No country for Hells Angels—and cats. How Russia’s repressive laws are used in competition disputes

The Kremlin has passed a raft of isolationist laws in recent years, from fines for contact with organisations labelled “undesirable” to criminal prosecution for merely talking to foreigners—so-called “confidential cooperation,” also known as “treason lite”). Among these initiatives, a new administrative offence for “participation in an unregistered international non-governmental organisation” is far from the most scandalous: the wording is vague, the punishment minor, and judicial practice is only just taking shape. Yet at least one biker from St Petersburg and an entire association of cat breeders from Yaroslavl have already been prosecuted under it. In both cases the informant turned out to be the head of a rival club.

Cats

For some, a love of pedigree cats becomes a hobby and even a profession: they join clubs and federations, take part in competitions and shows. It is a world unto itself, with its own system of rules, standards and regulations—as well as fierce competition, which often takes unsportsmanlike forms.

As Anna, the head of one Moscow cat lovers’ club, recounts, in 2010, after yet another show she organised, she was summoned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ economic crimes department and twice to the tax office. Other breeders recall police showing up at their exhibitions, and foreign judges and experts being checked by the immigration service. Mediazona’s sources claim that all these troubles are the result of denunciations by the well-known Moscow cat lover Nadezhda Komarova.

The main goal of felinological clubs and associations is the certification and registration of breeders, which guarantees quality for kitten buyers, Elena, a member of one such association, explains to Mediazona.

“This means that the breeder complies with all domestic cat breeding regulations: not breeding cats that don’t meet the standard, adhering to mating timeframes, and so on. And the pedigree certificate issued by the club confirms the kitten’s breed,” she says.

If a club is a member of an international feline organisation, its animals must meet that body's breed standards. It is against such clubs that Komarova files her denunciations, according to Mediazona’s sources.

In one complaint reviewed by Mediazona, Komarova, in addition to accusations of fraud and tax evasion, points out that the show that had displeased her was organised according to the standards of the World Cat Federation, which has no registered branch in Russia.

“The German organisation World Cat Federation (WCF) is a member of the foreign WCC (World Cat Congress). It was this organisation that declared and imposed sanctions against our country: ‘The World Cat Congress strongly condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.’ This is the political stance of the feline systems that are part of this organisation, such as the WCF, and its members, who launder criminally obtained funds in our country and transfer financial payments to hostile nations,” the informant wrote.

19.34.2+330.3

In the summer of 2023, Article 19.34.2—participation in the activities of an international organisation not registered in Russia—was added to the Code of Administrative Offenses. Simultaneously, a similar Article 330.3 was added to the Criminal Code.

What these articles are actually calledFor the sake of brevity, Mediazona uses shortened titles for both articles throughout this text. Their full titles run to some 70 words each and are extremely difficult to parse, let alone remember.

Article 19.34.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses: “Participation in the activities of a foreign or international non-profit non-governmental organisation on the territory of the Russian Federation, information on whose structural divisions is not included in the register of branches and representative offices of international organisations and foreign non-profit non-governmental organisations, or which does not have a structural division (branch) registered in accordance with the procedure established by the legislation of the Russian Federation on non-profit organisations.”

Article 330.3 of the Criminal Code: “Carrying out activities of a foreign or international non-profit non-governmental organisation on the territory of the Russian Federation, information on whose structural divisions is not included in the register of branches and representative offices of international organisations and foreign non-profit non-governmental organisations, or which does not have a structural division (branch) registered in accordance with the procedure established by the legislation of the Russian Federation on non-profit organisations.”

The administrative offence carries only a fine, but a repeat violation can trigger criminal charges under Article 330.3, punishable by up to two years in prison.

In her denunciation of the Yaroslavl cat fanciers’ club “Alisa-Best,” Nadezhda Komarova demanded that a criminal case be opened.

The Ministry of Justice reviewed her complaint and forwarded the materials to the prosecutor's office, which drew up a charge sheet against the club under Article 19.34.2—one of the first in Russia. The Krasnoperekopsky District Court of Yaroslavl heard the case and issued a ruling on February 2; the club told Mediazona that the judge had given only a warning.

“Alisa-Best” has removed almost all references to the WCF from its website. The only remaining clarification is that the club “adheres to the standards” of this federation, but “does not prevent its members from participating in shows and registering animals in other show systems.”

