie, RID) 51, 52, 54; ‘Russians’ movement (Etnopoliticheskoe obedinenie ‘Russkie’) 46; Slavic Union/ Slavic Power (Slavyanskii soyuz/ Slavyanskaya sila, SS) 49–51; Union of Russian People (Soyuz russkogo naroda, SRN) 55; violent clases instigated by 72–77 Falanga 135, 213 fascism 29–30 February 1917 revolution 10 Federal Security Service 86, 162 Fedorov, Evgenii 95, 132, 164, 178 Fedorovich, Vasilii 124 Filin, Konstantin 57 Filin, Vladimir 188, 194, 204, 206 Filippov, Mark 116 First Cossack Sotnya (Pervaya kazachya sotnya) 220 First Duma 27 Flag (Styag) 225 Flint’s Crew (footbal hooligan) 92 Florovskii, Georgii Vasil’evich 13, 29 football hooligans 92–96, 97t–100t For Honour and Freedom (Za chest’ i svobodu) 56–57 ‘For Novorossia’ movement 129 ‘For Responsible Government’ (ZOV) 188, 202 ‘For Ukraine without Yushchenko’ movement 175 Force and Determination (Erö es Elszantsag). 217 Forces of the Good (Sily dobra) 56, 141 Forest (band) 102 Format-18 69 Forza Nuova 233 “14/88” 122 The Fourth Political Theory (Dugin) 154 Free Russia (Svobodnaya Rossiya) 56 Freedom Party (Partiya svobody) 220 Freie Netz Sud 92 French New Right 34 Frey, Gerhard 227 Friendship and Relief Organization East (Freundschafts und Hilfswerk Ost) 227 Frolov, Oleg 174 Front of the Working People, Army and Youth 17

Gabor Szalma, 219 Gaidar, Egor 14, 239 Gallant Steeds 83 Galperin, Mark 57 Gariev, Denis 135 Garina, Dina 53 Gavrin, Anton 114 Gaworska-Aleksandrowicz, Bozena 211 Gellner, Ernest 9 Gerasimov, Denis 59, 230 German People’s Union 227 German-Russia Joint Venture – Support Association for North-East Prussia 227 German-Russian Peace Movement of European Spirit (Deutsch-Russischen Friedensbewegung Europaischen Geistes e.V.) 228 Germany, militant nationalism in 227–229 Gertsen, Aleksandr Ivanovich 6 Girenko, Nikolai 54, 110 Girkin, Igor 66, 67, 68, 126, 129, 131, 136, 163, 168–169, 191, 203, 205, 220, 225; see also Novorossiya Girkin, Ivan 175 Glazev, Sergei 164 Glisic, Vladan 221, 222 God’s Will (Bozhya volya) 157–158 Golden Dawn (Chrysi Avgi) 225–226 Golikov, Dmitri 57 Golubev, Sergei 63, 85–87, 114 Gorbachev, Mikhail 228, 239 Gorbunova, Alla 201, 203 Gordeev, Andrei 117 Gorgulov, Pavel 30 Gorskii, Yurii 57, 58, 184, 198, 203, 205 Goryachev, Ilya 62, 63–64, 130, 169, 200, 233 Goryunov, Votalii 58 gosudarstvenniki 152 Gradovskii, A.D. 246 Granovskii, Timofei Nikolaevich 6 Graziani, Tiberio 212 Great Fatherland Party (Partiya Velikoe Otechestvo) 132, 165–166, 167, 205 Great October Socialist Revolution 10, 11 Great Patriotic War 30–32, 190, 227 Great Poland Camp (Obóz Wielkej Polski) 135 Great Russia (Velikaya Rossiya, VR) 130, 186, 188–190, 202

280  Index Greece, militant nationalism in 225–227 Green Party 30 Gritsai, Maksim 59–60 Gromov, Maksim 241 Gruzinov, Aleksandr 205 Gubarev, Pavel 137, 174, 176 Gubareva, Ekaterina 55 Gubarov, Pavel 180 Gumilev, L. 41 Gvozdev, Yurii 204 Györkös, Istvan 219 ‘Hammer of Will’ (Molotvoli) tournaments 104 hate crimes 118–123 Heirs of Victory (Nasledniki pobedy) 224 Hidfö (website) 219 Hitler, Adolf 30 Hiwis 31 Hobsbawm, Eric 9 Holy Rus’ (Svyataya Rus) 157 Honour and Freedom (Chest’ i svoboda) 57 hooligan groups 92–96, 97t–100t; see also subcultures Hroch, Miroslav 9 Hudziec, Dawid 214 Hungarian Guard 217 Hungarian National Front (Magyar Nemzeti Arcvonal, MNA) 218–220, 231–232 Hungarian Self-Defence Movement (Magyar Onvedelmi Mozgalom) 216–217 Hungary, militant nationalism in 214–220 Il’in, Ivan Aleksandrovich 25, 28–30 Ilyukhin, Viktor 206 Image (Obraz) 67 Imperial Legion (Imperskii legion) 54, 135–136 Independent Greeks (Anel) 225 Institute of Advanced Studies in Geopolitics and Auxiliary Sciences (ISAG) 212 intelligentsia 7 International Criminal Court (ICC) 183 International Donbass Movement 173 Intransigent League 90 Iona London Forum 92 Ionesco, G. 240

Ipat’ev House 158 ‘Irkutsk Partisans’ 115 Isaev, Vyacheslav 64 Iskhod k vostoku 41 Istarkhov, Vladimir 90, 105, 203, 205 Istoshina, Svetlana 215 Ivanov, Igor 179 Ivanov, Leonid 195 Ivanov, Nikita 66, 169 Ivanov, O. 39 Ivanov, Sergei 59, 79 Ivanovic, Ivan 225 Ivanov-Sukharevskii, Aleksandr 81, 83, 188, 195, 204 Ivashov, Leonid 153, 189, 195 Izborsk Club (Izborskii klub) 153, 188 Jankowski, Tomasz 211 Janukovich, Victor 80 Japanese Kwantung Army 42 Jeunesses identitaires (Young Identitarians) 225 Jobbik (Movement for a Better Hungary) 213, 215–216 Jonasson, Jimmy 234 Jovonk (website) 219 Just Russia 164, 205 K25 131 Kaaler, Ruben 145 Kadets 10 Kadyrov, Ramzan 52 Kaganovich, Lazar 43 Kail, Andrei 83 Kalashnikov, Maksim 131 Kalinichenko, Maksim 53, 139 Kalinichenko’s Gang 120 Kalinin, Aleksandr 161 Kalyakin, Valerii 224 Kaminski, Jacek 211 Kaminskii, Bronislav 31 Kamkin, Aleksandr 228 Kammenos, Panos 226 Kanurin, Aleksei 199 Karakozov, Dmitrii Vladimirovich 24 Karcov, A.S. 237, 246 Karpatska Sich 217 Karpov, Pavel 169 Karsavin, Lev Platonovich 29 Kasich, Aleksei 147 Kasimovskii, Konstantin 81 Kasparov, Garry 182, 241, 242 Kassin, Oleg 199, 202 Kassin, Vladislav 233

