The Scarlet Swan channel is campaigning for a rally against Roskomnadzor

Its organizers were teenagers from 14 to 20 years old

Russians began to be invited to a rally against Roskomnadzor on March 29 through the Scarlet Lebel telegram channel; its organizers turned out to be young people, including minors and supporters of pro-government youth movements, Vorstka found out.

The chat “Rally 29.03” appeared on March 13. Soon the words “Scarlet Swan” were added to the name, and this symbol appeared on the avatar. The next day, a telegram channel of the same name appeared. The first message explained that the “movement” channel was “the official source of information about the planned mass event.” Now there are more than 3 thousand people in the channel, more than 6 thousand in the chat.

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The number of volunteers, administrators and moderators of the Scarlet Swan channel exceeded 30 people

At first, the chat was moderated by several people, but on March 15, a questionnaire for volunteers was sent there. It must indicate age, nickname, city or region (optional), contact information and in what form the person wants to help: from coordination and on-site information to technical assistance. Now the number of volunteers, administrators and moderators has reached 31.

Everyone whom Vorstka managed to verify were young people. Among the volunteers, for example, a user who wrote in other chats that he was 14 years old, and also asked the Russian Community to help “return the mower” as “the last hope.” One of the admins chats with students and graduates of a school in Zvenigorod.

Chat participants demanded confirmation from “Scarlet Swan” that the action had been agreed upon. The organizers several times sent notifications about a public event into the chat, which were supposedly sent to the mail of the Yakimanka district administration, and then deleted them.

In the latest version of the notice, the organizer is Stepan Razin. “Vorstka” established that he is a 20-year-old resident of Moscow who is interested in football and anime.

In different versions of the notification, a list of co-organizers was also given: initially there were eight of them, then their list was reduced. “Layout” verified them. Among them are minors: a 15- and 17-year-old teenager. Judging by the VK page and telegram chats of the eldest of them, he previously participated in an event from the Young Guard, is a member of the LDPR Youth group and collaborates with the New People party.

Two 19-year-old girls were also listed among the organizers. Another 19-year-old boy is a former cadet, now studying at the law academy. In his tg channel he generates pictures of himself hugging Putin and speaking in the Duma. He is also a member of the “LDPR Youth” telegram group.

The organizers of the rally said that they began to receive threats

In the first two versions of the notice for the rally, the main organizer is indicated as a person whom Vorstka verified, but does not indicate the name for security reasons. He is under 20 years old, judging by his subscriptions, and holds oppositional and libertarian views. The young man told Vorstka that he joined the chat when there were less than 1,000 people there, and came up with the name “Scarlet Swan” - “a symbol of the struggle for freedom.”

According to him, he soon began receiving threatening calls. In one of the messages he sent to Vorstka, an unknown person suggests recording a video with an open face - as “the fact that you are not involved and are doing this for the benefit of Russia,” and at the end say “Glory to Russia and Akhmat the Force.” The young man claims that, under pressure, he posted a notification in the chat with the unspoiled information of the organizers.

After this, the current organizers said that they, too, began to receive threats that information about their activities “will be sent to relatives, friends, educational institutions and places of work”, as well as “anonymous denunciations” will be sent to law enforcement agencies.

On the evening of March 16, the young man left the chat and ceased to be an organizer. Previously, he recorded a voice message in which he assured that there were no Ukrainians among the moderators and organizers. “We stand for support for Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, we stand for support for the Special Military Operation,” the former organizer added.

Previously, chat participants began to suspect its creators of having connections with Ukraine; Vorstka discovered that before 2022, one of the organizers crossed the border with Ukraine several times, and the former moderator accepted payment for services in the game chat in hryvnia.

Calls for violent action periodically appeared in the Scarlet Swan chat

On the morning of March 18, the channel posted a message that the Yakimanka administration had received a refusal to approve a rally on Bolotnaya Square (in fact, the document does not contain a refusal, but a proposal to send a notification to the correct authority). According to the new organizer of the action, the rally is now planned on Sakharov Avenue. He claims that such a statement was submitted to the Moscow government. “We are also considering the possibility of moving away from the rally format and organizing a meeting with the deputy. This is the only thing that cannot be canceled due to Covid, because there is no need for approval,” said a representative of the “Verstke” movement.

At various times, calls for violence with weapons appeared in the chat. For example, one of the former moderators wrote that you need to “take a Molotov cocktail” and throw it at the building. And a volunteer hiding under a woman’s account encouraged people to come to the rally, despite the risks, to recruit other people and asked the question: “If you carry a gun and make a fool of yourself, will everyone be packed up?”

“Verstka” found recipes for Molotov cocktails in the chat, including from a user with an American number, calls to take pepper with you and go with weapons to administrative buildings. One of the participants also sent “Verstka” a screenshot with a photo of the machine from the chat. “Most often, those who send this in earnest are little lovers of extremism. They have a cleaver, Kolovrat, imperial flags, etc. on their avahs,” he comments.

Now all these messages have been deleted, the chat was closed for a day, and threads by city were deleted. “Obviously, we cannot be held responsible for the message of every chat participant. We declare that we are strictly against these statements,” wrote the Scarlet Swan channel. Now the chat is working, according to the organizers, volunteers have developed an AI bot that blocks all messages with harsh language. Recruitment for the moderation team is underway in a separate thread.

For March 29, a rally against blocking was also planned by the former head of Boris Nadezhdin’s headquarters, Dmitry Kisiev

First Department lawyer Evgeny Smirnov told Vorstka that communication in such chats can lead to criminal prosecution. When the discussion turns towards politics, the chat becomes the property of the security forces - then they can initiate a case under terrorist or extremist charges , Smirnov noted.

To do this, it is enough to conduct a linguistic study of texts, in which the expert will come to the presence of certain statements that encourage a change of power or influence on politics. According to the lawyer, those who had something to do with the planning and organization of the event are primarily targeted for prosecution. But regular chat readers are also under special attention. Any appeals, symbols or talk about violence may affect legal qualifications, the lawyer warns.

For March 29, a rally against blocking was also planned by the former head of Boris Nadezhdin’s headquarters, Dmitry Kisiev. He emphasized that he had nothing to do with the Scarlet Swan.

The former organizer of the “Scarlet Swan” is sure that among the creators of the movement there are no people from the authorities, but there are certainly people in the chat.

The Scarlet Swan movement became popular thanks to TikTok. There, from March 13-14, videos appeared with calls to take to the streets on March 29 in different cities, in particular in Moscow - on Bolotnaya Square. Videos were distributed calling for people to take to the streets, but under absurd pretexts, for example: “The cat ran away. We all go out on March 29 to search” or “Hello everyone, I lost my wallet in Omsk on Lenin Square, let’s go look on March 29 at 15:00.”

Some videos said that the rally would be against the RKN, blocking the Internet and communications - and immediately provided a link to the Scarlet Swan telegram channel. One of these videos with the track “For You, Motherland” by the Lyube group in the background received 3.9 million views. Also, an account with the symbols of the “Scarlet Swan” re-uploaded a video of politician Ruslan Shaveddinov with a call to go to the agreed rally in Perm on March 15. Judging by the first messages in the chat, people began to be added there precisely from the links on the videos.

Illustration: Logo of the Scarlet Swan movement