Following the previous article on the far left/right coalition government in Greece, I was asked to provide more comments on the connections between SYRIZA and Russian fascist Aleksandr Dugin.

First of all, a few words about Dugin himself (interested readers will find my longer piece on Dugin here, and a thesis on him by my colleague Andreas Umland here).

Who is Dugin?

Dugin's ideology is called Eurasianism, but experts prefer to use the term "Neo-Eurasianism", because Dugin's ideology has a limited relation to Eurasianism, the interwar Russian émigré movement that could be placed in the Slavophile tradition. Rather, Neo-Eurasianism is a mixture of the ideas of French esoteric René Guénon, Italian fascist Julius Evola, National Bolshevism, the European New Right and classical geopolitics.


Dugin attempted to enter Russian political life twice. The first attempt was associated with the marginal National-Bolshevik Party (NBP). In 1995, Dugin even contested elections to the State Duma, but he obtained less than one per cent of the vote. His second attempt to get involved in politics is associated with the creation of the Eurasia party in 2002, but already in 2003 the party's other co-founder expelled Dugin from the party.

Aleksandr Dugin, speaking at the HQ of the National-Bolshevik Party, 1996, Moscow

Since then, Dugin firmly settled on the metapolitical course. Here, "metapolitics" implies pursuing a strategy of modifying the democratic political culture, rather than aiming to participate in the political process directly. This strategy was adopted from the theory of cultural hegemony of Italian communist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937). The "right-wing Gramscism" stresses the importance of establishing cultural hegemony by making the cultural sphere more susceptible to non-democratic politics through ideology-driven education and cultural production, in preparation for seizing political power by the far right.

Dugin founded the International Eurasian Movement in 2003 and was appointed professor at the Moscow State University in 2008. From 2005 onwards, he also became a popular political commentator who frequently appeared on prime time talk shows and published in influential newspapers. These positions allowed him to bring his Neo-Eurasianist ideas directly to the academic world, whilst using his academic title as a prestigious cover-up for his irrational ideas.

American anti-Semite and former leader of Ku Klux Klan David Duke (left) and Aleksandr Dugin (right)

Dugin hailed the ascent of Vladimir Putin. In its turn, the Kremlin clearly perceives Dugin’s ideas as useful. By being regularly present in the public sphere, Dugin and other Russian right-wing extremists extending the boundaries of a legitimate space for illiberal narratives make Russian society more susceptible to Putin’s authoritarianism.

Discussing the relations between Dugin and Putin, I would advise against associating Dugin's Neo-Eurasianism with Putin's right-wing authoritarian kleptocracy. At the same time, three points are worth noting:

1. Dugin’s organisational and intellectual initiatives are integral elements of Putin's authoritarian system. In this role, Dugin joins dozens of other agents of right-wing cultural production who, in one manner or another, contribute to the public legitimisation of Putin's regime.

2. Dugin has worked his way up from the eccentric fringes to the Russian socio-cultural mainstream, but his ideology has not changed since the 1990s. What has radically changed is the Russian mainstream political discourse.

3. While not being directly associated with the Kremlin, Dugin belongs to a circle of individuals that is trying to exert influence on Putin's policies. Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, who has been sanctioned by the EU for sponsoring Russian extremists, including Igor Girkin-Strelkov (sanctioned by the EU and US), involved in separatist activities in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, belongs to this circle too and apparently provides funds Dugin's initiatives. Dugin, however, is not yet sanctioned either by the EU or US.



Dugin's approach towards Ukraine

Dugin became especially famous in Russia for the Neo-Eurasianist version of classical geopolitics. His book The Foundations of Geopolitics (1997)  outlined his political and ideological vision of Russia's place in the world, as well as revisionist and expansionist foreign policy. In that book, he wrote in relation to Ukraine:

The sovereignty of Ukraine represents such a negative phenomenon for Russian geopolitics that it can, in principle, easily provoke a military conflict. [...] Ukraine as an independent state with some territorial ambitions constitutes an enormous threat to the whole Eurasia, and without the solution of the Ukrainian problem, it is meaningless to talk about the contitental geopolitics. [...] Considering the fact that a simple intergration of Moscow with Kyiv is impossible and will not result in a stable geopolitical structure [...], Moscow should get actively involved in the re-organisation of the Ukrainian space in accordance to the only logical and natural geopolitical model.

In August 2006, Dugin and his Eurasian Youth Union organised a summer camp where right-wing extremists from the Donetsk Republic group (it was involved in organising the initial separatist activities in Eastern Ukraine in 2014) were further indoctrinated and trained to fight against established Ukrainian authorities.

Dugin actively supported Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008 and craved for the complete occupation of that country. For Dugin, the war in Georgia was an existential battle against the West: "If Russia decides not to enter the conflict ... that will be a fatal choice. It will mean that Russia gives up her sovereignty" and "We will have to forget about Sevastopol" [i.e. Ukrainian city situated in Crimea].

Aleksandr Dugin and his followers in Georgian South Ossetia invaded by the Russian troops in 2008

Naturally, Dugin fanatically supported the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and urged Putin to invade south-eastern Ukraine.

Already at the height of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in August 2014, Dugin became even more explicit in his hatred of Ukrainians: In a Facebook post dated 24 August 2014, Dugin wrote:


Translation: "Ukraine needs to be cleansed of idiots. A genocide of cretins suggests itself. Cretins who are virulent, closed for the voice of Logos, deadly and ... in addition to this, extremely stupid. I don't believe that these are Ukrainians. Ukrainians are a fine Slavic people. [But] these are some race of bastards that emerged from the sewage".

Dugin's ideology also inspired French and Serbian neo-Eurasianist activists to illegally go to Eastern Ukraine in summer 2014 to kill Ukrainians.
The SYRIZA connection

It is unclear when exactly Dugin established more or less significant contacts with Greek left-wing SYRIZA. Thanks to an e-mail hack by the Anonymous International, it is viable to suggest that these contacts were established with the help of Georgiy Gavrish, director of the marginal Russian Centre of Geopolitical Expertise and a close associate of both Dugin and Malofeev. Gavrish lived in Greece in 2012 and, possibly, 2013.

In 2013, Nikos Kotzias, now Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Alexis Tsipras's cabinet, invited Dugin to deliver a lecture "International Politics and the Eurasianist Vision" on 12 April at the University of Piraeus, where Kotzias held a post of professor of Political Theories. In his lecture, Dugin implicitly suggested that, rather leaving the EU and joining the Russia-led Eurasian Union, Greece should remain in the EU to promote the pro-Russian vision of international politics. The same day, Dugin presented his lecture "The Geopolitics of Russia" at the Panteion University; Konstantinos Filis, research director of the Institute of International Relations at the Panteion University, hosted the event. [This paragraph has been updated, to reflect the fact that Dugin delivered two lectures on the same day, rather than one, as was erroneously stated in the earlier version of the paragraph.]

Nikos Kotzias, current Greek Foreign Minister (far left), Aleksandr Dugin (centre) and PhD student Antonis Skotiniotis (far right), 12 April 2013, Piraeus

Aleksandr Dugin (left) delivers a lecture "The Geopolitics of Russia" co-hosted by Konstantinos Filis (right)

During his visit to Greece, Dugin also met with SYRIZA's member Dimitris Konstantakopoulos, who also was a correspondent for the Athens News Agency in Moscow (1989-1999). Dugin interviewed Konstantakopoulos, and Konstantakopoulos interviewed him back.

Aleksandr Dugin (right) interviews SYRIZA's Dimitris Konstantakopoulos (left), April 2013, Greece

On 18 May 2013, Kotzias, in collaboration with KAPA Research, conducted a public opinion survey on the Greeks' attitude to Russia. Some of the conclusions of the analysis are:

For the Greeks, Russia is a state ally that they trust and want closer relations with. Russia is a strong state, with a perspective for greater growth, with a strong government that the Greeks are in favor. Generally, the Greeks seem to have realised that the world is changing and new forces come into play. [...] Russia, for the Greeks, is a potential military and economic ally that they respect and seem to know relatively well. The new generation is strongly in favor of closer relations with Russia, while the majority shares this view. The Greeks seem to be partly frustrated with their traditional allies in recent years and, therefore, turned to Russia.

It is unclear who funded or ordered this survey, but two things are known: (1) the survey was not published on the official website of KAPA Research, and (2) the PDF file containing the analysis and results was created on 4 June 2013 and sent by Kotzias to Gavrish on 5 June, together with the original results and raw data from KAPA Research. It seems reasonable to suggest that Malofeev's group ordered and funded the survey via Gavrish or Dugin, in order to test the waters for the promotion of Russian foreign policy in Greece.

After his visit to Greece, Dugin kept in contact with the Greeks and wrote the following:

In Greece, our partners could eventually be Leftists from SYRIZA, which refuses Atlanticism, liberalism and the domination of the forces of global finance. As far as I know, SYRIZA is anti-capitalist and it is critical of the global oligarchy that has victimized Greece and Cyprus. The case of SYRIZA is interesting because of its far-Left attitude toward the liberal global system. It is a good sign that such non-conformist forces have appeared on the scene. Dimitris Konstakopulous writes excellent articles and his strategic analysis I find very correct and profound in many cases.

In September 2013, Konstakopulous sent to Dugin a position paper that explained why full support should be given to SYRIZA, as well as establishing "the movement of Resistance and Subversion 'Free State'", in response to "a full blown and ruthless War" launched by the "International of the Finance" and "the emerging Totalitarian Empire of Globalization".

In December 2013, Dugin wrote a paper "Countries and persons, where there are grounds to create an elite club and/or a group of informational influence through the line of Russia Today". In a footnote, Dugin wrote that, with all these people, he or his representatives "met personally and indirectly or directly talking about a possibility of their participation in the organisational and/or informational initiative of the pro-Russian nature". The paper, in particular, listed Konstakopulousand Alexis Tsipras, the leader of SYRIZA and current Greek Prime Minister. Apart from Dugin's own statement, there is currently no evidence that Dugin or his representatives met with Tsipras, although this might have happened during 2013.

As argued earlier, Dugin is not the person who directly influences the decision-making process in Moscow. Rather, he is a "right-wing ambassador", a representative of Malofeev's group, who gathers information and intelligence and establishes contacts with particular European politicians who may be useful for the promotion of Russia's foreign policy in the EU. Were Russia to influence Greek politics, this would be done through the Greek government's collaboration with the Russian officials. However, Dugin's role in establishing the initial contacts should not be underestimated.

Following the publications in this blog and elsewhere about the contacts between current Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias and Russian fascist Aleksandr Dugin, Professor Angel Kotios, speaking on behalf of the University of Piraeus, has issued a statement in which he has tried to distance from Dugin. In particular, the statement says:

With relation to the negative reports referred to a lecture by Professor Aleksandr Dugin at the University of Piraeus and in particular the Department of International and European Studies, as Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Business and International Studies, I would like to clarify the following:

The lecture by Professor Dugin held on 12 April 2013 as part of the course "The Foreign Policy of Russia" with tutor Professor N. Kotzias, and it took place after a proposal of Mr. Dugin himself, via his collaborators, and, therefore, in no case was he invited by Professor Kotzias.

Anyone who is more or less familiar with the academic practice, knows that a lecturer cannot simply "invite himself" to give a paper in a course of another lecturer. Even if this were the case, then Kotzias had to check the background of the intrusive lecturer and eventually reject to have Dugin at the University of Piraeus. He did not reject. However, this was not the case at all, and the transcript of the lecture confirms that Dugin was invited.

Greece Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias

Here is the quote in Greek:

Νίκος Κοτζιάς (συντονιστής): Καλώς ήρθατε. Μπορείτε να ξεκινήσετε.

Αλεξάντρ Ντούγκιν: Σας ευχαριστώ πολύ για την πρόσκληση να μιλήσω εδώ στην Ελλάδαγια τη διεθνή πολιτική, για το ρόλο και τη θέση της Ρωσίας στο πλαίσιο του σύγχρονου κόσμου, για τον Ευρασιατισμό ως μια ιδέα η οποία γίνεται όλο και πιο δημοφιλής όχι μόνο στη Ρωσία, αλλά και στο πλαίσιο των γειτονικών της χωρών, τις οποίες ακόμη αποκαλούμε μετασοβιετικό χώρο ή Εγγύς Εξωτερικό.

And here is the official English translation:

Professor Kotzias (coordinator of the discussion): You are welcome. You may take your seat.

Professor Dugin: Thank you very much for the invitation to speak here in Greece about international affairs, about the role and the place of Russia in the context of the actual contemporary world, about Eurasianism as an idea which is becoming more and more popular not only in Russia but also in the context of the near countries that we are still calling post-Soviet space or Near Abroad.

As one can see, Dugin thanks for being invited to give a lecture in Greece.

In his statement, Kotios continues:

The above-mentioned publications are malicious and unacceptable, and challenging academic freedom and democracy. The University is an area of free movement of ideas, dialogue and reflection. It is open to speakers from all over the world and from all ideological trends. How could it be the opposite?

So, does Kotios indeed allege than any extremist can come - or even invite themselves! - to the University of Piraeus to deliver a lecture to students? How many lecturers from the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn has the University of Piraeus hosted so far?

Instead of apologising for inviting a fascist and proponent of genocide to indoctrinate their students, as well as promising to adopt the progressive No Platform policy, the University of Piraeus has unfortunately resorted to opportunism and ridiculous lies.

Introduction

The early presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine that took place in May and October 2014 correspondingly proved to be disastrous for the Ukrainian party-political far right.

Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the All-Ukrainian Union “Freedom” (Svoboda), obtained 1.16% of the vote in the presidential election, while his party secured only 4.71% of the vote in the parliamentary election and, eventually, failed to pass the 5% electoral threshold and enter the parliament. In comparison, Svoboda managed to obtain 10.44% of the votes in 2012 and form the first ever far right parliamentary group in the history of Ukraine.

Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of the Right Sector, obtained 0.70% in the presidential election, and 1.80% of the voters supported his party in the parliamentary election. The Right Sector, at the same time, can only provisionally be considered a far right party, and “national conservative” would perhaps be a more relevant and cautious term. In contrast to Svoboda, the Right Sector interprets the Ukrainian nation in civic, rather than ethnic, terms, while Yarosh’s election programme even insisted that the values of human dignity and human rights should become a fundamental ideology of a new constitution of Ukraine.