Index 281 Kasyanov, M. 242 Katanaev, Ivan 160, 161 Katasonova, Mariya 165, 178 Kategorie C (band) 91 Katkov, N. 246 Kavkaz-tsentr (Islamist website) 110 Khabarov, Leonid 208 Kharkiv People’s Republic 163 Khasis, Evgeniya 63 Khinevich, Aleksandr 149 Khodakovskii, Aleksandr 176 Khodorkovsky, Mikhail 241 Kholmogorov, Egor 131, 186, 198 Khomyakov, Aleksei Stepanovich 6, 101 Khomyakov, Petr 96, 101, 106, 139 Khryakov, Aleksandr 180 Khudyakov, Aleksei 134, 202 Kildishov. Aleksandr 137 Kireevskii, Petr Vasil’evich 6 Kirill Kalashnikov, Kirill 114 Klevachev, Mikhail 233 Klikov, Vyacheslav 195 Klimuk, Sergei 112 Knyrik, Konstantin 156 Kochetkov, Aleksei 211, 233 Kogan, J. 36 Kolegov, Aleksei 68, 70 Kolesnikov, Boris 174 Kolev, Kirill 226 Kolovrat (band) 39, 59, 80, 83 Komarnitskii, Vladimir 53, 89–91, 184 Komitet 2008 241 Kommersant-Ukraina 67 Kondopoga, violence in 47–48, 71–78, 190 Konstantinov, Daniil 80 Konstantinov, Denis 114, 201 Koptsev, Aleksander 49 Kor 158 Korchagin, V. 38 Korchynskyi, Dmytro 139, 155 Kormukhin, Andrei 159–160, 162 Korn, Viktor 158 Kornel Sawinski, Kornel 212 Kornilov, Dmitrii 173 Kornilov, Vladimir 173, 180 Korolev, Nikita 49, 50, 55, 103, 187, 191, 202 Korolev, Nikolai 61, 112 Korothikh, Sergei 59, 147–148; see also National-Socialist Society Korovin, Valerii 153 Korroziya Metalla (band) 95, 105

Korshunov, Aleksei 64–66, 82 Korzhakov, A. 39 Kosovo Front 225 Kostarev, Oleg 61, 103, 112 Kovacs, Bela 215 Kovacs, Mate 216 Kovalev, Konstantin 138 Kovaleva, Vasilisa 61 Kovrovskii, Miroslav 111 Kozhemyakin, Aleksei ‘Kolovrat’ 148–149 Kozhinov, V. 33 Kozitsyn, Nikolai 133 Kralin, Vladlen 48 Kravchenko, Aleksandr 225 Kravchenko, Miron 162 Krill, Patriarch 159 Krivets, Vasilii 103 Krivets’s Gang 122 Krivosheev, Stepan 160 Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich 24 Krstic, Nebojša 222 Krylov, Konstantin 55, 131, 132, 186, 198 Krzesinska, Matylda 158 Kucherov, Sergei 187, 195 Kucherto, Konstantin 117 Kudryashev, Vladimir 70 Kudryavtsev, Mikhail 82 Kungurova, Tatyana 56, 141 Kurginyan, Sergei 33, 43, 67 Kuroptev, Vladislav 203 Kuryanovich, Nikolai 50, 66, 147, 190, 199, 204, 206; see also LiberalDemocratic Party of Russia Kutalo, Aleksei 56, 141 Kuznetsov, Andrei 142–143, 146 Kvachkov, Vladimir 118, 192–193, 199, 200, 206; see also People’s Militia of Russia Kysuce Resistance (Kysucky vzdor) 231 Laqueur, Walter 2, 43 Laszlo, Attila 216–217 Laszlo, Balasz 218 Laurelle, Marlene 2, 19–20 Lavrov, Petr Lavrovich 24 Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc) 210 Lazarenko, Ilya 81, 104 Le Pen, Marine 178 League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin) 210 Lebedev, Valentin 199

282  Index Lefortovo Front 82 Leont’ev, K.K. 246 Lepper, Andrzej 167, 210 Letov, Egor 242 Letter of the 74 (Pismo 74-kh) 42 Levchenko, Nikolai 180 Levchenko, Valerii 190, 204 Levkin, Aleksei 102, 104, 142, 143 LGBT community 159 Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia 14, 37, 50, 202, 241 Liberal-Democratic Party of the Soviet Union 37–38 Liberal-Patriotic Party ‘Revival’ 38 Light Russia (Svetlaya Rus’) 71 Limonov, Eduard 39, 62, 95, 105, 131, 132, 175, 241, 242; see also National Bolshevik Party Linkoln-88 121 Linz, Juan 11, 19, 240 Lion Against (Lev protiv) 71 Literaturnaya Rossiya 33 ‘Locals’ (Mestnye) 66, 82 Logunova, Ekaterina 148 Lokomotiv (football club) 95 Lombardy-Russia Cultural Association (Associazione Culturale Lombardia Russia) 212 Lost Reich Rex (music publisher) 102 Luhansk People’s Republic 70, 95, 127, 161 Lukashenko, Aleksandr 190 Lukonin, Viktor 114–115 Lyagin, Roman 180 Lyashko, Oleh 149 Lysenko, N. 38 Lytkin, Nikita 123–124 M818th (band) 102 Mad Crowd (hooligan group) 109 Madariago, Isabel de 240 Made in St Petersburg (magazine) 83 Maidannik, Dmitrii 171 Makarova, L. 38 Makashov, Albert 59 Makhachkala 93 Makienko, Maksim 85 Makovich, Vladimir 180 Maksimov, Aleksei 82, 83–84 Malia, Martin 6 Malofeev, Konstantin 168, 214 Maltsev, Vyacheslav 57, 80, 188 Malyugin, Andrei 110, 111, 116 Mangushev, Igor 71, 134

