Motherland!
Freedom!
Putin!
When Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine,
he tried to justify it with the ludicrous claim
that it was a push to denazify the country.
We will strive for the demilitarization
and denazification of Ukraine.
The irony is that, for decades,
Putin's own regime has formed strategic alliances with neo-Nazi
and ultra-nationalist groups
to help achieve Russia’s political goals,
both at home and overseas.
Ninety-six non-Russians were killed last year
and more than 400 wounded
in attacks by members of various nationalist organizations.
This is how the Kremlin has cultivated and weaponized
groups of violent ultra-nationalists with deadly consequences.
[DECADE OF HATE]
In the early years of the 21st century,
a wave of pro-democracy protest movements,
known as color revolutions,
swept through the countries of the former Soviet Union.
Hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy Ukrainians
in the streets today
protested against the results of the presidential election.
This rang major alarm bells in the Kremlin,
raising fears that a similar movement could take root in Russia.
Yushchenko!
That was this fear that Ukrainians would set a very bad example
for the Russians living in Russia,
that they can modernize, that they can democratize.
And then it would be very difficult for the Putin regime
to still repress in Russia.
The Kremlin responded by stepping up a strategy
known as “managed nationalism,”
where the government formed behind-the-scenes relationships
with various Russian far-right groups,
co-opting them as a counterweight to liberal pro-democracy movements.
Managed nationalism was a project of the Putin regime,
the Russian presidential administration,
to harness the energies and the angers and the grievances
and the resentments of the far right
to assist the creation of an authoritarian regime in Russia.
The strategy, aimed at controlling dissent
and consolidating power,
involved discreet collaboration with the far-right groups
that had sprung up after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
each with their own extremist vision of Russian nationalism.
It’s not something that you will find on any Kremlin website.
You won’t find Putin explaining that we have this policy
called managed nationalism.
The Putin regime is so secretive.
Its functioning is opaque.
A lot of policy happens
not because there’s any announcements about a policy.
It happens because there is a go-ahead from someone on high.
Some of these groups were part of
the violent neo-Nazi hooligan subculture
that had been behind a wave of racist attacks in post-Soviet Russia.
Nationalist groups often post
video reports of their crimes on the internet,
using anonymous access from internet cafes.
This video, for example,
shows the apparent murders of two migrant workers from Central Asia.
This is an attack in one of the city’s underground walkways.
The victims are outnumbered and don’t stand a chance.
The beating has been filmed by the skinheads
to train and recruit new members.
These far-right thugs were now used to attack anti-Putin youth groups,
with their newfound political connections emboldening them
and giving them a sense of impunity.
There is more political unrest tonight throughout Russia.
The largest crowds in two decades have come out
to protest what they’re calling “corruption by the government,”
including ballot stuffing.
Police detained at least 250 people in the capital.
A renewed pro-democracy movement
led by opposition activist Alexei Navalny
pushed the Kremlin to take managed nationalism even further—
by cozying up to the hardcore neo-Nazi group Russkii Obraz,
whose name means “Russian Image.”
That is arguably the most extreme example of managed nationalism,
in the sense that this was a group which was sophisticated,
which was building a national network
which had very serious connections with neo-Nazi killers.
Russkii Obraz attacked other nationalists
who defected to Navalny’s anti-Putin coalition
and were given government grants
to write reports on liberal activist groups.
The group gained valuable political connections and a public platform.
This official acceptance of Ruskii Obraz
was made crystal clear in 2009,
when the group was given permission to stage a concert in central Moscow
featuring an infamous Russian neo-Nazi band.
The most notorious Russian neo-Nazi band,
which has songs about the heroic Slavs
who fought for the Aryan race in the SS,
Kolovrat was allowed to perform in Bolotnaya Square
within earshot of the Kremlin.
At least one of them commented on social media at the time
that this shows that a change is taking place within the regime,
that they understand that we matter.
But the dangers of the game the Kremlin was playing
in buddying up to violent neo-Nazis could no longer be ignored
after a string of high-profile murders committed by the group.
These would ultimately lead to the group’s demise,
with court documents and the subsequent trials
revealing the extent of its coordination with the Kremlin.
The Putin regime’s support and weaponization of far-right groups
isn’t just confined to Russia itself.
Since war broke out in Ukraine in 2014,
far-right paramilitary groups, including many foreign fighters,
have fought as proxy units on the Russian side of the conflict.
Denis Gariyev runs the courses
and is also head of the Imperial Legion,
the RIM’s military wing,
which has fought alongside Ukrainian separatists.