Weakness of the Party-Political Far Right

The failure of Tyahnybok and Yarosh in the presidential election, however, had little to do with their own political popularity. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the start of the invasion in Eastern Ukraine, Ukrainians voted in the presidential election in a largely tactical manner. They supported the most popular candidate at that time, Petro Poroshenko, as they were eager to elect a new president already in the first round of the election, in order to focus on the anti-terrorist campaign in the East of the country. These attitudes affected all the other presidential candidates, including Tyahnybok and Yarosh.

The unsuccessful performance of Svoboda and the Right Sector in the parliamentary election requires a more elaborate explanation. Naturally, an element of tactical voting was present during the parliamentary election too. According to public opinion polls conducted before the election, Svoboda was on the verge of passing the electoral threshold and many voters decided not to risk supporting this party. At the same time, the popularity of the Right Sector was very low, to the extent that some sociological companies often did not mention it. However, the tactical voting cannot fully explain the far right’s failure.

Why did the far right, in particular Svoboda, fail in the parliamentary election? First, Svoboda’s popularity started to decrease already in 2013, as their former supporters became disappointed with its work in the parliament. Second, Svoboda and the Right Sector split the nationalist vote; Svoboda was affected the most, as some of its former supporters presumably swung to the Right Sector. Third, Svoboda’s success in 2012 was a success of a political force that was considered the most radical in its opposition to former president Viktor Yanukovych. Svoboda was largely an “anti-Yanukovych party”, but with Yanukovych gone, Svoboda lost the major source of negative mobilisation. Fourth, in 2012, Svoboda was also considered almost the only patriotic party, but since the Russian invasion forced all the democratic Ukrainian parties to turn to patriotic rhetoric, Svoboda lost its “monopoly” on patriotism. Last, but not the least, the questionable conduct and dubious activities of Svoboda’s top members (including those who were ministers in the provisional cabinet of Arseniy Yatsenyuk) in spring-summer 2014 drove off many of their former supporters.

However, the electoral failure of Svoboda and the Right Sector did not mark “the end of history” of the Ukrainian far right, and some other developments proved to be much more problematic. Before discussing some of these developments, it is useful to understand how some far right groups have been making a living in Ukraine.

Shady dealings

Since the 1990s, Ukrainian far right activists – as well as activists of other political movements – always fell in two broadly generalised, yet sometimes overlapping, categories: “romantics” and “pragmatists”. “Romantics” take their political beliefs seriously, are ready to sacrifice their time and energy for the cause, and work fulltime for their political organisations on a voluntary basis. “Pragmatists” may be driven by genuine beliefs in the political cause too, but earning a living is always their number one concern.

This dual, “romantic-pragmatist” character of the far right movement in general often determines its hidden agenda: promoting and fighting for a political cause goes along with making money through activities that are not necessarily relevant to their politics. More often than not, “pragmatists” head far right organisations and parties and, therefore, turn them into enterprises with “romantic” rank-and-file being either low-paid or non-paid employees or interns. In this capacity, far right organisations are business machines able to offer various types of services.

As political parties, far right organisations can provide three major services. First, they can be employed by more powerful (and usually incumbent) political subjects, to pose as “scarecrow” or “bigger evil” actors to mobilise popular support for the incumbents presented as “lesser evil”. Second, during elections of any level, far right parties, which have very limited chances of success, yet are entitled to have representatives in electoral commissions, may financially gain by either exchanging their own representatives for those who represent other parties or participating in electoral fraud themselves to the benefit of more popular candidates. Third, more powerful political actors may promote far right parties, for example by covertly investing in their campaigns, in order to weaken or undermine major competing players, in particular of the mainstream right.

Naturally, far right politicians elected into the parliament or appointed to the government as ministers can engage in a large number of corrupt schemes available to representatives of other political forces too.

The spectrum of the services that the far right can offer as social organisations or groupuscules is even wider than those of the far right political parties, although the level of reward is lower than in the second case. Most of the services provided by the far right can be grouped into – again, often overlapping – four major categories concisely named “illegal economic developments”, “protection and security”, “fake protests” and “violence”.

First, far right activists are sometimes hired as strong-arm men to provide support during illegal takeovers. In Ukraine, redistribution of assets, property, businesses and wealth sometimes take place outside the legal space, and the rule of law is replaced by the rule of force. Far right activists who often practice martial arts and/or bodybuilding are, thus, useful in these situations, especially when an interested party needs to physically break through and occupy particular enterprises and/or offices. While activities such as these are predominantly non-ideological, ideology may play a mobilising role when a far right group is hired to drive out a business run by people of non-Slavic origin from a market. To mobilise their rank-and-file for such an operation, “pragmatists” leading a far right group may interpret it as a part of the “racial holy war”, while in reality the original “need” to force out a business from a market has nothing to do with ethnicity.

Caught on CCTV: Ihor Moseychuk, then a member of the Social-National Assembly and currently an MP, is raiding an office and apparently stealing belongings of office workers. July 2014, Kyiv, Ukraine. Source: YouTube

Second, some far right groups can be characterised as criminal gangs running protection and/or extortion rackets. In the case of the protection racket, far right activists would offer to protect a business against a real threat, for example an illegal takeover or aggressive competitors. In the case of the extortion racket, the far right would threaten to attack a business if it refused protection.

Third, and this point is similar to the extortion racket, far right activists sometimes organise or threaten to organise protests against particular political, social or cultural developments or events in order to extort a reward for stopping them. For example, real estate developers do not always take into account opinions of tenants of neighbouring houses who can make a weak protest that will then be hijacked and/or reinforced by a far right group. A strong legitimate protest can potentially stop a construction project that would lead to significant financial losses, so a building company would offer a payoff to a far right group in exchange for its withdrawal from the protest that would eventually die out without a mass backing of far right activists. In a similar vein, a far right group can threaten to block a concert of an “unpatriotic” singer or disrupt an event of social or cultural minorities in order to extract a payoff from the promoters or the organisers of the concert or the event.

Caught on a hidden camera: Ihor Mazur (aka "Topolya"), a leader of the Ukrainian National Assembly, is trying to "sell" an anti-government protest to a representative of the authorities. A Ukrainian investigative journalist pretended to be one. July 2013, Kyiv. Source: YouTube

Fourth, far right activists can be hired by an interested party to perform acts of violence against its political opponents without giving away the connection between the “customer” and the “contractors”. More often than not, “customers” are incumbents who would be interested in disrupting opposition protests or demonstrations that can potentially pose a serious challenge to the incumbents. The violence may be either direct, i.e. physical attacks, or mediated. In the latter case, far right activists would infiltrate the opposition protests without disclosing either their political affiliation or their “customers” and radicalise them to the degree where a police action against the entire protest would be legitimate. In most cases, far right activists would attack the police to provoke them into using violence against the genuine protesters.

It is important to note that all the described activities are neither confined to the far right milieu nor to the Ukrainian context. Moreover, the brief description of these largely illegal activities does not imply that all the Ukrainian far right parties and groups are engaged in them or that those far right activists who are indeed engaged in them necessarily represent organisations that are fake in political terms. It is true that some Ukrainian far right organisations will only care about making money, but normally raising money would still contribute to the struggle for a political cause.

Networking

The recent developments in Ukraine marked by the rise of the previously obscure neo-Nazi organisation “The Patriot of Ukraine” (PU) led by Andriy Bilets’ky can be seen from a purely political perspective but they cannot be fully understood without taking into account the above-mentioned activities of some of the far right organisations in Ukraine.

The political perspective is as follows. Like some other leaders of the PU, Bilets’ky did not take part in the 2014 revolution, as he had been in jail since the end of 2011: he was charged with attempted murder. Bilets’ky and his associates were released only after the ouster of Yanukovych as “political prisoners”, and later the PU formed a core of the Azov battalion, a volunteer detachment governed by the Ministry of Interior headed by Arsen Avakov. From the very beginning, the Azov battalion employed imagery such as Wolfsangel and Schwarze Sonne that in post-war Europe is associated with neo-Nazi movements.

A member of Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front party, minister Avakov promoted the Azov battalion and granted the rank of police Lieutenant Colonel to its commander Bilets’ky in August 2014. The People’s Front also brought Bilets’ky into the military council of the party and apparently planned to officially support his candidacy in the parliamentary election, but, due to the opposition to such a move from the Ukrainian expert community and representatives of national minorities, the People’s Front was forced to re-think its decision. However, the People’s Front, in particular Avakov and his advisor Anton Gerashchenko, still supported Bilets’ky unofficially, and he was elected into the parliament in a single-member district in Kyiv. After the elections, Avakov appointed Vadym Troyan, deputy commander of the Azov battalion and a top member of the PU, as head of the Kyiv region police.

The political perspective raises troubling questions: Why did Ukrainians elect a neo-Nazi into the parliament? Why did the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior promote the leaders of the neo-Nazi organisation?

One can answer the first question still within the conceptual framework of political science. Bilets’ky’s neo-Nazi views and his leadership in the PU played no role in his victory. He was elected into the parliament for three major reasons: (1) he was a commander of a volunteer battalion that defended Ukraine against (pro-)Russian extremists in Eastern Ukraine, (2) although he was not taking part in the revolution – a little-known fact to the public – he was considered almost the only representative of the victorious Maidan movement in his electoral district, and (3) his nearest competitor was a representative of the ancien regime.

The framework of political science, however, fails to explain why the Ministry of Interior supported the leaders of the Patriot of Ukraine, as neither Avakov nor Gerashchenko is a neo-Nazi. The explanation seems to lie in the past and has to do with a sinister legacy of cronyism.

Avakov, Bilets’ky and Troyan are all coming from the Kharkiv region and have known each other at least since 2009-2010, when Avakov was still the governor of the Kharkiv region. In Kharkiv, the PU was involved in some of the largely illegal activities described earlier. In 2010, the PU activists headed by Troyan seized four dozens of news kiosks in Kharkiv in favour of, according to the media reports, Andriy Liphans’ky. The latter was a business partner of Avakov and headed the board of media and information of the Kharkiv region during Avakov’s governance. Media reports also suggested that Liphans’ky rented a gym for training of the PU activists. In their turn, the PU activists provided manpower for paid protests, as well as protection for the demonstrations of the Bloc of Yuliya Tymoshenko (BYuT) in Kharkiv – at that time Avakov, after having been dismissed from the post of the Kharkiv region governor, headed that the regional office of the BYuT. Furthermore, a leader of the Kharkiv football hooligans who was close to the PU took part in Avakov’s mayoral campaign in 2010.

Today’s involvement of the PU leaders in Ukrainian police seems to be driven by Avakov’s trust in the organisation that he worked with in the past. Avakov also seems to believe in the personal loyalty of the PU-led Azov battalion and may use them as his “private army” to protect his business and political interests.

The problematic relationship between the Ministry of Inferior and the neo-Nazis is undermining the credibility of the newly formed Ukrainian government both internationally and domestically. It was most likely Avakov who suggested to Poroshenko to grant Ukrainian citizenship to Belarusian fighter of the Azov battalion Sergey Korotkikh who had been involved in the neo-Nazi movements in Belarus and Russia since the late 1990s. Furthermore, under Avakov, the police in Kyiv have already proved unable or unwilling to investigate a number of hate crimes. In July, far right thugs – not necessarily associated with the PU – attacked four black people in the underground, a gay club and a Jewish student by a synagogue. The police initiated two criminal cases, but so far nobody has been prosecuted. In September, the head of the Visual Culture Research Centre Vasyl Cherepanyn was beaten apparently by far right activists, but the police failed to investigate this attack too. The police is also unwilling to address the issue with the tortures of political opponents inflicted by the neo-Nazi C14 group during the revolution in winter 2013-2014. There is no ground to believe that the infiltration of the far right into the police will contribute to the efficiency of its investigations in general and of the hate crimes in particular.


Conclusion

Avakov may consider the PU-led Azov battalion as his “private army”, but not everybody in the PU and Azov see the current cooperation with the Ministry of Interior as a goal in and of itself. The PU may benefit from this cooperation, but it still has its own political agenda that goes beyond this cooperation. The PU has also started advertising employment in the Security Service of Ukraine on their webpages.

Further infiltration of the far right into the Ukrainian law enforcement and other institutions of the state will most likely lead to the following developments. First, the coalescence of the police and the far right who were engaged, inter alia, in the illegal activities will necessarily increase the corruption risks. Second, the growth of the far right within the law enforcement will lead to the gradual liberation of the PU from the personal patronage of Avakov that will likely result in the PU’s independent action.

While Svoboda and the Right Sector have failed in the 2014 parliamentary elections, the infiltration of some other far right organisations in the law enforcement is possibly a more advanced long-term strategy in their fight against not particularly well established liberal democracy in Ukraine.

This article was originally published in German language in Ukraine-Analysen, No. 144 (2015).

Just two weeks after the leader of the pro-Russian right-wing terrorist organisation "Donetsk People's Republic" (DNR) Aleksandr Zakharchenkodeclared that Ukraine was run by "miserable Jews", a delegation of the German party Die Linke visited the author of this anti-Semitic jibe and delivered what they called "humanitarian help".

Pro-Russian right-wing terrorist Aleksandr Zakharchenko (2nd from the left) and the delegation of Die Linke: Wolfgang Gehrcke (3rd) and Andrej Hunko (4th), Donetsk, 16 February 2015

Previous foreign visitors of right-wing terrorist Zakharchenko included representatives of the European extreme right organisations who have particular links to Die Linke, on which more below.

DNR terrorist Aleksandr Zakharchenko and Polish far right politician Mateusz Piskorski, 1 November 2014, Donetsk

DNR terrorist Aleksandr Zakharchenko and Fabrice Beaur of the neo-fascist Parti communautaire national-européen, 1 November 2014, Donetsk

Both Wolfgang Gehrcke and Andrej Hunko entered Eastern Ukraine illegally. They first travelled from Germany to Moscow's Sheremetyevo International airport and then - to the Russian city of Rostov. From there, they went to Ukraine via a segment of the Ukrainian-Russian border that was not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities. Hence, they entered Ukraine without passing any Ukrainian border control point which constitutes an administrative offense (unauthorised border crossing). No internationally recognised body (OSCE or Red Cross) was able to check the contents of Die Linke's alleged "humanitarian help".