Mansur, Sheikh 86 Marching Together (Idushchievmeste). 84 Markelov, Stanislav 63, 144 Markov, Igor 171–172, 180 Marmazova, Tatyana 180 Marshe nesoglasnykh (Marches of Dissenters), 242 Martsinkevich, Maksim ‘Tesak’ 59, 68, 69–70, 80, 82, 147, 195 Martynowski, Marcin 212 Masaryk, Tomaš Garrigue 4, 30 Matilda (movie) 158, 161, 191 Mat’ushin, Aleksandr 67, 137–138, 175 Mavrov, Denis 87 Mazur, Aleksei 200 Medvedev, Dmitrii 93, 200 Mektic, Dragan 224 Melash, Dmitrii 203, 205 Melnik, Nikolai 60–61 Mendeleev, D. 42 Mensheviks 10 Menshikov, M.O. 246 Merezhkovskii, Dmitrii Sergeevich 25 Merkulov, Vsevolod 105 Mestnye 175 Metropolitan Rafail 186 Michaloliakos, Nikolaos 226 Michel, Luc 211 Mikhailov, Aleksei 48, 61, 208 Mikheev, Ivan 103, 104, 142, 143–144; see also Wotan Jugend Milchakov, Aleksei 134–135 militant nationalism abroad, Russia’s support for 209–233; Bulgaria 225–227; Czech Republic 229–230; Germany 227–229; Greece 225–227; Hungary 214–220; Poland 210–214; Serbia 220–225; Slovakia 231–232; transnational trends 232–233 militant nationalism, anti-Putin 181–207; militant violent organisations 184–185; Orthodox-monarchist organisations 185–197; pro-Ukrainian camp 181–185; Russian Marches 197–206; Russian National Front and its organisations 187–195; ‘Russians’ movement 182–183 militant nationalism, pro-Putin 152–178; in Donbass 173–174; in Donetsk Republic after Orange Revolution 174–177; Neo-Eurasianists 154–157; pro-government vigilatism 163–167; religious vigilantism 157–163;

Index 283 role during the outbreak of war in Ukraine 168–170; role during unrest in Odessa 171–172; in Russian Federation 152–170; in Ukraine 170–177 militant right 4–22; in 1905–1917 25–27; contemporary 235; distinction between left and 7; fascism 29–30; history of 24–41; as opposition actor 239–243; partialness of the project of 10; post-Soviet era 13–18, 32–39; pre-revolutionary 5–10; Putin era 18–20; Soviet era 11–13; Tsar and 7, 8; White émigrés 27–29; in World War II 30–32 Military Union Vasil Levski (Balgarski vojinski sayuz Vasil Levski) 226 Military-Patriotic Centre (Voennopatrioticheskii tsentr) 138 Military-Patriotic Club SPAS 112–113 Miloserdov, V. 38 Minin and Pozharskii Public Militia (Narodnoe opolchenie imeni Minina i Pozharskogo, NOMP) 192–193, 200 Ministry of State Security (Ministerstvo gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, MGB) 176 Minkenberg, Michael 2 Mirkovic, Nikola 225 Mironov, Boris 186, 196 Mironov, Ivan 196, 201, 202 Mironov, Tat’yana 186 Miroshnichenko, Igor 190, 205 Mishchenko, Maksim 63 Misyurov, O.A. 13 Mitryushin, Aleksei 82–83 Mityaev, Stanislav 70 Mladic, Ratko 222 Mobus, Hendrik 101 modern authoritarianism 235 Modus 68 Molodaya gvardiya (Young Guard) 33 Molotkov, Lev 60–61, 103 Monarchist Party of Russia 205 Monarkhicheskaya gosudarstvennost 246 monism 241 Morvai, Krisztina 216 Moscow Band 80 Moscow Defence League 80, 201 Moscow Helsinki Group 49 Moscow Shield 134 Moshpit (band) 91

Moskovskii komsomolets 67 Movement Against Illegal Immigration (Dvizhenie protiv nelegal’noi immigratsii, DPNI) 46, 47–49, 62, 71, 83, 128, 182, 198–199, 228, 230 Movement For Nationalisation and Deprivatisation of the Country’s Strategic Resources 188, 194 Movement in Support of the Army (Dvizhenie v podderzhku armii, DPA) 59 Movement of Patriotic Forces—Russian Cause 18 Movement of Patriotic Forces—Russian Deed 39 Movement ‘Spas’ 39 Movement ‘Word and Deed’ 39 Mozgov, Aleksei 206 Mozgovoi, Aleksei 130, 138, 179 Mukhachev, Anton 101 Mukhin,Yurii 194 Mumzhiev, Valentin 116 Muzyka, Oleg 172, 179–180 Myamlin, Kirill 205 Nagornyi, Aleksandr 153 Nagy, Tamas Gaudy 216 Nalchik 93 Nalimov, Mikhail 201 Narodnaya volya 7 Narodni slobodarski pokret 221 Narodniki movement 7, 24 Nash sovremennik (Our Contemporary), 33 Nashi 49, 84, 94, 155, 160 nashisty 163 Nation and Freedom Committee (Komitet Natsiia i svoboda, KNS) 56, 58, 89, 141, 183 National Bolshevik Party 241, 247 National Bolsheviks 17, 62, 95, 105, 132, 137, 160, 175 National Cohorts (Natsionalni druzhyny) 184 National Corps (Natsionalnyi korpus) 144, 184 National Democratic Party (Natsionaldemokraticheskaya partiya, NDP) 51, 55, 128, 132–133 National Democratic Party of Germany (National-demokratische Partei Deutschlands, NPD) 92 National Fascist Community 229 National Front 81