"Pedigrees issued according to WCF standards are recognized worldwide, they are valued, and breeders buy them from other countries," says Oksana Ezhikova, president of “Alisa-Best.” “We can’t cut ourselves off from the rest of the world. The UN can’t operate in just one country, can it? It’s the same principle here—just different scenery.”

Although the World Cat Federation doesn’t have a registered branch in Russia, it remains a respected entity among Russian breeders. When in January the WCF named an Abyssinian cat from Moscow with the complex name Darlen Fleur Dalmore Black “Best Cat” of the year, the state news agency TASS arranged a photo shoot for him, and pro-Kremlin newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda enthusiastically interviewed Dalmore Black’s owner.

Now breeders fear that if Russian clubs are “prohibited from associating with foreigners, the result will be a loss of international recognition for the achievements of Russian pedigree cat breeding.”

Isolationism does, however, suit some people. Mediazona’s sources point out that Komarova heads the Assembly of Professional Cat Clubs, which operates by its own standards: certificates from international systems are described as “counterfeit” on its website. The Assembly conducts its shows online. These two facts raise serious doubts among breeders about Komarova’s professionalism.

“A judge, an expert, they need to handle the cat, feel for hidden defects in the spine, the paws, the skeleton... After all, it’s impossible to evaluate an animal’s quality visually. Kinks in the tail, keels on the ribcage—you won’t spot any of that until you’ve run your hands over it,” says one breeder.

“What she does is completely slapdash. You could pick up a moggy from the street, bring it in, and claim it’s a purebred, and they’d look at a photo and say yes, it is—even if its tail is kinked. She’s banking on the idea that if she keeps filing denunciations, all the proper clubs will shut down and people will come flooding to her,” another breeder complains.

Komarova herself makes no secret of the fact that she regularly files complaints against fellow breeders. She gave Mediazona a comment but later withdrew permission for its use and demanded that her name not appear in this article. A public offer on her Assembly of Professional Cat Clubs’ website states that disseminating “false information” about the organisation and its “leadership personally” will result in a fine of 20 million rubles ($250,000), payable within ten days.

Motorcycles

Nadezhda Komarova is a resourceful person, but she was far from the first to think of using the article on participation in an unregistered organisation against her competitors. She was beaten to it by a far more prominent figure: Alexander Zaldostanov, known as the Khirurg (Surgeon), leader of the pro-Kremlin motorcycle club Night Wolves.

When the first charge sheets under Article 19.34.2 landed in the courts in December 2024, none of the people named in them whom Mediazona contacted were willing to explain what lay behind the cases.

The following month, however, Daria Lebedeva, head of the joint press service of the St Petersburg courts wrote on her Telegram channel that one of these cases—against Dmitry Dyukar—had been initiated by Zaldostanov: the patriotic biker had denounced Dyukar as a member of the international motorcycle club Bandidos.

The court, Lebedeva noted, dismissed the case for lack of evidence, since “the existence of an organisation (legal entity) outside the Russian Federation, the presence of signs of a branch (representative office) here, and their self-identification as a branch of an international organisation were not proven.”

Lebedeva, sarcastically, recounted the Surgeon’s statement to the prosecutor’s office: “According to it, the Night Wolves are a motorcycle club of the Russian spirit. A motorcycle club of patriots. A motorcycle club capable of uniting the Russian world through selfless motorcycle brotherhood. But not everyone is as good as the Night Wolves; there are also bad ones—the foreign Hells Angels and Bandidos clubs. The Wolves had been monitoring them and collecting information.”

“The Bandidos’ life is motorcycle riding, crime, women, drugs, fights, shootouts with rivals from other gangs, plus all manner of madness and lawlessness,” the court official quoted Zaldostanov.

It is likely that the Surgeon also filed a denunciation against another St Petersburg resident, Alexander Derevyanko. According to the published court ruling, he was found to be a Hells Angels member and fined 3,000 rubles ($37). Connoisseurs of bureaucratese will enjoy the document’s description of the symbols and hierarchy of this legendary club, which the court refers to as “an international non-profit organisation founded in the state of California, United States of America.” The charges against Dyukar and Derevyanko were filed within a day of each other, at the end of November 2024.