Originally they travelled together with another Die Linke's member Julius Zukowski-Krebs, who was going to violate the Ukrainian border too, but he says that he was attacked by a dog and did not go to Ukraine.

Julius Zukowski-Krebs updating his Facebook from the Sheremetyevo International airport where he was waiting for a flight to Rostov together with Wolfgang Gehrcke and Andrej Hunko, Moscow, 15 February 2015

Illegal entry in Ukraine and the picture that Die Linke's representatives took together with right-wing terrorist Zakharchenko constitute a very clear political message: Die Linke respects neither the territorial integrity nor the laws or the sovereignty of Ukraine. Furthermore, by entering Ukraine via Rostov, Gehrcke and Hunko followed the route of the Russian troops that continue their invasion of Eastern Ukraine to help the DNR terrorists in their occupation of of particular territories.

This is not the first time when Die Linke cooperated with the pro-Russian extreme right and Putin's right-wing authoritarian regime. In March 2014, Die Linke's representatives Hikmat Al-Sabty, Torsten Koplin (former informant of Stasi), Piotr Luczak and Monika Merk joined German far-right activist and Russia Today celebrity Manuel Ochsenreiter in their trip to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea - then occupied by the Russian troops - to "observe" the illegitimate and illegal "referendum" on the status of Crimea after which Russia annexed this Ukrainian region in violation of every international norm.

It is worth reminding that "observers" of the Crimean "referendum" were invited by two organisations: the Eurasian Observatory for Democracy & Elections (EODE) and the European Centre for Geopolitical Analysis (ECGA). The EODE is headed by Belgian fascist Luc Michel, the leader of the "National-Bolshevik"Parti Communautaire National-européen. The ECGA is headed by Polish far right activist Mateusz Piskorski, a former member of neo-Nazi pagan Niklot group and the right-wing populist Samooborona political party, and contemporary founding member of the "National-Bolshevik"Zmiana party. The activities of the EODE and ECGA are largely funded by Moscow through payments for "observing" and, eventually, legitimising controversial or fraudulent elections and referenda in Eastern Europe, Russia and Asia.

Member of Die LinkePiotr Luczak was one of the directors of the ECGA, but decided to found his own branch of the ECGA in Germany in 2011-2012: Europäisches Zentrum für Geopolitische Analyse e.V.Luczak has been closely cooperating with Piskorski’s ECGA and Michel’s EODE. For example, in 2011, Luczak took part in the EODE’s "election observation mission" in Russia.

(left to right) Fabrice Beaur, administrator of EODE Russia-Caucasus Zone and General Secretary of the neo-fascist Parti communautaire national-européen, and Piotr Luczak of Die Linke, Moscow, 13 October 2011

In December 2011, Luczak and yet another member of Die LinkeSabine Golczhyk took part in the joint EODE/ECGA"monitoring mission" in Transnistria to legitimise the "presidential election" in this unrecognised "state".

EODE/ECGA press conference: (left to right) Mateusz Piskorski, Sabine Golczyk, [unknown], Luc Michel, Yuriy Baranchik (advisor to Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenka) and Piotr Luczak, Tiraspol, 12 December 2011

Apart from the Crimean "referendum", Luczak took part in the "monitoring mission" in St. Petersburg on 14 September 2014. The "mission" was coordinated by Piskorski’s ECGA and featured, in particular, "election observers" from the far right parties such as Vlaams Belang (Belgium), Front National (France) and Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Austria).

Die Linke's collaboration with the far right represents yet another example of the growing trend in the EU, namely the tactical convergence of the (far) left and the far right, especially in foreign policy. The (far) left and the far right votein a similar way in the European Parliament on the issues related to Putin's right-wing authoritarian regime, while the associates of Die Linke in Greece, Syriza, has recently formed a coalition government with the far right Independent Greeks party.

The European far right remains largely a fringe force in the EU, but the "red-brown" collaboration - whether for tactical or any other reasons - between the (far) left and the far right constitutes an increasing threat to liberal democracy in the EU.

The Russian fascist Rodina (Motherland) party that was founded by Russia's current Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin is organising a large conference titled "International Russian Conservative Forum" (IRCF) to be held in St. Petersburg on 22 March 2015.

According to Kommersant's journalist Grigory Tumanov, the following European organisations are taking part in the conference:

1. Attack (Ataka), Bulgaria.
2. Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ), Austria.
3. Serbian Radical Party (Srpska radikalna stranka), Serbia.
4. Alliance for Peace and Freedom (APF).

The APF is a newly established umbrella organisation that was established in Brussels on 4 February 2015 and is represented by the following parties:

1. New Force (Forza Nuova), Italy.
2. National Democratic Party of Germany (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, NPD), Germany.
3. Party of the Swedes (Svenskarnas parti), Sweden.
4. Golden Dawn (Chrysí Avgí), Greece.
5. National Democracy (Democracia Nacional), Spain.
6. Nation, Belgium.
7. Danish Party (Danskernes Parti), Denmark.

The first congress of the APF, chaired by Nick Griffin (former leader of the British National Party), Rome, 4 February 2015

(I assumed already in September 2013 that Fiore was building an umbrella organisation that would unite political parties and movements that are generally more extreme than the Alliance of European National Movements. In February 2015, with the creation of the AFP, my assumption has been proven correct.)

The exact composition of the AFP delegation to the IRCF is unknown at the moment, but the following representatives seem to be confirmed: Nick Griffin, Roberto Fiore of the Forza Nuova, Udo Voigt of the NPD, Eleftherios Sinadinos and George Epitidios of the Golden Dawn.

The IRCF has almost a year-long history. It was first planned to be held on 15 March 2014, under the name "Russian National Forum against Tolerance", but due to the annexation of Crimea and the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the organisers decided to postpone the conference to 3-4 October (under the name "Russian National Forum"), then to 7-9 November 2014. Eventually, the organisers settled the final date: 22 March 2015, i.e. only one day instead of 2-3 days that they planned for October and November - this change apparently indicates the organisers failed to invite as many participants as they originally wanted.

The prospective participation of the FPÖ in the IRCF raises eyebrows. The FPÖ is clearly on the far right - it is a radical right-wing party - but all the other participants of the IRCF, including the Russian organiser (Rodina) are explicit fascists and neo-Nazis. Moreover, a number of European parties eventually refused to take part in this Russian fascist event, in particular the Swiss People's Party (Switzerland), Scottish National Party (UK), Identitarian Bloc (France), National Front (France), and Jobbik (Hungary). None of these parties wanted to fraternise with the European and Russian fascists.

What is behind the FPÖ's ideological promiscuity? I believe the answer is clear: the FPÖ is struggling to repeat the "success story" of the French Front National that has secured a multimillion loan from a Russian bank in 2014. To remind the readers, according the available information, these were former leaders of the Rodina party - namely Alexander Babakov and Dmitry Rogozin - who played a significant role in assisting Front National's Marine Le Pen in getting that multimillion loan. Hence, if the FPÖ wants the same, it now must obediently stooge for the Rodina party and the Kremlin. High rhetoric about sovereignty? Obviously not when the money is involved!

UPDATE 1:
According to the report from the ORF, the FPÖ has decided not to take part in the IRCF. Yuriy Lyubomirsky of the Rodina party says that, on Monday (9 March), he received an email from FPÖ's Johan Gudenus who cancelled his participation in the conference. Gudenus, at the same time, argues that he was not going to participate in the IRCF at all, but this seems highly unlikely. The organisers were planning to inviteFPÖ already in January 2014, and Lyubomirskyconfirmed, in December 2014, the participation of the FPÖ in the conference. This is the only reason why the organisers of the IRCF mentioned the party in the list of participating organisations on 4 March 2015:


UPDATE 2:
More evidence emerged on Tuesday (10 March) strongly indicating that FPÖ's Gudenus had been planning to participate in the IRCF. Alexander Fanta, a journalist of Austria Presse Agentur (APA), published a screenshot of Gudenus' letter in which the latter thanked for the invitation to the IRCF, said he was "looking forward to join the conference", and asked to put him and his attendance on the organisers' list.

A letter from Johan Gudenus to the organisers of the IRCF. Credit: Alexander Fanta

The Uneasy Reality of Antifascism in Ukraine
First published in German language in Beton International: Zeitung für Literatur und Gesellschaft (10 March 2015). The German version can be found below.

Ukrainian antifascists hold a banner that reds: "Against political terror". Kyiv, 19 January 2015

For almost twenty years of Ukraine’s independence, the term “antifascism” used to have very limited currency in the established political discourse in Ukraine. Until 2010, “antifascism” was primarily used as a form of self-identification by an element of Ukraine’s left-wing movement, as well as being employed by the far right groupuscules to refer to their left-wing opponents. Hence, until 2010-2011, “antifascism” remained a notion that largely belonged to the subcultural sphere of the physical and symbolical strife between left-wing and far right activists.
Yet when the notion of antifascism did enter the mainstream political discourse in Ukraine, it immediately became extremely problematic. The problematic nature of the notion had little to do with what “antifascism” essentially implied – that is opposition to fascism – but resulted from the manipulated use of the notion of antifascism in the post-Soviet space in general and Ukraine in particular.

The manipulated use of “antifascism” has been increasingly prominent in Russia since Vladimir Putin’s second presidential term (2004-2008). During the “Orange revolution” in Ukraine, when hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians protested against the fraudulent “victory” of pro-Russian politician Viktor Yanukovych in the 2004 presidential election, pro-Yanukovych media in Ukraine and pro-Kremlin media in Russia slammed the leaders of the largely pro-European “orange” protest movement as “orange fascists”. To oppose the virtual threat of an “orange revolution” in Russia itself, the Presidential Administration launched the Youth Democratic Antifascist Movement “Ours” (Nashi). The imagery of the movement drew extensively on the legacy of the Soviet Union: the prevalence of the red colour, Soviet-style slogans, and even their official website was registered in .su domain (.su was originally assigned to the Soviet Union).

These events reveal the basic argument behind the manipulated use of the notions of both fascism and antifascism in Russia. Since it is the Kremlin’s geopolitical belief that particular sovereign post-Soviet states belong to the Russian sphere of influence, Moscow interprets post-Soviet sovereign countries’ attempts to move away from this sphere as anti-Russian actions. As the Kremlin also adopts the political cult of the “Victory in the Great Patriotic War” seen as the struggle between the Soviets and fascists, as well as drawing on the Soviet legacy of defining fascism as anticommunism and equating it with Anti-Sovietism, Moscow tends to interpret the perceived anti-Russian sentiment as fascist too. Hence, the term “antifascism”, in its manipulated interpretation, implies an opposition to the perceived geopolitical threats that Putin’s regime allegedly faces.

It was in a similarly distorted interpretation that the notion of antifascism entered the mainstream Ukrainian political discourse in 2010-2011. This development was associated with three major events. First, in the beginning of 2010 Viktor Yanukovych was elected president of Ukraine, adopted pro-Russian foreign policy and started suppressing political opponents. Second, the same year, Russian politician and businessman Boris Spiegel, who had close ties to the Kremlin, founded, in Kyiv, the World without Nazism organisation (WWN). Third, in 2011, Vadym Kolesnichenko, Yanukovych’s major ally, launched the International Antifascist Front (IAF).

While both organisations, i.e. the WWN and IAF, officially aimed at fighting against xenophobia, racism and glorification of Nazi crimes, their real objectives were different. The WWN promoted the Russian version of history of the twentieth century, advanced Russian foreign policy and tried to influence public opinion in former Soviet republics. The IAF, in its turn, organised protests against the political opposition to Yanukovych. Originally, the IAF attacked the far right Svoboda party that was critical of Yanukovych, but since Svoboda strategically sided with the democratic opposition, the latter was attacked too. Therefore, the protests held by the “antifascist” organisation against the entire political opposition to Yanukovych aimed at discrediting it as “fascist”. The IAFG adopted this tactic from the Russian Nashi movement that attacked, from the “antifascist” positions, all the opponents of Putin.

The activities of the WWN and IAF resulted in a conceptual conflict between the original definition of antifascism as a struggle against racism and right-wing extremism practiced by Ukrainian left-wing activists and the implicitly manipulated interpretation that implied promotion of Russian interests in Ukraine. The Ukrainian anti-authoritarian left-wing movement, due to its political weakness, failed to defend their interpretation of the notion. Especially after pro-Russian media and commentators started describing the “People’s Republics” in separatist-held areas of Eastern Ukraine as antifascist “states” fighting against the “Kyiv fascist junta”, the term “antifascism” became completely discredited. Today, Ukrainian left-wing activists have almost abandoned the use of the term in the public discourse and tend to talk about the struggle against racism, intolerance and political terror.

Ukrainian antifascists commemorate Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova killed by Russian neo-Nazis in Moscow on 19 January 2009

Die unbehagliche Realität des Antifaschismus in der Ukraine

In den fast 20 Jahren seit der Erlangung der Unabhängigkeit stand der Begriff „Antifaschismus“ in der politischen Debatte in der Ukraine nicht besonders hoch im Kurs. Bis 2010 verwendete ein Segment der ukrainischen Linken den Begriff „Antifaschismus“ in erster Linie als eine Möglichkeit der Selbstidentifikation. Zugleich machten auch rechtsextreme Aktivisten von diesem Ausdruck Gebrauch, um ihre linken Gegner zu bezeichnen. Bis 2010 war der Ausdruck „Antifaschismus“ hauptsächlich in der subkulturellen Sphäre des physischen und symbolischen Kampfes zwischen linken und rechten Aktivisten zu finden.

Als der Begriff „Antifaschismus“ im politischen Mainstreamdiskurs in der Ukraine angekommen war, wurde er sogleich massiv problematisiert. Das problematische Wesen dieses Begriffs hatte weniger damit zu tun, was Antifaschismus essenziell implizierte - nämlich die Opposition zum Faschismus -, sondern resultierte aus dem manipulativen Gebrauch des „Antifaschismus“ im postsowjetischen Raum im Allgemeinen und in der Ukraine im Speziellen.