284  Index National Liberation Movement (Natsional’no-osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie, NOD) 95, 152, 164–165, 205, 206 National Liberation Movement (Natsional’no-osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie, NOD) 132 National Militia (Narodni domobrana) 231 National Movement (Ruch Narodowy) 213 National Organisation of Russian Muslims (NORM) 86–87 National Organisation of Russian Youth (Natsionalnaya organizatsiya russkoi molodezhi, NORM) 56 National Patriots of Russia (Natsional-patrioty Rossii), 129 National Russian Liberation Movement 38, 48 National Salvation Front 37 National Salvation Front (Front narodnogo spaseniya) 17 National-Bolshevik Party 39 National-Conservative Movement ‘Russian World’ (Natsionalnokonservativno edvizhenie ‘Russkiimir’), 132 National-Democratic Party 203 National-Democratic Party of Germany (National-demokratische Partei Deutschlands, NPD) 227 nationalists 1, 19, 38–39; anti-Putin, militant 181–207; anti-Ukranian 129–130; coalition of moderate and radical 129–131; exiled pro-Ukrainian associations 141–146; fighting on DNR/LNR side 133–138; militant nationalism abroad 209–233; moderate 132–133; postures towards RussoUkrainian war 127–129; pro-Putin, militant 152–178; pro-Ukrainian 139–149; radical 146–149; radical autonomous 87–92; war in Donbass and 127–151 National-Patriotic Front (NPF) Pamyat’ 54 National-Radical Camp (Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny) 213 National-Republican Party of Russia 105 National-Socialist (NS) Straight-Edge 84 National-Socialist black metal/ pagan metal 96–104, 105; Northern

Brotherhood 96–101; Wotan Jugend 101–104; see also subcultures National-Socialist Initiative (Natsional’naya-sotsialist icheskayainitsiativa, NSI) 51, 82, 83, 93, 128, 183 National-Socialist Russian Workers Party (NSRP) 31 National-Socialist Society (Natsionalsotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo, NSO) 49, 58–61, 185; evolution of 59–60; founders of 59–60, 148, 167; ideology 58–59; leadership 59–60; skinheads 81; violent activities of NS0-Server 60–61 National-Socialist Straight-Edge 63 National-Sovereign Party of Russia (Natsional’no-derzhavnaya partiya Rossii) 195, 196 National-Sovereign Party of Russia (NDPR) 49 Natsionalnoe osvobozhdenie russkogo naroda (NORNA) 96 Navalnyi, Aleksei 164, 182, 201, 242 Nazarbaev, Nursultan 52, 182 Nazarov, Mikhail 186, 196, 199, 202 Nemtsov, Boris 182, 241 Neo-Eurasianists 154–157 neo-Nazis and neo-Nazism 1; autonomous 87–91; Blood & Honour Russia 85–87; inspirations for 39; National-Socialist skinheads 58, 81–82; neo-pagans 187; Northerners 64; Restrukt! movement 69–70; Russian Goal 83; Russian Image and 62; Schultz-88 83; Slavic Power and 50; United Brigades-88 82–83; violent acts 63, 244; White Power music and 84–85; White Rex and 91–92 Nesmiyan, Anatolin 131 New Force (Novaya sila) 56, 132–133 New Opposition movement (Novaya oppositsiya) 57–58, 184 New Right-Wing Alternative (Novaya pravaya alternativa) 58 Niedzwiecki, Janusz 211 Night Wolves (Nochnye volki) 138, 165, 166, 179, 205, 227 Nikiforenko, Konstantin 60 Nikitin, Aleksandr 116 Nikitin, Denis 91, 145 Niklot 210 Nikolaevich, Nikolai 28 Nikolai II 153, 158

Index 285 Nikulkin, Sergei 83 non-authoritarian conservative right 238 Northern Brigade 56 Northern Brotherhood 96–101 Northern Frontier (Rubezh severa) 70, 149, 185 Nosov, Vladimir 159 Novgorod Rus’ 101 Noviopov, Ivan 90, 91 Novorossiya 68, 89, 132, 135, 136, 137, 142, 169, 179, 204, 232 NS avtonomy 181 NS Straight-Edge 87 NSO-Sever 60–61, 185 NS/WP Nevograd 116 OB-88 62, 64 Oblast, Vladimir 54 Obradovic, Boško 221 Obrana 247 Obraz 62, 233 obshchina 238 Ochkin, Mikhail 132, 203, 204 Ochsenreiter, Manuel 212 October Manifesto 8, 26 Odessa Liberation Committee – Anti-Maidan (Komitet osvobozhdeniya Odessy – Antimaidan). 172 Odesskaya Druzhina 171–172 Odinov, Dmitrii 171 Ogorodnikov, Aleksandr 87 Okkupainarkofilyai 69 Okkupai-pedofilyai 69 Open Russia 241 Oplot 170 Opposition Coordination Council 182 Orange Revolution 64, 95, 173, 174–177 ‘Orel Partisans’ 86, 114–115 Oreshnikov, Mikhail 144 Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists 103 Orlov Front 200 Orthodox Church 17, 34, 64 Orthodox Constitutional-Monarchist Party 35 Orthodox Russian ChristianDemocratic Movement (Rossiiskoe khristiansko-demokraticheskoe dvizhenie) 246 Orthodox Unity 193 Orthodox-monarchist organisations 185–197 Osipov, V. 34, 35, 208

Osnovy geopolitiki (Foundations of Geopolitics) 154 O’Sullivan, Noel 42 Otadžbinski pokret Obraz (Homeland Movement Obraz) 222 The Other Russia (Drugaya Rossiya) 20, 132 Otrakovskii, Ivan 157, 202, 206 Otryad Mobilniy Osobogo Naznacheniya (OMON) 93, 103 Our House Russia (Nash dom Rossiya, NDR) 15 pagan metal 96–104 Pagen Front 101–102 Pamyat 16, 35–36, 185 Paniuszkin, W. 247 Parinov, Aleksandr 64, 82, 148 Parovic, Miroslav 221 parties of power 15 Party for the Protection of the Russian Constitution (Partiya zashchity rossiiskoi konstitutsii) 198 Party of Freedom (Partiyasvobody) 81, 96, 106 Party of Nationalists (Partiya natsionalistov) 52, 56, 57–58, 91, 184 Party of Regions 172, 176 Party of Russia’s Spiritual Revival 18, 38 Patriarchal Commission for the Family and the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood 160 patrimonialism 235 Patriot of Ukraine (Patriot Ukrainy) 103, 147 Patriotic Front (Patriotski front) 225 Patriotic Union (Legion patriotow) 210 Patrol 36 234 Pavlov, Nikolai 83 Pax Hungarica Movement 218 Pelevin, Viktor 242 People’s Assembly (Narodnyi sobor) 199, 202, 231 People’s Diplomacy Fund 233 People’s Diplomacy (Narodnaya diplomatiya) 68 People’s Militia of Russia (Narodnoe opolchenie Rossii, NOR) 187–188, 192–193 People’s National Party (Narodnaya natsional’naya partiya) 188 People’s National Party (Narodnaya natsional’naya partiya, NNP) 50, 195

