Russian Nationalism and Xenophobia in July 2023

The following is our monthly review of instances of xenophobia and radical nationalism, along with any government countermeasures, for July 2023.

This July, we recorded nine hate-motivated attacks. Since the beginning of this year, according to our data, 44 people have suffered in such incidents in Russia, with another three having been targeted with serious death threats.

We also recorded three acts of xenophobic vandalism in July. This year in total, we aware or ten such acts.

The Russian Community continued its campaign of anti-migrant actions. On July 7, in the Moscow suburb Kotelniki, local police raided a mosque, reportedly “at the request of the Russian Community.” Following the raid, the Moscow Region Spiritual Administration of Muslims expressed concern, and Kotelniki Muslims recorded a video address to the president in which they complained about the actions of the security forces and demanded that searches for illegal immigrants be conducted outside of religious institutions. The appeal outraged nationalists, who immediately issued several anti-migrant statements.

Among other events of the month, it is worth noting the traditional religious procession in Yekaterinburg on the "tsar’s days" – the night of July 16–17. An “imperial column” took part in the procession, which, judging by video of the event, gathered about 150 people with “imperial” flags, flags with the double-headed eagle and other nationalist symbols.

The month’s highest-profile event was the July 21, 2023 detention of Igor Strelkov (Girkin) in Moscow. Girkin is a former FSB officer who led separatist militants into Ukraine in 2014 and, more recently, became a prominent nationalist voice in support of the "special military operation" in Ukraine but a harsh critic of Russian leadership. He is charged under Article 280 Part 2 of the Criminal Code (СС) (public calls for extremism online). On the same day, Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court granted the investigative committee’s request to place Girkin in custody until September 18. Girkin's associates from the Club of Angry Patriots (KRP) immediately launched a campaign in his defense, which was joined by the Other Russia party. Several single-man pickets took place near the Meshchansky District Court. KRP chairman Pavel Gubarev came out with a poster “Freedom to Strelkov. Glory to Russia,” and was detained. KRP supporter Yaroslav Stozhek and Other Russia activist and Moscow KRP member Yan Sidorov were also detained. After a “prophylactic conversation” with police, all detainees were released.

Girkin’s supporters held solo pickets and graffiti actions not only in Moscow, but also in St. Petersburg, the Belgorod Region, Nizhny Novgorod, Sevastopol, and Perm. Several people recorded appeals from active warzones.

We would note at the same time that Strelkov's supporters were outraged by the “non-Russian” name of his defense counsel, Gadzhi Aliyev. As a result, a message appeared in his official Telegram channel in defense of Aliyev on behalf of Lev Vershinin, a member of the support group. According to the statement, the lawyer has a reputation as “a worthy person and a good professional.” “Mr. Aliyev's manager is also an ethnic Russian,” Vershinin noted.

In short order following Girkin’s arrest, on July 25, Marxist sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky was arrested on charges under Article 205.2 CC (justification of terrorism). Some of the ultra-right have spoken out on this issue as well. Roman Yuneman's Society.Future immediately opposed Kagarlitsky's arrest, while the Club of Angry Patriots, in a statement entitled Solidarity to Kagarlitsky!, compared his arrest with the Girkin case. Meanwhile, though, Yegor Kholmogorov expressed concern that the demand for "Freedom to Kagarlitsky" would “drown out” demands of "Freedom to Strelkov." Roman Antonovsky (of the Sons of the Monarchy) called the arrest of a Marxist a sign of “positive changes in our country.” Alexander Dugin also endorsed war against Western globalism in the person of Kagarlitsky, a “foreign agent (this is a legal fact, not a curse), a member of the world Trotskyist international."

We are not aware of any July hate crime convictions. However, law enforcement agencies continue to report on opposition to the ultra-right. One more significant event of the month was the FSB’s detention of neo-Nazis from the Paragraph-88 group in Moscow and the Ryazan region on July 15 and 17. The group ran a Telegram channel of the same name, paragraph88, where they published videos of beatings of migrants and other “direct actions.” According to the FSB, on the instructions of the Ukrainian special services, they planned assassination attempts on state media manager Margarita Simonyan and socialite-turned-journalist Xenia Sobchak. On July 15, state media published a video confession of Mikhail Balashov (born in 2005), who said that he created the Paragraph-88 neo-Nazi group and confirmed the FSB reports. According to this confession, Ukrainian representatives also suggested that his group set fire to relay cabinets used by the Russian rail transit system. Balashov allegedly should have received money for “reconnaissance of the place of residence” of Simonyan, actually did go to the arranged meeting place to collect the money and a Kalashnikov assault rifle, and thereupon “was apprehended by the special services.”