Der manipulative Gebrauch des „Antifaschismus“ erfreute sich seit Wladimir Putins zweiter Amtszeit (2004-2008) besonderer Prominenz. Im Zuge der „Orange Revolution“ in der Ukraine, als hunderttausende Ukrainer gegen den gefälschten „Wahlsieg“ des prorussischen Politikers Wiktor Janukowitsch bei den Präsidentschaftswahlen 2004 protestierten, diffamierten die mit Janukowitsch sympathisierenden Medien in der Ukraine und die Pro-Kreml-Medien in Russland die Anführer der proeuropäischen „orange“ Bewegung als „orange Faschisten“. Um die virtuelle Bedrohung einer „orange Revolution“ in Russland selbst abzuwehren, rief die Präsidentschaftsadministration eine „Demokratische Antifaschistische Jugendbewegung“ ins Leben, „Die Unseren“ C,Naschi“). Das Image der Bewegung nahm Anleihen am Vermächtnis der Sowjetunion: Die dominierende Farbe ist Rot, und die Webseite wurde sogar in der .su-Domain registriert, die ursprünglich für die Sowjetunion vorgesehen war.

Diese Faktoren geben den Blick frei auf den manipulativen Gebrauch des Begriffspaars Faschismus und Antifaschismus in Russland. Da der Kreml dem geopolitischen Glauben anhängt, die souveränen postsowjetischen Staaten würden zur Einflusssphäre Russlands gehören, interpretiert Moskau die Bestrebungen dieser Staaten, die russische Einflusssphäre zu verlassen, als antirussische Aktionen. Da der Kreml außerdem den politischen Kult des „Sieges im Großen Vaterländischen Krieg“ pflegt, wobei dieser Krieg gesehen wird als ein Kampf zwischen den Sowjets und den Faschisten und zudem in Fortsetzung der sowjetischen Tradition der Antikommunismus mit dem Antisowjetismus gleichgesetzt wird, neigt Moskau dazu, das, was als anti-russische Ressentiments wahrgenommen wird, ebenfalls als faschistisch zu deklarieren. Daher impliziert der Begriff „Antifaschismus“ in seiner manipulativen Interpretation eine Opposition zu den geopoliti-schen Bedrohungen, die das Putin-Regime als solche wahrnimmt und mit denen es sich konfrontiert sieht.

In einer ähnlich verzerrten Interpretation fand der Begriff „Antifaschismus“ Eingang in den politischen Mainstreamdiskurs der Ukraine nach 2010. Diese Entwicklung wurde mit drei wichtigen Ereignissen in Verbindung gebracht. Erstens wrurde Janukowitsch 2010 zum Präsidenten der Ukraine gewählt, implementierte eine prorussische Außenpolitik und begann damit, politische Gegner zu verfolgen. Zweitens gründete der russische Politiker und Geschäftsmann Boris Spiegel, der enge Verbindungen zum Kreml unterhielt, im selben Jahr in Kiew eine Organisation namens World With-out Nazism (WWN). Drittens rief im Jahr 2011 Wadim Kolesnitschenko, ein wichtiger Verbündeter Janukowitschs, die Internationale Antifaschistische Front (IAF) ins Leben.

Beide Organisationen verfolgten offiziell das Ziel, gegen Fremdenfeindlichkeit, Rassismus und die Glorifizierung von Nazi-Verbrechen zu kämpfen, jedoch waren ihre eigentlichen Ziele andere. Die WWN brachte sich aktiv in die russische Außenpolitik ein und versuchte, die öffentliche Meinung in den früheren Sowjetrepubliken zu beeinflussen. Die IAF organisierte Proteste gegen die politische Opposition Janukowitschs. Ursprünglich attackierte die IAF die rechtsextreme Partei „Swoboda“, die Janukowitsch gegenüber kritisch eingestellt war, aber da sich „Swoboda“ mit der demokratischen Opposition verbündete, geriet letztere ebenfalls ins Fadenkreuz der IAF. Die Proteste der „antifaschistischen“ Organisation gegen die gesamte politische Opposition zielten also darauf ab, diese als „faschistisch“ zu diskreditieren. Die IAF hatte diese Taktik von der russischen „Naschi“-Bewegung übernommen, die ebenfalls sämtliche Gegner Putins aus einer „antifaschistischen“ Position heraus angreift.

Die Aktivitäten der WWN und der IAF führten zu einem konzeptuellen Konflikt zwischen der ursprünglichen Definition des Antifaschismus als einem Kampf gegen den rechten Extremismus, wie er von der ukrainischen Linken geführt worden war, und der implizit manipulierten Interpretation, die darauf hinausläuft, dass Russland in der Ukraine seine eigenen Interessen verfolgt. Die ukrainische antiautoritäre linke Bewegung hatte nicht genug politische Kraft, um ihre eigene Interpretation des Begriffs „Antifaschismus“ zu verteidigen. Nachdem die prorussischen Medien die „Volksrepubliken“ in den von den Separatisten kontrollierten Gebieten der Ostukraine als „antifaschistische Staaten“ bezeichneten, die gegen die „faschistische Junta in Kiew“ kämpften, geriet der Begriff „Antifaschismus“ vollends in Verruf. Inzwischen verwenden die ukrainischen linken Aktivisten den Begriff so gut wie gar nicht mehr im öffentlichen Diskurs und sprechen stattdessen lieber vom Kampf gegen Rassismus, Intoleranz und politischen Terror.

Aus dem Englischen von Mascha Dabić

On the 9th of May, Russia will plunge into ritualised mass celebrations to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the victory over fascism in the “Great Patriotic War”. At the same time, on the 22nd of March, a few weeks before the celebrations, a Russian party with a presumably patriotic name “Motherland” held the International Russian Conservative Forum (IRCF) that hosted over a dozen of notorious European and American fascists, white supremacists and anti-Semites.

To add injury to the apparent insult, the Motherland party held the IRCF in St. Petersburg that suffered, in 1941-1944, one of the longest sieges in the military history (Siege of Leningrad) that resulted in over a million casualties of civilians alone.

Is this (yet another) case of Russia’s ideological schizophrenia or something else?

“The fringe of the fringe”

When the international participants of the IRCF gathered in the Holiday Inn hotel, they were greeted by their Russian counterparts from various right-wing extremist groups, none of which, except for the Motherland party, has any political significance in Russia. The international guests matched them well. As one of the speakers, founder and editor of the racist American Renaissance website Jared Taylor, admitted himself, that was “a bizarre lineup”, “the fringe of the fringe”.

And, indeed, they were.

The bulk of the international part of the IRCF was represented by the Alliance for Peace and Freedom (APF), an umbrella movement that was established in Brussels in the building of the European Parliament in February 2015 and united fascist and neo-Nazi parties and smaller organisations from Italy (New Force), Germany (National Democratic Party of Germany), Sweden (Party of the Swedes), Greece (Golden Dawn), Spain (National Democracy), Belgium (Nation), and Denmark (Danish Party).

The chairman of the APF, Roberto Fiore, has almost forty years of experience of far right activism; he was briefly a MEP in 2008-2009, but in the most recent general election in Italy his party New Force obtained only 0.26% of the vote. The notorious Golden Dawn, which the Greek court may soon officially recognise as a criminal organisation, is arguably the most successful party in the APF, yet still it has limited impact on the Greek politics. The Belgian Kris Roman, whom the organisers proudly described as “chairman of the research centre ‘Euro-Russia’” is most likely the only member of this “research centre”. Nick Griffin, former leader of the British National Party who was expelled from this party in autumn 2014, represented the British Unity, a virtual party that largely exists on Facebook with four thousand “likes”.

(left to right) Nick Griffin, Udo Voigt and Roberto Fiore at the IRCF. Source: Nick Griffin’s Twitter

The presentations of the participants of the IRCF were expectedly full of ridiculous conspiracy theories, racist rants, anti-gay drivels, illiberal ravings, and subservient praise of Putin’s Russia and the man himself. Some of the international participants obviously wanted to demonstrate their unshakeable loyalty to Putin’s regime and – who knows! – may be get some Russian money, following the success of the French National Front that secured a multi-million loan from a Russian bank in 2014.

Fat chance. Despite the widespread and sometimes justified assumptions that Putin’s Russia provides financial assistance to European far right parties, it does not throw money to anyone who supports the Russian foreign policy. The Kremlin favours those who have solid support in their respective societies. Like the French National Front that has won the second place in the recent regional elections.

Fifty shades of brown

The fringe nature of the event was defined not only by the credentials of the participants who were actually there, but also by those who were invited but refused to come or cancelled their participation.

The IRCF has almost a year-long history. Originally, the Motherland party invited all the “fifty shades of brown”: in addition to those who were present in St. Petersburg, the organisers invited comparatively more moderate far right parties such as the French National Front, Freedom Party of Austria, Hungarian Jobbik, Serbian Radical Party, and some others. They all refused, at different stages of the process, to come because they did not want to fraternise with blatant fascists and racists, as they feared that their participation might damage their image at home. The names of representatives of the Bulgarian Attack party and Italian Northern League that for some time cooperated with former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi were still on the conference programme on the day of the event, but Attack’s Volen Siderov cancelled his visit in the nick of time, while Northern League’s Luca Bertoni left the forum – perhaps even appalled! – before his own presentation.

This is the first thing that we have learnt from the fascist event in St. Petersburg. Facing the political and economic backlash from the West for Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine, the Russian elites are desperate for any, even marginal, European and US support of the Kremlin’s policies. However, some of the Russian political elites reveal blatant ignorance of the differences between various forces even if they are evidently coming from one and the same broad far right political camp. These differences are too evident and appear to be the main reason why no far right group exists in the European Parliament despite the fact that there is a sufficient number of far right and Eurosceptic MEPs to form such a group.

Yet there are more important things than the Russian elites’ lack of expertise on their potential allies that we can learn from the event in St. Petersburg.

Russian doublespeak

In the large segment of the Russian public sphere, the meaning of the term “fascism” excessively used by the Kremlin and the Russian state-controlled mass media differs dramatically from its commonly accepted meaning in the West.

Many people in Russia have increasingly adopted the Soviet logic of the use of this term. For them, the meaning of “fascism” is defined by the same reason why Russia celebrates the victory in the so-called Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), rather than the Victory in Europe Day that commemorates the Second World War (1939-1945). Following the agreements made in the secret protocol complementing the 1939 Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact that implied the division of Poland, Romania, the Baltic States and Finland into the Nazi and Soviet “spheres of influence”, the Third Reich and the Soviet Union started the Second World War by invading Poland in September 1939. For the Soviet Union, this was not the beginning of the war – it only started when the Third Reich attacked the USSR in 1941. This is exactly when German fascism became a real danger to the Soviet Union, and it was the “Great Patriotic War” that provided a particular emotional interpretation of fascism as a first and foremost anti-communist or anti-Soviet ideology.

Nazi and Soviet troops shaking hands following the invasion of Poland, October 1939

For many Russians, today’s meaning of “fascism” is similar: “fascists” are those who are perceived as enemies of Russia or as undermining the Russian sphere of influence. This is exactly why Moldovan troops were called “fascists” in 1992 when they tried, unsuccessfully, to regain control over Transnistria occupied by the Russian army. Some Russians applied the same term to former Georgian pro-Western president Mikheil Saakashvili, and, of course, the government in post-revolutionary Ukraine was named “Kyiv fascist junta” because it wanted to move Ukraine away from the Russian sphere of influence.

If the use of “fascism” is determined by the attitudes towards Russia and its geopolitical standing, so is the use of the term “anti-fascism”. “Anti-fascists” are all those who support Putin’s Russia or back up its geopolitical interests. A tweet posted (but later deleted) in the course of the event in St. Petersburg by Aleksey Zhuravlev, the leader of the Motherland party, is telling in this regard. He posted a photo of Udo Voigt, a high-ranking member of the National-Democratic Party of Germany, the largest neo-Nazi organisation in post-war Europe, and commented: “MEP Udo Voigt is an antifascist too!”. It is Voigt’s positive attitudes towards the Kremlin that make him an “anti-fascist” in Russia.
Confused elements of the left-wing movement in the West take well the use of the term “anti-fascism” by the Kremlin and the Russian state-controlled mass media. However, the Kremlin and its supporters cannot constantly call ultranationalists and anti-Semites “anti-fascists”.

The widespread word to describe right-wing extremists in the Russian context is “conservatives”. When the Motherland party first planned to hold the IRCF in March 2014, it was called the “Russian National Forum against Tolerance”. They later dropped the last part and kept only “Russian National Forum”. With the rise of Moscow’s media narrative about Ukrainian nationalism and Russia as a bastion of family and conservative values, the “National” in the name of the forum was replaced by “Conservative”. The dangerously multifaceted meaning of “conservatism” in Russia is also reflected, in particular, by Vkontakte, the most popular social networking website in Russia. In the “political views” drop-down menu, one cannot find “far right” or “fascist”, so people who actually hold these views select the “ultraconservative” option.

The fascist event in St. Petersburg that has taken place only a few weeks away from the celebrations of the “anti-fascist” victory in the “Great Patriotic War” should not be dismissed as a case of ideological schizophrenia on the part of the Russian elites. Neither should it be – in a sensational manner – allotted with any great political significance: the forces represented in St. Petersburg are, indeed, the fringe of the fringe of miniscule importance in their respective societies, and the Kremlin is unlikely to fund them. However, the event and the history behind it provide important insights into how the Kremlin and the Russian state-controlled mass media wage their information war and what role particular linguistic forms play in this war.

A new leak of the text messages originating from a hacked smartphone of a high-ranking officer of Russia’s Presidential Administration sheds further light on the relations between the Russian authorities and their far right allies in France.

The hackers from the Anonymous International have disclosed thousands of text messages sent to and by Timur Prokopenko, deputy chief of the Domestic Politics Department of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation. Before he started working in the Presidential Administration, Prokopenko headed the youth wing of the ruling United Russia party, the Young Guard, that was established in 2005, next to the Nashi movement and Aleksandr Dugin’s Eurasian Youth Union, to defend Russia from the largely virtual threat of a “colour revolution”.

Prokopenko rose up to become a powerful figure in the Presidential Administration. The hacked messages reveal the internal developments in the Domestic Politics Department, how it communicates with and tries to control the already intimidated mass media, organises and finances pro-Putin rallies and movements in Russia. The messages dating back to March 2014 also mention Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French far right National Front, and contribute to better understanding of the relations between Russia and Le Pen’s party.