286  Index People’s National Party (Narodnaya natsional’naya partiya, NNP) 81 People’s Squad (Narodnaya druzhina) 71 People’s Union (Narodnyi soyuz) 167, 199 People’s Will (Narodnaya volya) 167 People’s Will party 198 perestroika 13, 32, 34, 239 Permanent Council of NationalPatriotic Forces of Russia 129–130 Perovic, Nikola 225 Peter I (the Great) 5, 12, 29 Petrov, J. 39 Petrovskii, Andrei 57, 90 Petrovskii, Yan 135, 212 Piskorski, Mateusz 210, 215 Plotnitskii, Igor 136, 179 pluralism 240–241 Pobedonostsev, Konstantin Petrovich 7, 246 pogroms 71–78 Poklonskaya, Natal’ya 153, 158 Poland, militant nationalism in 210–214 Polet puli (The Flight of a Bullet) (movie) 164 Polynkov, Mikhail 225 Ponomariov, Oleg 242 Popovic, Nenad 221 Popular Movement Holy Rus’ party 179 Poroshenko, Petro 149 P.O.W. Centre 85 Pozitsiya (band) 83 Praviisektor Ukrainian Volunteer Corps. 118, 144, 147 Pravoslavnaya Rossiya 45 pre-revolutionary Russia 5–10 Prezumptsiyanevinovnosti (band) 91 Price of Freedom (Tsenasvobody) festivals 103 Pridnestrov’e 68 ‘Primorsky Partisans’ 115, 123 Prisyazhnyuk, Kirill ‘Vegan’ 116 Prizrak brigade 136 Progressive Bloc 27 Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) 155, 174 progressives 5 Prokhanov, Aleksandr 42, 168 Prokhorenko, Artem 111 Prophet Daniil Orthodox missionary movement 158 pro-Putin militant nationalism 152–178; in Donbass 173–174; in Donetsk Republic after Orange Revolution

174–177; Neo-Eurasianists 154–157; pro-government vigilatism 163–167; religious vigilantism 157–163; role during the outbreak of war in Ukraine 168–170; role during unrest in Odessa 171–172; in Russian Federation 152–170; in Ukraine 170–177; see also anti-Puti militant nationalism Prosvirnin, Egor 130, 132, 134, 170 Prosvita 172 Protocols of the Elders of Zion 158 Protocols of the Elders of Zion 27 Protokoly sionskikh mudretsov 41 Pugovkin, Anton 103 Puhse, Jens 228 Purgin, Andrei 174, 180 Purishkevich, V.M. 42 Pushilin, Denis 176, 213, 214 Pussy Riot (band) 157, 159, 178 Putin, Vladimir 4, 236; militant right and 18–20; Ukraine policy 130–131; victory in 2000 presidential election 16 radical autonomous nationalists 87–92; see also subcultures Radio Free Europe 160, 183 Raevskii, Anton 134 Ragulin, Ilya 206 Raskolniki movement 5 Raškovic, Sanda 221 Rasputin, V. 32, 33, 247 Ratnikov, Vladimir 56–57, 80, 205 Ražatovic, Žejlko ‘Arkan’ 220 Red-Blue Warriors (football hooligan) 92 religious vigilantism 157–163 Renewed RONS 113 Republika Srpska Army 220 Republika Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina) 224 Resistance (Odpor) 63 Resistance (Soprotivlenie) 89, 114 Restrukt! 69–70, 185 revisionism 235 Revolution of Dignity 80 RFO Pamyat’ (Russkii Front Osvobozhdeniya Pamyat’) 51, 53–54, 183, 200 Right Hook (Chuk sprava) 62 Right Sector (Pravii sector) 103 Right-Conservative Alliance 167 Right-Conservative Movement (Pravokonservativnoe dvizhenie) 129

Index 287 Right-wing Conservative Alliance (Pravo-konservativny alyans, PKA) 63, 68 right-wing extremism: in 2000–2018 46– 79; political violence and 243–244; in Putin era 46–79; subcultures 81–104; terrorism and 108 Rimkus, Kiril 134 RNE Volunteer Troops 137 Rock Against Communism (RAC) style 85, 104 Rodina 79, 101, 129, 132, 157, 167, 171–173, 188, 202 Rodzaevskii, Konstantin Vladimirovich 29 Roeder, Manfred 228 Roeder, Philip 227 Rogozin, Dmitrii 48, 55, 106, 188 Rokhin, Lev 130 Rokhlin, Elena 203, 204 Rokhlin, Lev 59, 206 Roman, Chris 203 Romanczuk, Andrzej 211 Romanov, Mikhail 157 Romanov, Nikolai 158 Romanov dynasty 8, 10 Romanov-Russkii, Denis 56, 57, 205 Roskomnadzor 133 Ros Pil 242 Rossiiskoe natsional’noe edinstvo 44 Rossiya 88 (movie) 69 Rossiyane 46 Ros Yama 242 Rozanov, Vasilii Vasil’evich 25 Rubikon 220 Ruch narodowo-radykalny Falanga 213 Rukh pylnykh 180 Rumyantsev, Dmitrii 49, 59–60, 61, 167, 185; see also National-Socialist Society Rusich 45 Russia and Europe (Masaryk) 5 Russia With a Knife in Her Back (movie) 187 Russian All-National Union (Russkii obshchenatsionalnyi soyuz, RONS) 36, 44, 51, 54–55, 113, 162, 183 Russian All-People’s Union (Rossiiskii obshchenarodnyi soyuz, ROS) 167, 201 Russian Assembly (Russkoe Sobranie) 25 Russian authoritarianism 240 Russian Bloc (Russkii blok) 155 Russian Centre (Russkii tsentr) 32, 89, 90, 91, 103, 105, 142–145, 184, 247