From the Hells Angels court ruling

“The Hells Angels MC club consists of regional chapters (charters) located in various countries around the world. It has an official website:

, as well as a website for its Russian branch:

. This organisation has its own symbols: the white and red emblems , a skull depicted in profile, wearing a helmet with a golden wing , which are registered as trademarks outside the Russian Federation.

At the address: St. Petersburg,

, there is a structural subdivision , which displays the symbols of the international organisation : a wooden panel depicting a male figure on a motorcycle, wearing a jacket depicting a skull in a helmet with a golden wing, supplemented by the inscription in red letters on a white background , congratulatory plaques and certificates from structural subdivisions on acquiring the status of 'support 81' (a support club supporting , 'prospect status' (a potential subdivision of the club ), and 'full patch status' (a full-fledged club ).

The structural subdivision has the following conditions for joining the motorcycle club: a male member, a motorcycle and a driver's license with the appropriate category, as well as rules of conduct, membership fees are paid, and members of this club are required to wear clothing with the symbols of .

According to the legislation of the Russian Federation on non-profit organisations, the said structural subdivision is not registered as a branch; the register of branches and representative offices of international organisations and foreign non-profit non-governmental organisations does not contain information about the said structural subdivision.”

Around the same time, a court in Kazan accepted for review a case against Ildar Ibragimov, a member of a “motorcycle community that is a structural division of an international non-profit non-governmental organisation.” The coincidence of dates suggests that Zaldostanov was involved here too, though the name of Ibragimov's club is redacted from the published case documents. As with Dyukar, the case was dismissed, but the prosecutor’s office appealed.

All three bikers declined to discuss their administrative prosecution with Mediazona. The Hells Angels and Bandidos did not respond to requests for comment on Zaldostanov’s denunciations, and the Night Wolves also ignored a letter from the editor.

The scheming among Russian bikers, however, is unlikely to surprise anyone even casually familiar with this subculture: Zaldostanov has long and methodically attempted to portray rival motorcycle clubs as agents of Western influence.

In 2015, he petitioned the Federation Council, Russia’s upper chamber of parliament, and the Prosecutor General’s Office to ban Hells Angels and Bandidos, which in his view “could be used as the main strike force in a foreign-inspired ‘colour revolution’.” “I can only say this: we want as little of this filth, these sects, this trash in Russia as possible,’ the Surgeon insisted. At the time, he was also known as one of the leaders of Anti-Maidan, a pro-Kremlin movement that opposed Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity.

A Hells Angels representative whom the newspaper Kommersant identified as Ivan (Hippo) accused Zaldostanov of lying and called his behaviour “ungentlemanly.” “We have a lot of former military in our club—they were shocked when they saw the appeal. They started looking into it, and it turned out that [several veterans’] organisations [that had joined Zaldostanov against Hells Angels] had an agreement with Anti-Maidan to jointly fight enemies of the country and other foreign agents. So they just signed whatever Zaldostanov put in front of them, without looking into it,” Hippo explained.

Chinese healing and British arbitration

There are still very few court decisions under administrative Article 19.34.2: aside from the cases listed above, Mediazona found only one ruling on court websites against a Kazan resident. He was fined 4,000 rubles ($50) for participating in the activities of an undisclosed organisation. According to the unredacted portions of the document, the man teaches qigong and other Eastern healing practices. The formal basis for his prosecution, apparently, was a post commemorating a spiritual mentor.

Since practice under the new article has not yet been established, it’s impossible to say with certainty what the courts understand by participation in the activities of an international organisation, explains Yaroslavl lawyer Larisa Stepanova.

“The legislator hasn’t defined the concept of participation, which is why this legal ambiguity became possible. In any case, the prosecutor’s office has no right to go beyond the law and interpret the article as it pleases, defining the concept according to its own vision,” she says. Stepanova was also charged under Article 19.34.2. The lawyer says it all started with a complaint from the chairperson of the local arbitration court, after which Evgeniya Chichkova, head of the Yaroslavl MoJ office, appealed to the prosecutor’s office.

In this appeal, the official mentioned Stepanova’s membership in Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb), a British professional association of lawyers specializing in dispute resolution that was founded in 1915. Stepanova intends to prove her innocence in court.

Editor: Dmitry Tkachev