Timur Prokopenko

With regard to Le Pen, Prokopenko corresponded with Konstantin Rykov, a Russian politician and influential media producer. A self-proclaimed Russian patriot, who massively promoted #RussianSpring as a reference to the Russian annexation of Crimea and pro-Russian separatism in Eastern Ukraine, Rykov owns a €2 million villa in Côte d’Azur and is a tax resident of France, according to the investigation of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. It is Rykov’s French connection that apparently determines his acquaintance with Le Pen.

According to the leaked messages, on 10 March 2014, a week before the “referendum” in Russia-occupied Crimea, Prokopenko asked whether Rykov could bring Marine Le Pen as a “referendum” observer to Crimea, adding that her prospective participation would be important and that he informed his boss, Oleg Morozov, that Rykov was in contact with her. Rykov promised to find out.

Rykov replied the next day saying that Le Pen was on tour campaigning for her party’s municipal elections, so she was unlikely to go, but one of her deputies could go in her stead. Prokopenko seemed happy about this development and said that someone from Russia’s Foreign Ministry would call Le Pen. Then Rykov added that the Danes supported “them” (Russia) too, but it was difficult for Rykov to communicate with them as he did not know the Danish language.

These communications correspond well to the developments in March 2014. Le Pen did not indeed go to Crimea, but her contemporary adviser on international relations, Aymeric Chauprade, went to observe the “referendum”. The French newspaper Libérationinformed, with a reference to Chauprade’s entourage, that he had been invited to monitor the “referendum” by the Eurasian Observatory for Democracy & Elections (EODE), a Belgium-based NGO run by Belgian extreme right activist Luc Michel. Together with the pro-Kremlin, Poland-based European Centre for Geopolitical Analysis, the EODE was responsible for inviting international monitors to observe the “referendum” in Crimea. However, the National Front denied that the EODE had invited Chauprade, as the party feared that the publicised relationship with the Belgian right-wing extremists could damage the reputation of the National Front, especially on the eve of the municipal elections.

Aymeric Chauprade and Marine Le Pen

By “the Danes” who supported the Russian idea of the Crimea “referendum”, Rykov might have meant the far right Danish People’s Party. The day after the “referendum”, the party’s foreign affairs spokesman Søren Espersen declared that they should respect “the will of the people of Crimea” who “wanted to become part of Russia”.

The same day that Espersen declared his party’s support for the Russian practical annexation of Crimea, Rykov happily informed Prokopenko that Le Pen “had officially recognised the results of the referendum in Crimea!”. “She has not let us down ;)”, replied Prokopenko. “We need to somehow demonstrate our respect for the French. This is important”, Rykov suggested. “Yes, super!”.

Later developments provided a clue what that “respect” for the National Front could be.

Already by the time of the communications between Prokopenko and Rykov, Le Pen had travelled at least twice to Moscow. During her visit in June 2013, Le Pen met with the Russian parliament Chairman Sergey Naryshkin and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. The latter was also a founder of the far right Rodina party, which he headed until 2006. In 2011, President Vladimir Putin appointed him a head of the board of Russia’s Military-Industrial Commission. Rogozin has French connections too: apparently, it was him who helped establish, in 2008, the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation, a Russian “soft power” think-thank headed by Natalya Narochnitskaya, former Russian MP nominated by the Rodina party, and British Eurosceptic writer John Laughland.

Marine Le Pen and Dmitry Rogozin in Moscow, 2013

As the French website Mediapartreported, during her visit to Moscow in February 2014, Le Pen secretly met with Putin. Two people were instrumental in setting up that meeting. One was Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, a member of the Marine Blue Gathering, a coalition of far right parties that supports Le Pen, who was responsible for finding funds for the National Front. The other was Alexander Babakov. He briefly headed the Rodina party in 2006, and is now an MP from the United Russia party and a member of the board of the Russia’s Military-Industrial Commission. Yet another investigation by Navalny revealed that Babakov owned an €11.5 million estate in France.

Reportedly, Schaffhauser introduced Le Pen to Babakov, while the latter – most likely with the assistance from Rogozin – helped arrange Le Pen’s secret meeting with Putin. Few know exactly what they discussed during this meeting, but later revelations suggest that it was a multi-million Euro loan to the National Front.

Meanwhile, Chauprade developed further links with the Russians. He was already familiar to the Russian political establishment. In June 2013, he participated in the meeting of the Russian parliament’s Committee for Family, Women and Children Issues that advanced the eventual adoption of the so-called “Dima Yakovlev Law” that banned adoption of Russian orphan children by LGBT couples and US citizens.

Furthermore, as Mediapartreported, Chauprade introduced the father of Marine Le Pen, Jean-Marie Le Pen, to Konstantin Malofeev, a Russian oligarch and founder of investment fund Marshall Capital Partners, who was, in summer 2014, put on the EU sanctions list for financing illegal pro-Russian military groups in Eastern Ukraine. Malofeev was instrumental in helping Jean-Marie Le Pen, former leader of the National Front, with obtaining, in April 2014, a €2 million loan from Vernonsia Holdings Ltd., a Cyprus offshore company linked to the Russian investment company VEB Capital.

As could be expected, the “Franco-Russian interest” in Crimea transcended the ideological tenets, if any. Chauprade’s and Malofeev’s friend Philippe de Villiers, French far right politician and businessman, as well as brother of Chief of Staff of the French Army Pierre de Villiers, met with Putin in August 2014. During the meeting, de Villiers suggested to build, in a joint venture with Malofeev, two Puy du Fou theme parks in Moscow and Crimea.

Philippe de Villiers and Vladimir Putin in August 2014

Chauprade helped the Russians build contacts with many other Western far right politicians. At the end of May 2014, Chauprade participated, as the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeigerexposed, in a secret meeting in Vienna convened by Malofeev. A number of European far right politicians, including representatives of the National Front, Freedom Party of Austria and Bulgarian Ataka party, participated in the secret meeting in Vienna too. Chauprade also sat in the presidium, next to Malofeev, Mizulina, Russian religious leaders and CEO of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin, of the eighth meeting of the anti-LGBT World Congress of Families that took place in Moscow in September 2014.

The same month saw that Schaffhauser’s fundraising mission proved to be a success. As Mediapartdiscovered, the National Front secured a €40 million loan from the First Czech-Russian Bank. Despite the name, this bank belongs almost exclusively to the Russians, namely to the companies and holdings owned by Gennadiy Timchenko, a major Russian businessman from Putin’s inner circle and a co-founder of Cyprus-registered Gunvor Group Ltd. that, as US officials suspected, hosted Putin’s own investments. (Following the Russian annexation of Crimea, the US sanctioned Timchenko and he sold his share in Gunvor to the company’s Swedish co-founder Torbjörn Törnqvist.) Timchenko, too, has French connections: in 2011, he was elected chairman of the Economic Council of the Franco-Russian Chamber of Commerce (CCIFR), an important instrument of the Kremlin’s “soft power” in France. In 2013, Timchenko shared chairmanship of the Economic Council with Total’s CEO Christophe de Margerie, but the latter was killed in an aircraft crash in Moscow in October 2014, so now Timchenko apparently remains the only chairman of the CCIFR’s Economic Council.

For his service to the National Front, Schaffhauser, who also became an MEP in May 2014, was paid a consultancy fee of €140.000. As a sign of his loyalty to the Kremlin, Schaffhauser took part in the monitoring mission of the “parliamentary elections” in self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics” on the territories occupied by pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine. The international observation mission was organised by the same Eurasian Observatory for Democracy & Elections and the European Centre for Geopolitical Analysis that invited observers to the Crimea “referendum”. As the Rue89Strasbourg website reports, Schaffhauser will visit Donetsk in May 2015, allegedly to observe the implementation of the Minsk II agreement. He will be accompanied by representatives of the French NGO “Urgence Enfants d’Ukraine” that was established in September 2014 by a member of the French far right Identitarian Bloc Alain Fragny, and looks like a money-laundering operation.

Jean-Luc Schaffhauser in the European Parliament

Was the amount of money that the business structures close to the Kremlin have injected in the National Front that “respect” that Rykov suggested the Presidential Administration to demonstrate to “the French”? Most likely, the “respect” was indeed counted in Euros or contributed to the Russians’ decision to grant the multi-million loan to the National Front, but it is hard to believe that the “official recognition of the results of the Crimea referendum” by Marine Le Pen cost that much. The scope of the cooperation between the French far right and the Russian authorities, which started long before the annexation of Crimea, indicates that it is one of the many elements, albeit a significant one, of the Kremlin’s long-term strategy to support all the anti-EU and anti-US forces in Europe in order to undermine the transatlantic cooperation and ultimately weaken the West.

"The Russian Mass Media and the Western Far Right", Center for European Policy Analysis, 30 March 2015

"How the European Far Right Became Mainstream", Politico, 22 April 2015

"Who Killed Buzina and Kalashnikov?", Zeit Online, 23 April 2015

"The Challenge of Russia’s Anti-Western Information Warfare", Diplomaatia, April 2015

"It’s Getting Ugly in Hungary", Foreign Policy, 20 May 2015

Several authors argue that either Putin's Russia is already a fascist state or Putin is building one. Some of the most recent articles arguing along this line can be found here:

Alexander J. Motyl: Is Vladimir Putin a Fascist?
Rob Garver: Putin Isn’t Reviving the USSR, He’s Creating a Fascist State


Here I post a few comments from Professor Roger Griffin, the world's leading expert on fascism and the founder of the New Consensus school within Fascism Studies.

Griffin: From a technical point of view (on paper) Russia is not a single party state using mass organizations to create a New Russian and seeking to forge an alternative modernity in the spirit of political modernism. Thus technically it is not fascist and it does not help discussions to get bogged down on whether this word should be used or not. There are many ways human rights and democracy can be undermined and assaulted, not just by fascism. It seems to me that it is an immature parliamentary democracy corrupted by the forces of oligarchy and plutocracy, populist prejudices against non-Russian ethnic minorities and homosexuals, the influence of the church, and pursuing geopolitical ambitions to unite all 'ethnic' Russians shaped by a mixture of nostalgia for the Soviet empire, populist hypernationalism, and geopolitical ambitions fed by dangerous Eurasian fantasies fuelled by a curiously Russian form of New Right culturalism which does have affinities with fascism. So can we just leave fascism out of the discussion and concentrate on the uniqueness of the contemporary Russian state's corruption of democracy and the dangers it poses to world peace with its expansionism and alliances, and not waste time on neo-scholastic disputes about terminology. 

If he is a pragmatist without a utopian totalitarian vision of a new type of modern state based on an anthropological and temporal revolution Putin IS NOT A FASCIST. But why this mindless obsession with whether he is a fascist or his state is fascist: ENGAGE WITH REALITY AND NOT CONCEPTS and the debate will move on: question: what is unique about Putin's Russia? Is it a threat to international peace and internal democracy? TALK ABOUT REALITY NOT CONCEPTS.

Question: What does Putin's Russia need to be classified as a fascist state?

Griffin: To abolish the structures of separation of powers, civil freedoms, and plurality of parties and drench state rhetoric in the promise of creating a new order inhabited by new men in the name of a national destiny and supremacy.

Further reading
Andreas Umland: Is Putin’s Russia really “fascist”? A response to Alexander Motyl

Among Russian politicians who established relations with the Western far right already in the 1990s, Sergey Glazyev, currently an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the issues of regional economic integration, is one of the most prominent.

In 1992-1993, Glazyev was Minister of External Economic Relations of the Russian Federation, but resigned in protest over the decision of contemporary president Boris Yeltsin to dissolve the State Duma (Russian parliament) – the decision that resulted in the unsuccessful coup attempt staged by then vice president Aleksandr Rutskoy and then chairman of the Duma Ruslan Khasbulatov in October 1993 in Moscow. Glazyev was elected to the Duma in 1994 and became the chairman of the parliamentary Economic Affairs Committee.

Sergey Glazyev

Around this time, Glazyev forged relationships with Lyndon LaRouche, a US-based political activist and founder of the LaRouche movement. Chip Berlet and Matthew Nemiroff Lyons describe LaRouche and his movement as follows:

Though often dismissed as a bizarre political cult, the LaRouche organization and its various front groups are a fascist movement whose pronouncements echo elements of Nazi ideology. [...] [The LaRouchites] advocated a dictatorship in which a “humanist” elite would rule on behalf of industrial capitalists. They developed an idiosyncratic, coded variation on the Illuminati Freemason and Jewish banker conspiracy theories.

As Leonard Weinberg argued, LaRouche’s ideology involved “a theory according to which a global Anglo-Jewish conspiracy exists to weaken Western society, in the face of Soviet subversion, and makes possible its control by international bankers, drug merchants, and Zionists”. In the 1970-80s, the LaRouchites were highly critical of the Soviet Union and believed that it was controlled by the British oligarchs. Indeed, Britain was often vilified by the LaRouchites: in particular, they claimed that “British royal family (including the Queen) controlled global drug running”, while the “British oligarchy” was preparing to balkanise the US. They attacked the Soviet Union too, accusing it of dictatorial and imperialist practices, and specifically focused on the Russian Orthodox Church that the LaRouchites condemned for helping the Kremlin leadership in building the “world­wide imperial hegemony, the ‘Third and Final Rome’”.

Lyndon LaRouche

With the demise of the Soviet Union, however, the LaRouchites’ attitude towards Russia gradually changed and LaRouche became genuinely interested in Russia and its economy, arguing against adoption of Western liberal economic models by Russia. In 1992, the Schiller Institute for Science and Culture was established in Moscow as a Russian branch of the LaRouchite international Schiller Institute, and started publishing Russian translations of LaRouche’s essays.

Glazyev and LaRouche most likely met in person for the first time in April 1994, when LaRouche and his wife and associate Helga Zepp-LaRouche travelled to Russia and addressed a number of workshops, including one at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Glazyev’s senior colleague, late Russian economist Dmitry Lvov who was in contact with LaRouche too, was a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and might be one of the people who officially invited LaRouche to Moscow. Late Taras Muranivsky, professor at the Russian State University for the Humanities and president of the Russian branch of the Schiller Institute, might also be involved in organising LaRouche’s visit to Moscow.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Lyndon LaRouche, and Dmitriy Lvov, Moscow, 1995

LaRouche’s contacts in Russian academia and the Moscow-based Schiller Institute for Science and Culture actively promoted his ideas in Russia, and, since 1995, he was trying to exert direct influence on Russian policy-making in the economic sphere. Representatives of the Schiller Institute for Science and Culture presented LaRouche’s memorandum “Prospects for Russian Economic Revival” at the State Duma, while later that year LaRouche himself appeared in the Russian parliament to present his report “The World Financial System and Problems of Economic Growth”. His conspiracy-driven economic theories that denounced free trade and commended protectionism, as well as attacking the workings of the International Monetary Fund, stroke a chord with many a member of the Duma largely dominated by the anti-liberal and anti-democratic forces such as the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia and other ultranationalists.