Russian Civic Union (Russkii grazhdanskii soyuz) 55 Russian Coalition of Action (Russkaya koalitsiya deistviya) 202 Russian Corps (Russkii korpus) 147 ‘Russian doctrine’ 188 Russian Fascist Party 29 Russian First of May (Russkii pervomai) 89, 103 Russian Flag (band) 212 Russian Ghetto (Russkoegetto) 85 Russian Goal (Russkaya tsel’) 69, 81, 83, 195 Russian Human Rights League 90, 206 Russian Humanitarian Centre 224 Russian idea 25 Russian Image 48, 62–64, 85, 175, 185; ideology of 62; links and supporters of 66–68 Russian Imperial Movement (Russkoe imperskoe dvizhenie, RID) 51, 52, 54, 128, 130, 134, 136, 188, 191–192, 200, 229, 233, 234 Russian Insurgent Army (Russkaya povstancheskaya armiya, RPA), 145–146 Russian Joint National Alliance (Russkii obedinennyi natsionalnyi alyans, RONA) 56 ‘Russian Legion’ of Euromaidan 147 Russian March (Russkii marsh) 47, 50, 66, 89–90, 103, 184, 197–206 Russian Military Union 179 Russian Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) 50 Russian Monarchist Party 26 Russian National Front 131 Russian National Front (Russkii natsionalnyi front, RNF) 60, 83, 187–188, 205 Russian National Guard 179 Russian National Liberation Army (RONA) 32 Russian National-Republican Party 38 Russian National Socialist Party 81 Russian National Union (Russkii natsional’nii soyuz) 81, 153 Russian National Unity 228 Russian National Unity (Russkoe natsional’noe edinstvo, RNE) 36, 39, 49, 59, 60, 81, 133, 136–137, 174, 186, 204, 233 Russian National-Democratic Union 247 Russian National-Patriotic Centre 43

288  Index Russian Orthodox Church 160, 187 Russian Orthodox Church Abroad 193 Russian Party of National Rebirth 37 Russian Party (Russkaya partiya) 16, 18, 32, 38 Russian Party Socialism Today (Rossiiskaya Partiya Sotsializm Segodnya) 167 Russian People’s Assembly 36 Russian Popular Union of Archangel Michael 25–26 Russian purge (Russkie zachistki) 51 Russian Rebirth (Russkoe vozrozhdenie) 202 Russian Runs (Russkieprobezhki) 139 Russian Social Movement (Russkoe obshchestvennoe dvizhenie, ROD) 55, 200, 201 Russian Society of Astrakhan (Russkoe obshchestvo Astrakhani, ROA) 141 Russian soul 41 Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) 14 ‘Russian Spring’ 126, 128, 133 Russian Students Association 29 ‘Russian Symbol’ 190 Russian Unity Day 197 Russian Unity (Russkoe edinstvo) 168, 170 Russian Verdict 80 Russian Verdict (Russkii verdikt) 62 Russian Voluntary Unit-1 (Russkii dobrovolcheskii otryad) 220 ‘Russian way’ 232 ‘Russians for UPA’ 101 ‘Russians’ movement (Etnopoliticheskoe obedinenie ‘Russkie’) 46, 182–183; origin and evolution of 51–53 Russians of Astrakhan (Russkie Astrakhani) 141 Russia’s Choice 14 Russkaya pravda 45 Russki poryadok 233 Russkie 46 Russkii Khozyain (newspaper) 82 Russkii mir (Russian World) foundation. 175 Russkii Obraz 67 Russkiistyag (band) 106 Russkiivestnik 112 Russo-Japanese War 8 Rutskoi, Aleksandr 167 Ryabov, G. 33

Rychkov, Josef 42 Ryno-Skachevskii Gang 116, 120 Ryukhin, Aleksandr 64 Saint Sava nationalism 221 Sakwa, Richard 241 Salbin, Dmitrii 165 Salnikov, Gennadii 202 Samarin, Yurii Fedorovich 6 Samoilov, Gleb 147 Samokhin, Aleksandr 56–57 Samsonov, Aleksei 80 Satarov, Georgii 241 Savelev, Andrei 79, 130, 145, 162, 185, 186, 188, 198, 203, 206, 208; see also Great Russia Savitskii, Petr Nikolaevich 13, 28–29 Savvin, Dmitrii 56, 141 Scalea, Daniele 212 Schapiro, Leonard 240 Schmitt, Carl 34, 218 Schultz-88 54, 83–84, 108 Second Duma 27 Security Service of Ukraine (Sluzhba bezpeky Ukrainy, SBU) 67, 155 Self-Defence party 210 Semenyaka, Elena 144, 145 Semiletnikov, Andrei 82 Semionovich Uvarov, Sergei Semionovich 26 Senyukov, Nikita 112 Serb National Movement Naši 223–224 Serbia, militant nationalism in 220–225 Serbian Action (Srpska akcija) 223 Serbian Assembly Zavetnici (Srpski sabor Zavetnici) 221–222 Serbian Honour (Srbska cast) 224 Serbian Hussar Regiment 225 Serbian League (Srpska liga) 221 Serbian Movement ‘Doors’ (Srpski pokret Dveri) 221 Serbian Progressive Party (Srpska napredna stranka, SNS) 221 Serbian Radical Party (SRS) 221 Serbian Volunteer Group (the Tigers) 220 Serbian-Russian Movement (Srpskoruski pokret) 221 Sergeevich, Konstantin 6 Šešelj, Vojislav 220, 225 Sevastyanov, Aleksanr 198, 203 Severnoe Bratstvo 96 Shafarevich, I. 34, 36 Shekhovtsov, Anton 2, 225

