Ukrainian and Russian bloggers published a list of accounts in various social networks, belonging to \u201cvolunteers\u201d from Russia who are fighting for Donetsk and Lugansk \u201cpeople\u2019s republics\u201d. It is noteworthy to see how they represent a whole spectrum of various Russian nationalist groups: there is a clear sensation that one dives into the world of the 1990s with its various blooming black and brown shirts organizations.<\/p>\n
Back then it was the supporters of Edward Limonov\u2019s National-Bolshevik Party (NBP) and the ideologist of the \u201cEurasian way\u201d Alexander Dugin who established close ties with Russian bonehead neo-Nazis. Some time later the alliance between these two nationalist politicians seemed to have been annulled as the former became a notorious oppositionist to Putin, made an alliance with liberals and even pretended to be a human rights\u2019 activist making numerous appeals to Constitutional court against various violations, while the latter became a \u201cman of science\u201d, getting a degree and a position of a professor in the Moscow State University. But those who remember the mid-1990s well were not surprised at the sight of re-emergence of the ideological union between the two old ultra-nationalist friends and the odious support they gave to the most outrageous marginal Nazis and their violence. We remember quite well that 20 years ago they, too, attacked antifascists in unison.<\/p>\n
Another forgotten figure of the 1990s also re-emerged recently \u2013 the guy who back in the 1990s openly called himself a Russian fascist, Alexander Barkashov, the leader of the infamous Russian National Unity (RNE). Besides that we saw re-emergence of \u201cPamyat\u201d, Russian All-Military Union (ROVS) and a multitude of Orthodox monarchists wearing black shirts. For the last 15-20 years all of these people were preoccupied with \u201chistorical reconstruction\u201d societies, but now it\u2019s getting more and more scary to see how the ideas that they nourished in their ill minds are being applied to reality in the regions where real military conflicts take place. Many of them post quotations from Mikhail Buklgakov\u2019s \u201cWhite Guards\u201d as if taking part in the reconstruction of the civil war that followed the First world war and the revolution (of course, on the side of the Whites). It is also noteworthy that many of the people are old-time war buddies in their forties and fifties \u2013 many of the members of RNE, the Orthodox black shirts and the ex-head of the armed forces of the \u201cDonetsk people\u2019s republic\u201d Igor Strelkov have all fought in Trans-Dniester Republic, in the Caucasus or the ex-Yugoslavia in the 1990s.<\/p>\n
The younger generation of the fighters is represented by people who are 20-22 years old, among them people like Kirill Rimkus (Zenit\u2019s right wing ultra), Alexey \u201cFritz\u201d Milchakov (notorious Nazi activist from Saint Petersburg known for his extreme cruelty against people and animals), Dmitry Deyneko, known for his participation in the infamous \u201cRussian jogging\u201d initiative, who was criminally charged for violently attacking a LGBT picket about half a year ago, neo-Pagan \u201cVeliky Slavian\u201d and other Nazi activists. \u201cSputnik & Pogrom\u201d website, fashionable among the young nationalists, sympathetically reports about recruiting of \u201cvolunteers\u201d and collecting special equipment for \u201cNovorossiya\u201d by a member of the National-Democratic party (NDP) Alexander Zhuchkovsky: \u201cYou are either with us (Russian) or you are for the Ukraine (unter-Russian)\u201d. It is also interesting to note that these groups have connections to people in power, i.e. Russian Imperial Movement (RID) reports that \u201cRID together with Rodina (Motherland) party recruits volunteers from Saint Petersburg to fight against genocide of Russians on the territory of the \u201cKiyevan Rus\u201d\u201d.<\/p>\n
The very notion \u201cantifascism\u201d becomes an ugly mask for something directly opposite. Thus \u201cNovorossiya\u201d website is described as \u201cthe Coordination center \u201cNew Russian Antifascism: for Great Russia, for Holy Russia, for United Russia!\u201d, while it also claims to be the place \u201cwhere great common history of Russia, Soviet Union and the modern day Eurasia continues\u201d. \u201cAntifascist Forum of Ukraine\u201d is supported by the notorious Russian right-wing newspaper \u201cZavtra\u201d and publishes articles by extreme right wing nationalists Glazyev and Kalashnikov. \u201cSlavic Antifascists Front\u201d in Crimea is supported by the nationalistic Congress of Russian Communities.<\/p>\n
There is nothing particularly new or surprising in this, but no doubt it is very scary, sad and shameful. One cannot consider the troubles these people cause to be something not important and none of our business.