During the 1990s, the LaRouchites praised Glazyev as “a leading economist of the opposition to Boris Yeltsin’s regime” and published Glazyev’s interviews and articles in their weekly Executive Intelligence Review. In 1999, LaRouche published an English translation of Glazyev’s book Genocide: Russia and the New World Order in which the author exposed his theories about “the world oligarchy” using “depopulation techniques developed by the fascists” “to cleanse the economic space of Russia for international capital”. According to Glazyev, the US – under the guidance of “the world oligarchy” – is implementing “anti-Russian policies” aimed at preventing “the reunification of the Russian people”, provoking “further dismemberment of Russia” and frustrating “integration processes within the territory of the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States]”.

On the part of LaRouche, his interest in Russia and cooperation with Glazyev were driven by practical considerations. LaRouche’s grand idea in relation to Russia was that of a “Eurasian land-bridge” between Western and Eastern parts of Eurasia, a project that, according to LaRouche, the US would be interested in and to which Russia would “supply a crucial contributing role”. While LaRouche’s Russian associates might not share his views on the national interests of the US in the framework of the “Eurasian land-bridge” concept, they embraced his populist interpretation of the economic situation in Russia that he described as one that was characterised by a conflict between

the imported liberalism of those “chop-shop entrepreneurs” who stuff their own purse with money from foreign sales of national assets at stolen-goods prices, and Russians of more patriotic inclinations, notably those whose overriding commitment, as professionals, is to filling the barren, physical-economic market-baskets of their perilously hungered countrymen.

The relations between LaRouche and Glazyev continued in the 2000s, the Putin era. In particular, LaRouche and Helga Zepp-LaRouche took part in the Duma hearing “On measures to ensure the development of the Russian economy under conditions of a destabilisation of the world financial system” held in June 2001 at the initiative of Glazyev who was then chairman of the Duma Committee on Economic Policy and Entrepreneurship.

A press conference: Lyndon LaRouche, Helga-Zepp LaRouche, and Sergey Glazyev, Moscow, June 2001

Glazyev’s promotion of LaRouche and his ideas in Russia resulted in the latter’s growth in popularity as an opinion-maker and commentator on political and economic issues in Russia – a status that LaRouche could not enjoy in his home country where he has remained a fringe political figure.

On 10 June 2015, the European Parliament adopted a resolution "on the state of EU-Russia relations". It is a strong resolution that condemns the illegal annexation of Crimea and Russia's war against Ukraine, as well as reminding that Russia is "directly or indirectly, involved in a number of 'frozen conflicts' in its neighbourhood – in Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhasia and Nagorno Karabakh".

Importantly, the resolution states that "at this point Russia [...] can no longer be treated as, or considered, a ‘strategic partner’".

In the context of this blog, I am happy to say that the European Parliament raises concerns directly related to the themes regularly discussed here, namely the cooperation between Putin's Russia and the Western far right:

Is deeply concerned at the ever more intensive contacts and cooperation, tolerated by the Russian leadership, between European populist, fascist and extreme right-wing parties on the one hand and nationalist groups in Russia on the other; recognises that this represents a danger to democratic values and the rule of law in the EU; calls in this connection on the EU institutions and Member States to take action against this threat of an emerging ‘Nationalist International’;

Is deeply concerned with Russia´s support for and financing of radical and extremist parties in the EU Member States; considers a recent meeting in St Petersburg of the far right parties an insult to the memory of millions of Russians who sacrificed their lives to save the world from Nazism;

As could be expected and was demonstratedbefore, the overwhelming majority of the votes against the resolution has come from the far right, eurosceptic and (far) left parties. Here is the full list of MEPs who gave voted against the resolution.

Country/MEP	Party	Ideological orientation
Austria
Barbara KAPPEL	FPÖ	radical right-wing populism
Georg MAYER	FPÖ	radical right-wing populism
Franz OBERMAYR	FPÖ	radical right-wing populism
Harald VILIMSKY	FPÖ	radical right-wing populism
Bulgaria
Iliana IOTOVA	Bulgarian Socialist Party	socialism
Momchil NEKOV	Bulgarian Socialist Party	socialism
Georgi PIRINSKI	Bulgarian Socialist Party	socialism
Cyprus
Takis HADJIGEORGIOU	Progressive Party of Working People - Left - New Forces	communism
Neoklis SYLIKIOTIS	Progressive Party of Working People - Left - New Forces	communism
Czech Republic
Jan KELLER	Česká strana sociálně demokratická	social democracy
Kateřina KONEČNÁ	Komunistická strana Čech a Moravy	communism
Petr MACH	Strana svobodných občanů	euroscepticism
Jiří MAŠTÁLKA	Komunistická strana Čech a Moravy	communism
Miloslav RANSDORF	Komunistická strana Čech a Moravy	communism
Denmark
Rina Ronja KARI	Folkebevægelsen mod EU	euroscepticism
Estonia
Yana TOOM	Eesti Keskerakond	social liberalism
France
Louis ALIOT	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Marie-Christine ARNAUTU	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Nicolas BAY	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Joëlle BERGERON	Independent	Independent
Dominique BILDE	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Marie-Christine BOUTONNET	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Steeve BRIOIS	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Aymeric CHAUPRADE	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Mireille D'ORNANO	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Edouard FERRAND	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Sylvie GODDYN	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Bruno GOLLNISCH	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Jean-François JALKH	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Patrick LE HYARIC	Front de Gauche	communism
Marine LE PEN	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Gilles LEBRETON	Souveraineté, Indépendance et Libertés	euroscepticism
Philippe LOISEAU	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Dominique MARTIN	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Bernard MONOT	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Sophie MONTEL	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Jean-Luc MÉLENCHON	Front de Gauche	radical right-wing populism
Joëlle MÉLIN	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Younous OMARJEE	L'union pour les Outremer	left-wing radicalism
Florian PHILIPPOT	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Jean-Luc SCHAFFHAUSER	Rassemblement bleu Marine	radical right-wing populism
Mylène TROSZCZYNSKI	Front national	radical right-wing populism
Marie-Christine VERGIAT	Front de Gauche	communism
Germany
Fabio DE MASI	Die Linke	socialism
Cornelia ERNST	Die Linke	socialism
Thomas HÄNDEL	Die Linke	socialism
Sabine LÖSING	Die Linke	socialism
Martina MICHELS	Die Linke	socialism
Marcus PRETZELL	Alternative für Deutschland	euroscepticism
Helmut SCHOLZ	Die Linke	socialism
Udo VOIGT	Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands	neo-Nazism
Beatrix von STORCH	Alternative für Deutschland	euroscepticism
Hermann WINKLER	Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands	conservatism
Gabriele ZIMMER	Die Linke	socialism

Greece
Kostas CHRYSOGONOS	Coalition of the Radical Left	left-wing radicalism
Georgios EPITIDEIOS	Popular Association – Golden Dawn	neo-Nazism
Emmanouil GLEZOS	Coalition of the Radical Left	left-wing radicalism
Stelios KOULOGLOU	Coalition of the Radical Left	left-wing radicalism
Kostadinka KUNEVA	Coalition of the Radical Left	left-wing radicalism
Notis MARIAS	Independent Greeks	radical right-wing populism
Konstantinos PAPADAKIS	Communist Party of Greece	communism
Dimitrios PAPADIMOULIS	Coalition of the Radical Left	left-wing radicalism
Sofia SAKORAFA	Coalition of the Radical Left	left-wing radicalism
Eleftherios SYNADINOS	Popular Association – Golden Dawn	neo-Nazism
Sotirios ZARIANOPOULOS	Communist Party of Greece	communism
Hungary
Zoltán BALCZÓ	Jobbik	radical right-wing populism
Béla KOVÁCS	Jobbik	radical right-wing populism
Krisztina MORVAI	Jobbik	radical right-wing populism
Ireland
Luke Ming FLANAGAN	Independent	Independent
Italy
Isabella ADINOLFI	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Marco AFFRONTE	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Laura AGEA	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Daniela AIUTO	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Tiziana BEGHIN	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Mara BIZZOTTO	Lega Nord	radical right-wing populism
Mario BORGHEZIO	Lega Nord	radical right-wing populism
Gianluca BUONANNO	Lega Nord	radical right-wing populism
Fabio Massimo CASTALDO	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Ignazio CORRAO	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Rosa D'AMATO	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Eleonora EVI	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Laura FERRARA	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Lorenzo FONTANA	Lega Nord	radical right-wing populism
Eleonora FORENZA	Lista Tsipras-L'Altra Europa	social democracy
Curzio MALTESE	Lista Tsipras-L'Altra Europa	social democracy
Piernicola PEDICINI	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Matteo SALVINI	Lega Nord	radical right-wing populism
Remo SERNAGIOTTO	Forza Italia	conservatism
Barbara SPINELLI	Lista Tsipras-L'Altra Europa	social democracy
Dario TAMBURRANO	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Marco VALLI	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Marco ZANNI	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Marco ZULLO	Movimento 5 Stelle	euroscepticism
Latvia
Andrejs MAMIKINS	"Saskaņa" sociāldemokrātiskā partija	social democracy
Tatjana ŽDANOKA	Latvijas Krievu savienība	social democracy
Netherlands
Dennis de JONG	Socialistische Partij	social democracy
Vicky MAEIJER	Partij voor de Vrijheid	right-wing populism
Anne-Marie MINEUR	Socialistische Partij	social democracy
Olaf STUGER	Partij voor de Vrijheid	right-wing populism
Poland
Robert Jarosław IWASZKIEWICZ	Nowa Prawica-Janusza Korwin-Mikke	euroscepticism
Janusz KORWIN-MIKKE	Nowa Prawica-Janusza Korwin-Mikke	euroscepticism
Michał MARUSIK	Nowa Prawica-Janusza Korwin-Mikke	euroscepticism
Stanisław ŻÓŁTEK	Nowa Prawica-Janusza Korwin-Mikke	euroscepticism
Portugal
João FERREIRA	Coligação Democrática Unitária	left-wing radicalism
Spain
Marina ALBIOL GUZMÁN	Izquierda Unida	communism
Javier COUSO PERMUY	Izquierda Unida	communism
Tania GONZÁLEZ PEÑAS	Podemos	socialism
Pablo IGLESIAS	Podemos	socialism
Paloma LÓPEZ BERMEJO	Izquierda Unida	communism
Lola SÁNCHEZ CALDENTEY	Podemos	socialism
Estefanía TORRES MARTÍNEZ	Podemos	socialism
Miguel URBÁN CRESPO	Podemos	socialism
Ángela VALLINA	Izquierda Unida	communism
United Kingdom
William (The Earl of) DARTMOUTH	UKIP	euroscepticism
John Stuart AGNEW	UKIP	euroscepticism
Tim AKER	UKIP	euroscepticism
Jonathan ARNOTT	UKIP	euroscepticism
Janice ATKINSON	UKIP	euroscepticism
Gerard BATTEN	UKIP	euroscepticism
Louise BOURS	UKIP	euroscepticism
James CARVER	UKIP	euroscepticism
David COBURN	UKIP	euroscepticism
Jane COLLINS	UKIP	euroscepticism
Bill ETHERIDGE	UKIP	euroscepticism
Nigel FARAGE	UKIP	euroscepticism
Raymond FINCH	UKIP	euroscepticism
Nathan GILL	UKIP	euroscepticism
Roger HELMER	UKIP	euroscepticism
Mike HOOKEM	UKIP	euroscepticism
Diane JAMES	UKIP	euroscepticism
Paul NUTTALL	UKIP	euroscepticism
Patrick O'FLYNN	UKIP	euroscepticism
Julia REID	UKIP	euroscepticism
Jill SEYMOUR	UKIP	euroscepticism
Steven WOOLFE	UKIP	euroscepticism

The vote, however, has brought some surprises too.

1. Belgian MEP Gerolf ANNEMANS from the far right Vlaams Belangabstained, although he used to vote against the resolutions critical of Russia's actions.

2. MEPs from the far right Sweden Democrats party, Peter LUNDGREN and Kristina WINBERG, abstained and, thus, rebelled against their Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy Group that voted against the resolution.

As the readers of this blog perfectly know, the Kremlin is actively cooperating - sometimes financially - with European far right parties. However, Moscow may also be engaged in even more sinister activities, namely whipping up racial hatred in the West in order to discredit democratic societies that have taken a strong position on sanctions against Russia for its war on Ukraine.

While it cannot be conclusively proven yet, the "anti-Jewification" demonstration that took place in London on 4 July might be an example of such activities. At least, there are sound reasons to suspect exactly this.

The demonstration was organised by the neo-Nazi Eddy Stampton who is notorious for drunken violence towards women, and was attended, among others, by his neo-Nazi mate Piers Mellor; the head of the far right IONA London ForumJeremy"Jez"Bedford-Turner; and Britain-based activists of the Polish fascist National Revival of Poland (Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski).

Violent neo-Nazi Eddy Stampton leading the demonstration, 4 July 2015, London. Photo: Jack Taylor/AFP/Getty Images

Jeremy "Jez" Bedford-Turner with a loud-speaker, followed by the activists from the National Revival of Poland, 4 July 2015, London. Photo: Jack Taylor/AFP/Getty Images

Piers Mellor speaking at the demo, 4 July 2015, London. Photo: Jack Taylor/AFP/Getty Images

The anti-Semitic demo in London was not the first time that Stampton, Mellor, Bedford-Turner and the Polish fascists came together. On 29 November 2014, they organised a demo in support of the Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party by the Embassy of Greece in London.

Jeremy "Jez" Bedford-Turner (a man with a loud-speaker on the left), Eddy Stampton (a man in a cap), and Piers Mellor at a demonstration in support of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, 29 November 2014, London

Most prominent participants of the London anti-Semitic demo last Saturday are not simply fascists: all of them are in one way or another connected to the Russians.