Index 289 Shenderovich, Viktor 242 Shenfield, S. 39 Sheremetev, Sergei Dmitrievich 25 Shingarkin, Maksim 204 Shiropaev, Aleksei 139 Shishkov, Georgii 56 Shprygin, Aleksandr 95 Shtilmark, Aleksandr 188, 195 Shturm (band) 85 Shukshin, V. 32 Shutko, Ilya ‘Luftwaffe’ 115, 116 SiCh 172 Sidorov, M. 39 Sidorov, Vadim 87 Sieg-88 121 Sieradzan, Przemyshaw 212 Simonovich, Leonid 185, 188, 190, 191, 199; see also Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers Sinichka 123 Sionskie protokoly 41 Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement (Hatvannegy Varmegyei Ifjusagi Mozgalom, HVIM) 216, 217 Skilling, H. Gordon 240 The Skinhead Bible—New Testament (Korolev) 113 skinheads 39, 81–87; Blood & Honour Russia (Krovi chest’ Rossiya) 85–87; Russian Goal (Russkayatsel’) 83; Schultz-88 83–84; Solstice (Solntsevorot) 84; United Brigades-88 82; White Power music and 84–85; see also subcultures Skrewdriver (band) 85 Skurlatov, V. 38 Sladkikh, Aleksandr 123 Slavic Brotherhood (Slavyanskoe bratstvo) 149 Slavic Legion (Slavyanskii legion) 45 Slavic Union/Slavic Power (Slavyanskii soyuz/Slavyanskaya sila, SS) 46, 49–51, 59, 81, 128, 182 Slavic Unity (Slavyanskoe edinstvo) 171 Slavic Varangians (Varyags) 137 Slavophiles 5–7, 29 Slovak Revival Movement (Slovenske hnutie obrody) 222, 231 Slovakia 231–232 Smirnov, Archpriest 161 Smirnov, Vladimir 103, 106 Smith, Anthony 9 Sneider, Tamas 216 Sober Cities (Trezvye dvory) 71

Socialist-Revolutionary Party (Partiya sotsialistov-revolyutsionnerov, PSR) 24 Social-National Assembly (SotsialNatsional’na Asambleya) 103 Social-Patriotic Movement ‘Derzhava’ 38 Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments (Obshchestvo okhrany pamyatnikov i kultury) 185–186 The Society of the Whites-88 (Obshchestvo belych-88) 121 Solidarite Kosovo 225 Solonevich, Ivan Luk’yanovich 28 Soloukhin, V. 32, 33, 34 Solovei, Valerii 132 Solov’ev, Vladimir 41 Solstice (Solntsevorot) 84 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr 33, 34, 247 Sorochinskii meetings 161 Sorok sorokov 153, 159–161 Sotnikov, Ilya 90, 163, 203, 205 South-East Radical Block (SERB) 152, 163–164, 205 South-Eastern Front 156 Soviet Union 11 Soyuz russkogo naroda 195 Soyuz slavyanskikhobshchin 96 Soyuz Venedov 96 Spann, Othmar 34 Spartak Moscow 92, 95, 160 Spengler, Oswald 34, 218 Špidlik, Cardinal Tomaš 20 Sporykhinova, Ulyana 71 Sputnik i Pogrom 130, 132, 134 St Sergius Union of Russian People (Sviato-Sergievskii soyuz russkogo naroda) 190 Stalinist Bloc for the Soviet Union 195 Stamenkovski, Stefan 221 Starikov, Nikolai 166, 167, 205 Stellar Winter (music label) 102 Stepanov, Vasilii 95, 160 Sterligov, H. 39 Steshin, Dmitrii 67 Stojkovic, Bojan 224 Stolypin, Petr Arkad’evich 8, 27, 28 Stolz Khabarovsk 146 Strakhov, N.N. 246 Strarikov, Nikolai 132 strastoterptsy 207 Strategy 31 movement 241

290  Index Strigulkov, Roman 146–147 Strukov, Ivan 198 Struve, P.B. 246 subcultures: football hooligans 92–96; National-Socialist black metal/pagan metal 96–104; radical autonomous nationalists 87–92; skinheads 81–87 Sukhorada, Andrei 123 Surkov, Vladimir 198 Surkov, Vladislav 94, 154 Svarog (band) 83 Švec, Robert 222 Svetlaya Rus’ 101, 134 Sviridov, Egor 93 Svoboda 172 Švrcek, Peter 231 Swedish Nordic Resistance Movement 136 Szporluk, Roman 17 Szturm 143 Talakin, Artem 84 Tamamshev, Vladislav 60–61, 204 Tarasevich, Gosha 205 Taratorin, Dmitrii 199 Temnozor (band) 102 Terror National Front (band) 85 terrorism 107–124; militant wings/ sections of right-wing extremist organisations 107–118; violent racist gangs 108, 118–123 terrorists 108 The Right (Die Rechte) 229 Third Serbia (Treca Srbija) 221 Thulin, Anton 234 Tigers of the Homeland 167 Tikhomirov, Ilya 112 Tikhomirov, L.A. 246 Tikhomirov, Yurii 64 Tikhonov, Nikita 61, 62, 63, 67, 233 Tkach, Vladimir 70 Tkhachev, Petr Nikitich 24 Tokmakov, Semen 69, 81, 83 Tolopa, Yuliya ‘Valkyrie’ 149 Tolstoi, Petr 164 Tomassi, Bartosz 211 Tor, Vladimir 48, 55, 132, 200, 201; see also Movement Against Illegal Immigration Toroczkai, Laszlo 217, 218 Total War Commando 102 totalitarianism 235, 241 Totenkopf (band) 84 Traditional Britain Group 92