You’ve probably heard of the far-right groups
that have fought on the Ukrainian side of the conflict,
like the controversial Azov Battalion,
who the Kremlin likes to point to
to prop up its bogus fighting Nazis narrative.
But what’s gotten much less attention has been the role played by
far-right militias on the Russian side.
One in particular,
the militant white supremacist group Russian Imperial Movement, or RIM,
has trained up hundreds of recruits
and sent them to fight in eastern Ukraine
as part of its military wing, the Imperial Legion.
The Imperial Legion's training program is known as Partizan.
They basically prepared Russian fighters
to destabilize the Kyiv government.
The Kremlin pragmatically works with these groups
and in this way will benefit from these groups’ recruitment strategies
and sending fresh members to combat zones
that will benefit Russia’s foreign policy objectives.
While the Kremlin sometimes bans RIM’s symbols or propaganda,
it’s generally allowed them the freedom to operate.
And that’s helped advance Russia’s agenda abroad
in places like Syria and Libya,
where RIM fighters have shown up on the battlefield.
While they say the defense courses are not ideological,
Partizan’s leadership believes
Russia is already embroiled in a proxy war with the US
in eastern Ukraine.
The group has also been a major concern
for providing military training to neo-Nazis from across Europe.
So in 2016, two Swedish members
of the white supremacist group Nordic Resistance Movement
traveled to St Petersburg, and they participated in
about a week’s worth of paramilitary-style training,
which was provided by the Russian Imperial Movement.
And a few months later,
these men, they conducted a series of terrorist attacks
in the Swedish city of Gothenburg.
This is like a direct link to how the Russian Imperial Movement
is basically training these individuals.
Today, the State Department
is designating the Russian Imperial Movement,
also known as RIM,
as a specially designated global terrorist.
RIM is a terrorist group that provides paramilitary-style training
to neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
And it plays a prominent role
in trying to rally like-minded Europeans and Americans
into a common front against their perceived enemies.
This is actually very important
because it marks the first time in history
that the US government has taken such an action
against a white supremacy group.
And I think that the reason for this
is because it has become so transnational.
It’s become so dangerous.
As they exist,
then you have proof
that they are somehow useful for the Kremlin.
And they don’t cross any line
because you can’t cross a line in Russia.
It’s about promoting groups that will cause confusion,
that will cause disruption,
that will cause riots or cause violence,
that will cause disarray amongst Russia’s enemies.
Russia and Putin, in particular,
have become a touchstone for right-wing politicians
and media personalities across the Western world.
So Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,”
a large section of Ukraine.
I said, “How smart is that?”
Orban is probably Putin’s closest friend inside of NATO.
Why do I care about what’s going on
in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia?
-And I’m serious. -I’ll tell you why.
And why shouldn’t I root for Russia? Because I am.
He has positioned himself as a defender of old Europe,
as a defender of traditional Christian values,
against liberalism,
against immigration,
against LGBT rights,
against gender fluidity.
That has given him the image of a strong leader.
The Russian state is basically engaged in two parallel projects.
One is the exercise of soft power.
Russian soft power relies on the far right.
The far right is important in making that soft power work.
Russia has built on these relationships
with, in some cases, explicit material support.
When the French far-right politician Marine Le Pen
was denied an 11 million euro loan in France,
a Russian bank stepped in to help.
Journalists have also exposed secret talks
to channel tens of millions of dollars
of Russian oil money to Italy’s Lega Party,
whose leader, Matteo Salvini,
was known as one of Putin’s biggest fanboys in the West.
In return, far-right European politicians
have regularly spoken out in defense of Russia’s interests.
Far-right parties even sent observers
in a bid to give a veneer of legitimacy
to the bogus referendum held when Russia annexed Crimea.
However many laws this parliament passes,
however quickly, the international community
is not likely to recognize them as legitimate.
In 2014, when the Russians first occupied Crimea,
they started to prepare a referendum, so-called referendum,
which was illegal from any perspective
and illegitimate.
The overwhelming majority of these fake election observers,
they were coming from the far right, from Austria, from Belgium,
from France, from Spain, from Italy.
More recently, the fascist tendencies of Putin’s own brutal regime
have been vividly on display since the invasion of Ukraine,
which has been cheered on by
an aggressive network of Russian nationalists
at home and overseas.
They've even adopted a logo, the letter Z,
as a symbol of Russian militarism,
giving the world a chilling vision of militant ultra-nationalism
in the 21st century.
As any Ukrainian would tell the Russian leader,
if he really wanted to take down some Nazis,
he should start in his own backyard.