The detainees were placed under arrest. According to a press release from the court, they are not yet charged with the attempted murder of the journalists, but with at least three attacks on migrants in the area of Bitsevsky Park and the Novoyasenevskaya Metro station in Moscow.

Since the beginning of 2023, we have become aware of no fewer than 13 convictions of 24 individuals on charges of xenophobic violence, as well as two convictions of a total of three individuals on charges on xenophobic vandalism (here and elsewhere, we report data without reference to court rulings that we consider to be patently improper).

In total, we recorded convictions of a total of 16 people in July for participation in extremist communities and organizations, of which two were convicted on charges of links with the Ukrainian Right Sector and may belong to the ultra-right, while the rest are from the Citizens of the USSR or convicted for involvement in the AUE criminal subculture. Since the beginning of the year, we have become aware of 47 such rulings, convicting some 79 people.

We also recorded 16 rulings this month in respect of aggressive public statements, convicting the same number of people.

Eight had been charged under Article 205.2 CC (public calls to terrorist activity) for actual calls to violent action against representatives of the state, or endorsement of the actions of anarcho-communist Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who detonated a suicide bomb at the Arkhangelsk FSB headquarters some years ago. Among those convicted this month was the monk Ilarion (born 1964), who called himself a member of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (RPTsZ) and was sentenced to five years in a penal colony for statements made on TikTok. For which videos he was convicted, it is not known, however, a video is available on TikTok, where he blames Putin’s “demons” and his “team of Jewish demon-oligarchs” for the “special military operation;” he also calls on viewers to not only “criticize” the president, but also to “kill” him.

Four people were sanctioned on combined charges under Articles 205.2 and 280 CC (public calls to extremist activity) for the social media publication of various calls to extremist and terrorist acts; one of these was also charged with weapons possession. One individual, serving a sentence in a prison colony, was convicted under Article 354.1 Part 1 (rehabilitation of Nazism) for disseminating “deliberately false information about the activities of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War” and for denying facts established at the Nuremberg trials, in the presence of other inmates.

Two individuals were convicted under Article 282.4 CC (repeated propaganda or public demonstration of Nazi paraphernalia or symbols, or paraphernalia or symbols of extremist organizations) for repeatedly demonstrating their own tattoos of Nazi symbols.

One person was sentenced under paragraph "a" of Part 2 of Article 282 CC (inciting hatred with the threat of violence) for calling for the use of violence against members of the Russian armed forces.

Since the beginning of this year, we have recorded 130 convictions issued on the basis of public statements, sanctioning some 145 people (excluding those cases, as noted above, that we view to be patently improper).

In July we also learned that three people were fined under Article 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO) (production and dissemination of extremist materials) for social media reposts of xenophobic materials listed in the Federal List of Extremist Materials. These included, for example, an ultra-right video clip entitled “What Everyone Should Know.” Since the beginning of this year, we have recorded 43 individuals who faced administrative punishment under this article for similar offenses.

We know of 55 people sanctioned this month under Article 20.3 CAO (propaganda and public display of Nazi symbols and symbols of banned organizations). One threw the fascist salute in a store, another walked around in a jacket with a swastika, a third showed a passport with a swastika replacing his signature; 30 football fans were punished for showing Nazi and extremist symbols during the final of the Russian Super Cup in Kazan, and five colony inmates showed others their swastika tattoos. The rest posted Nazi symbols and symbols of banned organizations such as ISIS or the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) on VKontakte, Telegram and Instagram. Thirteen people were placed under administrative arrest, while the rest were fined. In total, since the beginning of the year, we have learned of 285 cases of sentencing for such offenses.

We have learned about 12 people punished in July for making radical statements counter to Article 20.3.1 CAO (inciting hatred). One made anti-Caucasian inscriptions on the walls of a building’s foyer. The rest acted online: they published xenophobic materials on social networks against natives of Central Asia and the Caucasus, Jews and law enforcement officers. One person was arrested, and the rest were fined. Since the beginning of the year, we have recorded 102 such court decisions.

The Federal List of Extremist Materials was updated twice this month, on July 17 and 28, to account for new entries 5353–5356. The new additions include the latest songs popular among the ultra-right and school shooting fans.

In July, a subgroup of the Citizens of the USSR was added to the Federal List of Extremist Organizations – the “Supreme Council of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic” (also known as the “Supreme Council of the Tatar ASSR / RSFSR / USSR”) deemed extremist by decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Tatarstan on February 1, 2023.