Feedback ARA: Putin’s new extremists patrol the streets of Russia. Radicals terrorize migrants with the backing of the secret services and the complicity of the police.
More than a hundred men march through the streets of Lyubertsy, on the outskirts of Moscow, to celebrate National Unity Day. In a country where demonstrations are banned, such a large group is a surprising sight. They are all dressed in black, their faces covered, and belong to the Russian Community, the country’s most popular far-right organization. In 2010, the authorities began cracking down on the radical nationalist marches held every November 4th, but now the police give them free rein. What has changed since then? Who are these new radicals?
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In 2022, when Putin invaded Ukraine The Russian far right had already been completely absorbed. Then, according to Fediunin, the regime used them to “divert attention from the front lines” and “project public discontent onto scapegoats: immigrants and the LGBTI community.” Speaking to ARA, Stefania Kulaeva of the Memorial Anti-Discrimination Center believes that the Russian government “has veered toward overt chauvinism,” has equated “the ideology of war and Russian superiority,” and therefore finds it “no surprise” that the authorities themselves “now defend radical nationalist (fascist) ideas.”
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The official version of the Russian government is that the Russian Community are not Nazis because “Nazism is prohibited in Russia.” There are openly National Socialist groups that commit murder and are prosecuted, while the new extremists currently enjoy immunity.
Kulaeva warns that the Kremlin “risks losing control” of this process and that the veterans returned from Ukraine “may join far-right organizations” and represent “a threat to stability and social order.” In contrast, Fediunin sees it as “highly unlikely” that this movement will end up posing a serious problem for Putin.
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