Bedford-Turner leads the self-styled "New Right"IONA London Forum that hosted, on 12 October 2013, a conference titled "The end of the present world: the post-American century and beyond". The main speaker at this conference was infamous Russian fascist Aleksandr Dugin, who is building links between Western far right/far left organisations and Moscow, and who was also involved, in 2006, in training of the activists from the pro-Russian extremist organisation Donetsk Republic. Bedford-Turner also invited Russian neo-Nazi activist Denis Nikitin to speak at one of the Forum's meetings in August 2014.

Denis Nikitin, founder and head of White Rex

This was not the only connection between Nikitin and the British extreme right: Nikitin, who also directs the Russian White Rex company engaged in organising mixed martial arts tournaments in Russia and Europe, was a key person who provided fitness ­sessions to British neo-Nazis at a training camp in Wales. Are the Russians involved in training of would-be right-wing British terrorists?

Another participant of the anti-Semitic demo, Australian London-based neo-Nazi Piers Mellor, also participated in the Moscow-inspired anti-Ukrainian protest in March 2015.

Neo-Nazi Piers Mellor (left) at an anti-Ukrainian protest, March 2015, London

Together with Mellor, protesting against non-existing UK arms supplies to Ukraine, was Graham Phillips, a British RT propagandist and strong supporter of pro-Russian extremists in Eastern Ukraine, including the Donetsk Republic, where he spent most of 2014.

Neo-Nazi Piers Mellor (left) and RT propagandist Graham Phillips (a bald man on the right) at an anti-Ukrainian protest, March 2015, London

Upon his return to London, Phillips immediately joined the UK Independence Party (UKIP) whose leaders, including Nigel Farage and Diane James, have openly expressed admiration of Russia's president Vladimir Putin. UKIP MEPs are also active opponents of the sanctions against Russia.

RT, Russia's major tool of its information warfare against the West, has immediately reported on the neo-Nazi gathering in London, but of course without mentioning any connections between the participants of the demo and the Russians. Nor has RT mentioned that the organiser of the anti-Semitic demo, Eddy Stampton, is a fan of the pro-Russian extremists in Eastern Ukraine.

A screenshot from Eddie Stampton's Facebook page, featuring a photo of Aleksey Mozgovoy, one of the leaders of pro-Russian extremists in Eastern Ukraine killed by a competing pro-Russian gang

Why would the Kremlin be interested in whipping up racial hatred in Britain? The fact is that when the Russians find it difficult to buy political influence in a particular Western country, they try to discredit it as a hotbed of fascism. The classic example is the KGB's psy-op in Western countries at the end of the 1950s.

The KGB and its counterparts in the countries of the Warsaw Pact infiltrated neo-Nazi organisations in West Germany and some other Western countries, in order to goad them into extremist activities and then accuse Western societies of the alleged resurgence of Nazism. The most prominent case is the "swastika operation" devised by Soviet KGB General Ivan Agayants and carried out in 1959-1960 in Western cities and towns. In that period, KGB agents painted swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans on synagogues, tombstones and Jewish-owned shops in West Germany. Jewish families received anonymous hate mail and threatening phone calls. The initial KGB operation would stir up residual anti-Semitic sentiments in Western societies and, consequently, produce a snowball effect where troublemakers would carry out anti-Semitic activities on their own. The "swastika operation" in West Germany caused considerable damage to the reputation of the country in the West: its diplomats were ostracised, West German products boycotted, Bonn assailed for the alleged inability to deal with Nazism, and questions were raised about the credibility of the country as a member of NATO.

The established connections between the organisers/participants of the anti-Semitic demonstration in London and the Russian actors (as well as other evidence) provide a good reason to suspect that Moscow is now involved in similar psy-ops in Britain.

Members of the Ukrainian, anti-European far right organisation Right Sector have killed one civilian and injured four more, as well as injuring six policemen, using Kalashnikov rifles and a heavy machine gun, in the West Ukrainian town of Mukacheve.

As I have argued previously in this blog, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian far right organisations are criminal gangs that exploit a radical right-wing ideology for mobilisation purposes. The incident in Mukacheve seems to be an example of a criminal (far right) group trying to hijack an illegal business operated by another (non-political) criminal gang.

A protest of the Right Sector

Consequently, the Right Sector has tried to mobilise the Ukrainian society in support of the allegedly patriotic agenda of the Right Sector. So far, the Right Sector has succeeded in organising protests in more than a dozen of cities and towns across the country, including the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. Despite the fact that the protests have failed to gather any significant amount of Ukrainian citizens - reflecting the fringe status of the Right Sector in the Ukrainian politics - the security threats of the protests organised by armed members of the criminal, far right gang are potentially devastating. Right Sector thugs demand, in particular, the resignation of the Minister of Interior, dissolution of the parliament, and early parliamentary elections.

The Right Sector has clearly challenged the democratic nature of the Ukrainian state and is trying to undermine the state monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force. The actions of the Right Sector are blatantly unconstitutional, and the state must act urgently and forcefully against the criminal, anti-democratic actions of the Right Sector.

Lexington Books published a volume Eurasianism and the European Far Right: Reshaping the Europe-Russia Relationship edited by Marlène Laruelle, to which I contributed two chapters.


Description:

The 2014 Ukrainian crisis has highlighted the pro-Russia stances of some European countries, such as Hungary and Greece, and of some European parties, mostly on the far-right of the political spectrum. They see themselves as victims of the EU “technocracy” and liberal moral values, and look for new allies to denounce the current “mainstream” and its austerity measures. These groups found new and unexpected allies in Russia. As seen from the Kremlin, those who denounce Brussels and its submission to U.S. interests are potential allies of a newly re-assertive Russia that sees itself as the torchbearer of conservative values. Predating the Kremlin’s networks, the European connections of Alexander Dugin, the fascist geopolitician and proponent of neo-Eurasianism, paved the way for a new pan-European illiberal ideology based on an updated reinterpretation of fascism. Although Dugin and the European far-right belong to the same ideological world and can be seen as two sides of the same coin, the alliance between Putin’s regime and the European far-right is more a marriage of convenience than one of true love. This unique book examines the European far-right’s connections with Russia and untangles this puzzle by tracing the ideological origins and individual paths that have materialized in this permanent dialogue between Russia and Europe.

Contents:

Introduction: Marlene Laruelle
Chapter 1: Dangerous Liaisons? Eurasianism, European Far Right, and Putin’s Russia, Marlene Laruelle

Part I: Alexander Dugin’s Trajectory: Mediating European Far Right to Russia
Chapter 2: Alexander Dugin and the West European New Right, 1989–1994, Anton Shekhovtsov
Chapter 3: Moscow State University’s Department of Sociology and the Climate of Opinion in Post-Soviet Russia, Vadim Rossman

Part II: France, Italy, and Spain: Dugin’s European Cradles
Chapter 4: A Long-Lasting Friendship. Alexander Dugin and the French Radical Right, Jean-Yves Camus
Chapter 5: From Evola to Dugin: The Neo-Eurasianist Connection in Italy, Giovanni Savino
Chapter 6: Arriba Eurasia? The Difficult Establishment of Neo-Eurasianism in Spain, Nicolas Lebourg

Part III: Turkey, Hungary, and Greece: Dugin’s New Conquests
Chapter 7: “Failed Exodus”: Dugin’s Networks in Turkey, Vügar İmanbeyli
Chapter 8: Deciphering Eurasianism in Hungary: Narratives, Networks, and Lifestyles, Umut Korkut and Emel Akçali
Chapter 9: The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia? The Greek Golden Dawn and its Transnational Links, Sofia Tipaldou

Part IV: Conclusions: The European Far Right at Moscow’s Service?
Chapter 10: Far-Right Election Observation Monitors in the Service of the Kremlin’s Foreign Policy, Anton Shekhovtsov

Praise:

Marlene Laruelle has assembled an impressive team of authors, who show that Alexander Dugin’s Eurasianism is best understood as an offshoot of the European Far Right, and not a product of Russia’s distinctive cultural heritage. This makes for an interesting contribution to the far reaches of the history of European political thought.


This collection contributes significantly to the burgeoning international field of comparative fascism studies, while also allowing some of the inner metapolitical logic of Putin's foreign policy to become transparent and intelligible. An important book which should be read by all those who claim to be experts on the machinations of contemporary Russia, and which finally puts some substance into vapid discussions of its 'fascism'.


This well-designed volume fills a crucial gap in our understanding of the ideological (and sometimes personal) ties connecting Eurasianist philosophers in Russia (especially the infamous Alexander Dugin) with surging anti-immigrant and far-right ultranationalist political parties in Europe and Turkey. Marlene Laruelle assembles an international cast of experts to examine these questions with depth and nuance, focusing on implications for Putin’s Kremlin and the evolving international order. A boon for scholars, this work will also serve as a reference for journalists and other analysts trying to understand the complexities of the Russian-European relationship today.

You can buy the book via the publisher, Amazon (UK | France | Germany | US | Canada) or other vendors.

In a revealing article for The Daily Star, Scott Hesketh and Colin Cortbus write about training camps in Wales where neo-Nazi thugs "are being drilled in unarmed combat and fighting using knives and assault rifles". According to the authors, anti-terror police are monitoring the activities of the training camps which - under the leadership of fitness instructor and author Craig Fraser - might be used "to prepare for a wave of anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic attacks".

Moreover, the authors mention that neo-Nazi thugs were "also put through fitness ­sessions by trainers from ­Russian neo-Nazi group White Rex". Since there is not much information on White Rex available in English language, I decided to "introduce" the Anglophone audience to this movement. (I am grateful to the Moscow-based Sova Centre for Information and Analysis, the most important Russian NGO that conducts research on ultranationalism, racism and political radicalism in Russia, for the information they have provided).

Denis Nikitin, founder and head of White Rex

White Rex is many things. First of all, it is a clothing brand established by Denis Nikitin that produces t-shirts, hoodies and accessories with (sometimes disguised) fascist symbols.

Mens "Zero Tolerance" t-shirt. Note the image that represents a combination of a swastika and a black sun

Ladies "Bombs 88" t-shirt. "88" stands for "Heil Hitler"

Second, White Rex is actively engaged in organising mixed martial arts (MMA) tournaments in Russia and in Europe. In 2013, White Rex organisied a MMA tournament in Rome; one of its guests was Erich Priebke, a convicted war criminal and former SS Hauptsturmführer who died later that year.

One of White Rex's MMA tournaments was called "The Birth of a Nation", a reference to the title of D.W. Griffith's racist film (originally called The Clansman) that was released in 1915

It is, perhaps, through this particular activity that fighters affiliated with White Rex provide fitness ­sessions to British neo-Nazis at training camps in Wales. According to Gerry Gable, White Rex's owner Denis Nikitin is the key trainer there. Gable also reminds us that Nikitin was one of the speakers at the far right Iona London Forum meeting held by the Traditional Britain Group in late August. "Video of speakers at these meetings is usually posted on the internet, but he was the only one who refused to have his face filmed. Before travelling to the UK he trained two fascist groups in Italy".


Nikitin's presentation at the Iona London Forum meeting was titled "White Rex: The Warrior Spirit of Russia's Street Activists". His talk was described by the organisers of the meeting as follows:

Denis Rus is a Nationalist for all Nations and a Patriot for all Patrias. He realizes that if 'The War For The Survival of The White Race' is to be successfully fought, then it is vital that we create leaders capable of leading us to Victory.
To that end he has dedicated himself to improving the skills, knowledge, understanding, self-confidence and self-awareness of Nationalists in Russia and throughout the World. Training in Martial Arts, fitness, adventure pursuits, survival skills, team-building and the organizing of competitions are some of the ways he does this.

(It is interesting to note that the Traditional Britain Group invited Russian fascist Aleksandr Dugin to speak at one of their conferences in October 2013. As I wrote earlier, Dugin's organisation Eurasian Youth Union provided training - at least since 2006 - to pro-Russian extremists who would be engaged in separatist activities in Eastern Ukraine in 2014.)

As it becomes clear now, White Rex is also a movement that propagates neo-Nazi and racist ideas. According to the doctrine of White Rex -

White peoples of Europe, falling to onslaught of propaganda of alien values, lost the spirit of a path-breaker, the spirit of a fighter, the Spirit of a Warrior! One of the main objectives of White Rex is to revive this spirit. Modern society brings up philistines and consumers; yet we want to see WARRIORS - people who are strong morally and physically.

White Rex also promotes, and (co-)organises gigs of, White Power bands such as Moshpit, Brainwash, Prezumptsiya nevinovnosti (Assumption of Innocence), and, especially You Must Murder.

You Must Murder t-shirts designed by White Rex

Among activists who popularise White Rex in Russia and elsewhere one can name Roman Zentsov, the leader of the extreme right Soprotivlenie (Resistance) group. White Rex is also closely cooperating with Sergey Badyuk, a former KGB/FSB operative who became a businessman in the 1990s, but still provides training to the special forces of Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate.

British anti-terror police and the Home Office may want to keep a close watch on White Rex and Russian citizens mentioned in this article.

According to the article "Ukraine Tensions Rise as U.S., EU Weigh More Sanctions" that was published by Bloomberg on 13 November 2014, officials from the EU and U.S. meeting in Brussels "will weigh further sanctions against Russia’s economy and Ukrainian separatists, after the reported movement of tanks, artillery and combat troops into eastern Ukraine".

Moreover, "the likeliest first step, they said, is to blacklist Ukrainian separatists and Russians involved in the Nov. 2 elections in eastern regions, which the Ukrainian government considers illegitimate".

I have already posted the list of "election monitors" that travelled to Eastern Ukraine (illegally) and to neighbouring Russian regions to "observe"fake elections for the "Donetsk People's Republic" and "Luhansk People's Republic". The list, to which I refer, is not complete, but this is the most complete list of fake "observers" available today. In this post, I will provide more information on the Russians who were involved in organising the "observation mission" in the Donbass and participated in it.

Who organised the "observation mission"?

From the Russian side, the main group that was involved in organising the "observation mission" is the Moscow-based "Civic Control" Association. "Civic Control" is what can be called a "GONGO", i.e. a "government organised non-governmental organisation", as the groups that compose this association are loyal to the Kremlin, while the key figures in the management of the association are members of – or, at least, closely associated with – the Russian parliament and the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation.