traditionalists 5 Tri dorogi 166 Trianon Treaty 217 Troitskii, Sergei 204 Troshkin, Oleg 101 Trubetskoi, Nikolai Sergeevich 13, 29 True Orthodox Church (Istinnopravoslavnaya tserkov) 186 Trushchalov, Nikolai 136 Tsar 7, 8 tsarebozhnichestvo 187 tsarebozhniki (tsar-worshippers) 153, 158–159 Tsargrad 186 tsarist autocracy 235 Tsarist Russian March 202 Tsar’s Wolves 233 Tsar’s Wolves (Tsarskie volki) 220 Tsorionov, Dmitri 203 Tsurkan, Aleksandr 174 Tszen, Matvei 203 Tucker, Robert 8 Turik, Aleksandr 51, 55, 196 Turukhin, Pavel 162 25 January Committee (Komitet 25 Yanvarya, K-25), 169 Tyc, Jerzy 211 Tyirityan, Zsolt 217, 218 Tyukin, Denis 142 Uchitel, Aleksei 162 Udaltsov, Sergei 241, 242 Udugov, Movladi 86 Ukraine: Russian pro-Putin nationalism and war in 168–170; Russia’s foreign policy towards 126–129 Ukraine Salvation Committee (Komitet spaseniya Ukrainy) 172 Ukrainian Insurgent Army 139 Ukrainian Muslim Centre (Ukrainskii musulmanskii tsentr) 87 Ukrainian National Movement 173 Ultimatum (band) 85 Ultra (Ivanovo) 85 Ultra Kultura 45 Umarov, Doku 86 Union (Soyuz) 36 Union for Christian Rebirth 35, 44 Union of Born Revolutions 180 Union of Compatriots ‘Otchina’ 44 Union of Orthodox BannerBearers (Soyuz Pravoslavnykh Khorugvenostsev, SPKh) 153, 157, 162, 186, 188, 190–191, 200

Index 291 Union of Orthodox Citizens (Soyuz pravoslavnykh grazhdan) 188 Union of Right-Wing Forces (Soyuz pravykh Sil) 241 Union of Russian People (Soyuz russkogo naroda, SRN) 26, 51, 55, 131, 186, 195–197, 205 Union of Russian Writers (Soyuz russkikh pisatelei) 32, 33 Union of Spiritual Revival of the Fatherland 32 United Brigades-88 (Obiedinennye brigady-88, OB-88) 49, 82–83 United Civil Front 241, 247 United Patriots (Obedineni patrioti) 226 Usovskii, Aleksandr 214 Uvarov, S.S. 246 V Kontakte social network 53, 69, 90, 104, 106, 135, 190, 191 Vacic, Misa 222 Vakhromov, Maksim 58 Valov, Aleksandr 56, 141 Valyaev, Evgenii 68, 130, 200 Vandal (band) 85 Vanguard of Red Youth (Avangardkrasnoimolodezhi) 155, 241, 247 Varangian Rus 144 Varangians (Varyagi) 138 Varjag Crew 175 Varyag 137 Vasilev, Aleksandr 172, 200 Vasil’ev, D. 35 Vasilev, Pavel 203, 204 Vasil’evich, Ivan 6 vatniky 140 Vdovenko, Valerii 101 Velesovkrug 96 Velimirovic, Nikola 221 Vengerfeld, German 116 Verbitskii, Roman 160 Verkhovskii, Aleksandr 38, 88, 127, 136, 157, 159 vigilantism 108–118 violent racist gangs 108, 118–123 Vitrenko, Natalya 155–156, 174 Vladimirovich, Kirill 28 Vladimirovna, Maria 189 Vlasov, Andrei Andreevich 31 Vlasov, Vladimir 233 Voevodin, Aleksei 108–111 Voevodinov, B 133 Voevodinov, Konstantin 133

Vokin, Artem 115 Vokin, Ruslan 115 volkhva Yaromira 149 Volkov, Mikhail 64, 82 Volkov, V.V. 38 Volksturm 120 Volotskii, Josif 208 Vona, Gabor 216 Vondrak, Patrik 230 Vonyatskii, Anastasii Andreevich 29, 42 Vorobev, Stanislav 51, 134, 136, 191; see also Russian Imperial Movement Voskoboinik, Konstantin 31 VOSTOK France Solidarite Donbass 225 VTB (bank) 168 Vybor Rossiya 14 We Stand by Russia (Facebook group) 216 Weigel, Daniel 92 Werwolf 39, 44 White Bulldogs (Belyebuldogi) 49, 82 White Eagles 220 White émigrés 27–29 White Guard movement 30 White Inquisitors Crew 121 White Power music 84–85 White Rex (clothing brand) 91–92, 103, 104, 229, 232 White Watch (Belyipatrul) 105 White Wolves (Belyevolki) 120 Wiginton, Preston 198 Winter Attack Zine 102 Wittman, Lars 203 Wojtulewicz, Wojciech 214 Wolf-Homophobe 159 Wolves (Farkasok) 216 Wolves’ Hundred 133 Word to the Nation (Slovo k narodu) 42 Workers Party (Munkaspart) 219 Working Russia (Trudyashchayasya Rossiya) 241, 247 World War I 8 Wotan Jugend 90, 91, 101–104, 105, 106, 142, 143–144, 230 Xportal.pl (website) 213, 214 Yabloko 241 Yakemenko, Vasilii 84 Yakimov, Evgeni 200 Yakushev, Viktor 198 Yan Lyutik’s Gang 122 Yanukovych, Viktor 128, 139, 172

292  Index Ya-Russkii 83 Yaryshkin, Maksim 70 Yeltsin, Boris 1, 14, 38, 236 Yermolov, I.G. 31 You Must Murder (band) 91 Young Guard (Molodaya gvardiya) 155 Young National Democrats (Jungen Nationaldemokraten), 229, 232 Young Patriots Movement 180 Young Russia (Rossiya molodaya) 63, 155 Yurchenko, Eduard 144 Yurov, Sergei 60 Za Donbass (website) 174 Zadruga 135, 212–213 Zagrebov, Aleksandr 220 Zagyva, Gyula Gyorgi 217 Zakharchenko, Aleksandr 136, 170, 176, 211, 214, 217, 225 Zaldostanov, Aleksandr 165, 178, 205 Zapadniki 5–7, 29

Zarifullin, Pavel 198 Zarya 134 Zavtra magazine 153 Zemshchina 35 Zenit St. Petersburg (football club) 95–96 Zentsov, Roman 63, 89, 114, 200 Zheleznov, Roman 66, 69, 102–103, 139, 142, 147, 202; see also Restrukt! Zheleznyak, Sergei 221 Zhikhareva, Evgeniya 115 Zhilin, Evgenii 170 Zhirinovskii, Vladimir 18, 37, 38, 43, 96, 202, 227; see also LiberalDemocratic Party of Russia Zhivov, Aleksei 130 Zhuchkovskii, Aleksandr 136 Zhuravlev, Aleksei 132, 167 Živk, Bratislav 224 ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government) 109 Zubov, Dmitrii 48