The co-chair of the "Civic Control", who was directly involved in organising the "observation mission", is Aleksandr Brod, director of the "Moscow Bureau for Human Rights". He also participated in the "observation mission" himself.


Georgiy Fyodorov, executive director of "Civic Control", was also involved in organising the "observation mission", although I cannot confirm that he travelled to the Donbass himself.


Who participated in the "observation mission"?

Apart from Brod, the following Russian citizens took part in the "observation mission" in Eastern Ukraine:










EU and US officials who consider further sanctions against Russia may be interested in the above-listed individuals.

Writing for Mediapart, Marine Turchi reveals that the far right French Front National (FN) has secured, already in September this year, a 9 million Euros loan from the First Czech-Russian Bank (FCRB). The party led by Marine Le Pen has already received 2 million Euros. The information on the loan to the FN, according to Mediapart, has been confirmed by a member of the FN's political bureau. This development supports my earlier argument that "European right-wing extremists seem to benefit financially from their cooperation with the Kremlin".

As the FN's treasurer Wallerand de Saint-Just explained, the party had been trying to borrow money from a number of French, European and US banks, but was unsuccessful. Eventually, the FCRB proved to be more sympathetic to the French far right cause. "Why not a Russian bank?", asked Christian Bouchet, FN's officer in Loire-Atlantique, French publisher of Russian fascistAleksandr Dugin and former leader of the National Bolshevik Nouvelle résistance group. "Money does not stink", he added, referring to Roman Emperor Vespasian's justification for a tax on the distribution of urine from public urinals in Rome.

Mediapart names several individuals from the French and Russian sides who might be involved in mediating between the FN and the FCRB.

A member of Le Rassemblement bleu MarineJean-Luc Schaffhauser, whom I already mentionedtwice in this blog, might have introduced Marine Le Pen, during her confidential trip to Moscow in February 2014, to Alexander Babakov, former leader of the far right Rodina party and Vladimir Putin's envoy for engaging with Russian organisations abroad. Following this meeting, according to Mediapart, the NF's leader might have met with Putin himself.

While I admit the possibility of Schaffhauser's and Babakov's mediation between Le Pen and Putin, I doubt that Le Pen really needed assistance from either Schaffhauser or Babakov: already in June 2013, she met with the Russian parliament chairman Sergey Naryshkin and deputy prime minister (and former leader of Rodina) Dmitry Rogozin who were in position to introduce her to Putin.

Marine Le Pen in Moscow, June 2013

It is true, of course, that the cooperation between representatives of the Russian regime and the French far right has expanded in the recent months. In particular, Aymeric Chauprade, adviser to Le Pen on geopolitical issues "observed" the illegal "referendum" in Crimea and took part in an anti-LGBT gathering in Moscow; at the end of May this year, Chauprade and Marion Maréchal-Le Pen participated in the secret meeting of European far right activists in Vienna where they met with Dugin, Russian ultranationalist artist Ilya Glazunov, and Russian right-wing businessman Konstantin Malofeev; in November, Jean-Luc Schaffhauser"observed"the fake "elections" in East Ukrainian regions occupied and terrorised by (pro-)Russian right-wing extremists.

(left to right) Darya Dugina, daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, and Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, niece of Marine Le Pen and granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, in France, May or June 2014

Turchi's investigation is an invaluable contribution to the discussion of the cooperation between Putin's Russia and the European far right, yet it leaves open the question as to what links the FCRB to the Russian authorities. The FCRB has an interesting history that may shed light on this question.

It was founded in 1996 with the assistance of the now-defunct Czech IPB bank, that - as Jiri Kominek writing for The Jamestown Foundationasserts - "was a legendary nexus of asset stripping and money laundering" and "often accused of illegally funding [...] the two largest and most influential parties in the country".

The original objective of the FCRB was "to service foreign trade turnover and investment projects in Russia and the Czech Republic". Until 2002, its charter capital belonged to Czech companies and the bank itself was marginal in Russia. However, at the end of 2002, the bank doubled its charter capital thanks to the investments of Stroytransgaz, a Russian engineering construction company (Mediapart correctly links the FCRB to this company), and, shortly afterwards, Roman Popov (head of Stroytransgaz's financial resources directorate in 1992-2002) was appointed chairman of the board of the FCRB. Stroytransgaz kept increasing the bank's charter capital and, according to Vedomosti, Stroytransgaz owned 94,5% of the FCRB's charter capital already by summer 2003.

In 2003, the head office of the bank moved from the Czech Republic to Russia. However, the bank still operated in the Czech Republic and, in 2009, the Czech BIS security service and UZSI foreign intelligence service expressed their concern that the FCRB"could have ties to Russian intelligence, or organised crime elements, which given the current state of affairs in Russia often makes it difficult to distinguish between the two".

The majority of the shares of Stroytransgaz is owned by companies and holdings that belong to Gennadiy Timchenko, a major Russian businessman from Putin's inner circle. According to The Wall Street Journal, US prosecutors have recently "launched a money-laundering investigation" of the activities of Timchenko and Gunvor Group Ltd. that Timchenko co-founded in 2000. As the same source argues, "US officials have previously said that Mr. Putin has investments in Gunvor". Naturally, the US have also imposed sanctions on Timchenko and Stroytransgaz, in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and its ongoing aggression in Eastern Ukraine.

Russia and US sanctions. Chart by BBC

The bottom line here is that the FN has received a loan from a company that is very closely linked to Putin and is owned by an individual under the US sanctions. This seems to retrospectively "justify" the FN's pro-Putin stances and its blatant anti-Americanism.

Yet there are more links between Timchenko and French representatives of political and business circles than the story about the loan to the FN can reveal. One example is that, in 2011, Timchenko was elected chairman of the Economic Council of the Franco-Russian Chamber of Commerce (CCIFR), an important tool of the Kremlin's "soft power" in France. (In 2013, Timchenko shared chairmanship of the Economic Council with Total's CEO Christophe de Margerie, but the latter was killed in an aircraft crash in Moscow on 20 October 2014, so now Timchenko apparently remains the only chairman of the CCIFR's Economic Council.)

Gennadiy Timchenko

The same day that Timchenko was elected chairman of the CCIFR's Economic Council, the Franco-Russian Observo analytical centre was established to provide analysis of Russian and French realities" for political and business elites of the two countries. The Observo analytical centre is headed by Arnaud Dubien, a research associate of the Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS). Dubiendefendsthe (currently suspended) sale of two French Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia - the sale that violates the European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports. By undermining the international law, illegally occupying regions of Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia), annexing Ukrainian territories (Crimea), waging the war against Ukraine in the Eastern regions of this country and supporting pro-Russian right-wing terrorists there, Russia clearly violates at least two criteria determined by the EU Council with regard to the arms sale by the EU member states:

Criterion Four
Preservation of regional peace, security and stability
Member States will not issue an export licence if there is a clear risk that the intended recipient would use the proposed export aggressively against another country or to assert by force a territorial claim

Criterion Six
The behaviour of the buyer country with regard to the international community, as regards in particular its attitude to terrorism, the nature of its alliances and respect for international law

The most vocal supporters of the delivery of the Mistrals to Russia are, quite expectedly, members of the FN. Local FN members in Saint-Nazaire, where the Mistrals are based, including Gauthier Bouchet (son of Christian Bouchet), Jean-Claude Blanchard and Stéphanie Sutter, have even set up a tiny group of supporters called "Mistral, gagnons!" that is vigorously lobbying for the Mistral deal with Russia and, therefore, its aggressive agenda in Europe.

(left to right) Stéphanie Sutter, Gauthier Bouchet and Jean-Claude Blanchard in Saint-Nazaire, November 2014

Marine Turchi's important piece for Mediapart concludes with a note that French investigators have already launched an inquiry into the funding sources of the FN. We can only hope that similar initiatives are undertaken in other European countries too, especially in Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria.

A report written by Russian fascist Aleksandr Dugin on 17 December 2013 (and published by the Anonymous International) suggests that he has been trying to gather intelligence on the French military circles.

In his report, Dugin describes a closed meeting of the French association "Civisme Défense Armée Nation" (Citizenship, Defense, Army, Nation, CiDAN) that took place at the Klingenthal castle near Strasbourg on 2-5 December 2013. CiDAN was established in 1999 by Admiral Pierre Lacoste, and, as they describe themselves, the association is guided by the "modern vision of patriotism and Europe", and promotes "devotion to the community" and contacts between civil society and the military. Its leadership largely consists of retired or reserve officers, and its president is Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Sonnet.


According to Dugin, the following themes were discussed at the meeting:

1. Preparations for a new French military intervention in one of the African countries, and the condition of the French military in Mali.

2. European interests in Syria. Dugin says that the discussants cautiously supported Russian president Vladimir Putin and cautiously criticised the US and French president François Hollande.

3. Russia and the Eurasian Union. Reports presented by Dugin and Michel Grimard of the Rassemblement pour l'Organisation de l'Unité Européenne (Rally for the Oranisation of the European Unity) who supported the Eurasian Union.

4. China and the US: cyber warfare, strategy, likelihood of conflict.

5. Organised crime, mafia and terrorism in Europe.

Aleksandr Dugin (second from the right), speaking at the conference "La Voie Eurasiste" (The Eurasian way) in Paris, 25 May 2013

Dugin stresses that "the French military are highly critical towards the US, NATO and the policies of Hollande and [Nicolas] Sarkozy". In Putin and Russia they allegedly see "an exemplary defence of sovereignty". According to Dugin, they are ready to cooperate with Russia and his neo-Eurasianist movement, "in which they see the leading intellectual force" of Russia. Dugin concludes that the organising committee of CiDAN is led by people of "anti-Atlanticist, anti-American and partially pro-Russian orientation".

Ukraine’s early presidential and parliamentary elections earlier this year proved to be disastrous for the Ukrainian party-political far right.

Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the All-Ukrainian Union “Freedom” (Svoboda), obtained 1.16% of the vote in the presidential election, while his party secured only 4.71% of the vote in the parliamentary election and, eventually, failed to pass the 5% electoral threshold and enter the parliament. In comparison, Svoboda obtained 10.44% of the votes in 2012 and formed the first ever far right parliamentary group in Ukraine’s history. Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of the Right Sector, obtained 0.70% in the presidential election, and 1.80% of the voters supported his party in the parliamentary election.

However, the electoral failure of Svoboda and the Right Sector did not mark “the end of history” of the Ukrainian far right, and some other developments proved to be much more problematic. One of these developments is the rise of the previously obscure neo-Nazi organisation “Patriot of Ukraine” (PU) led by Andriy Bilets’ky.

Neo-Nazi leader Andriy Bilets'ky. Kharkiv, several years ago

Like some other leaders of the PU, Bilets’ky did not take part in the 2014 revolution, as he had been in jail since the end of 2011. Bilets’ky and his associates were released – as “political prisoners” – only after the revolution. In May, the PU formed a core of the Azov battalion, a volunteer detachment governed by the Ministry of Interior headed by Arsen Avakov.

A member of Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front party, Avakov promoted the Azov battalion and granted the rank of police Lieutenant Colonel to its commander Bilets’ky in August. The People’s Front also brought Bilets’ky into the military council of the party and apparently planned to officially support his candidacy in the parliamentary election, but, due to the opposition to such a move from the Ukrainian expert community and representatives of national minorities, the People’s Front was forced to re-think its decision. However, the People’s Front, in particular Avakov and his advisor Anton Gerashchenko, still supported Bilets’ky unofficially, and he was elected into the parliament in a single-member district in Kyiv. After the elections, Avakov appointed Vadym Troyan, deputy commander of the Azov battalion and a top member of the PU, as head of the Kyiv region police.

At a gathering of the Azov battalion. Kyiv, 2014

Why does the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior promote the leaders of the neo-Nazi organisation? Its ideology can hardly explain these developments, as neither Avakov nor Gerashchenko is a neo-Nazi. The explanation seems to lie in the past and has to do with a sinister legacy of cronyism.

Avakov, Bilets’ky and Troyan are coming from the Kharkiv region and have known each other at least since 2009-2010, when Avakov was still a governor of the Kharkiv region. In Kharkiv, the PU was involved in questionable activities, ranging from attacks on Vietnamese merchants to seizures of businesses. In 2010, the PU activists headed by Troyan seized four dozens of news stalls in Kharkiv in favour of, according to the media reports, a company of Andriy Liphans’ky. The latter was a business partner of Avakov and headed the board of media and information of the Kharkiv region during Avakov’s governance. Media reports also suggested that Liphans’ky rented a gym for training of the PU activists. In their turn, the PU activists provided security for the Kharkiv protests of the Bloc of Yuliya Tymoshenko (BYuT) – at that time Avakov headed that the regional office of the BYuT. Furthermore, a leader of the Kharkiv football hooligans who was close to the PU took part in Avakov’s mayoral campaign in 2010.

Today’s involvement of the PU leaders in Ukrainian police seems to be driven by Avakov’s trust in the organisation that he worked with in the past. Avakov also seems to believe in the personal loyalty of the PU-led Azov battalion and may use them as his “private army” for business or political reasons.

Andriy Bilets'ky and Minister of Interior Arsen Avakov, 2014

The problematic relationship between the Ministry of Inferior and the neo-Nazis is undermining the credibility of the newly formed Ukrainian government internationally and domestically.

It was most likely Avakov who suggested to Poroshenko to grant Ukrainian citizenship to Belarusian fighter of the Azov battalion Sergey Korotkikh who had been involved in the neo-Nazi movements in Belarus and Russia since the late 1990s. It is highly unlikely that Avakov mentioned to Poroshenko the background of a new Ukrainian citizen.

Moreover, under Avakov, the police in Kyiv have already proved unable or unwilling to investigate a number of hate crimes. In July, far right thugs – not necessarily associated with the PU – attacked four black people in the underground, a gay club and a Jewish student by a synagogue. The police initiated two criminal cases, but nobody has been prosecuted so far. In September, the head of the Visual Culture Research Centre Vasyl Cherepanyn was beaten apparently by far right activists, but the police failed to investigate the attack too.

It seems viable to suggest that, under Troyan as head of the Kyiv region police, investigations into hate crimes will hardly be efficient, while the persistent traditions of cronyism will unlikely contribute to the building of a strong democracy.

Originally published in German in Zeit Online.