Security camera footage shows a bus in St. Petersburg, Russia, veering across the road and off a bridge into the Moika River. At least three people were killed, with several others in serious condition in hospital.
Source: NBC News, 10 May 2024. Thanks to Marina Varchenko for the heads-up.
While the international far right was busy meeting in Washington, D.C., for the CPAC 2024 conference in late February, on the other side of the world, a grab bag of “anti-Western” groups, including a handful of far-right leaders from Europe, North America, and South America, gathered in the Lomonosov innovation cluster in Moscow for two conferences held in parallel. One was the Multipolarity Forum (Форум многополярности) and the other, the Second Congress of the International Russophile Movement (Второй конгресс Международного движения русофилов, МДР).
The two meetings, which centered on support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, attacking the LGBTQ+ community, opposition to “Western hegemony,” and opposition to the “russophobia” of the West, brought together an odd assortment of leaders. There were representatives from the Global South, National Bolsheviks, acolytes of far right Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin, European neo-fascists, revolutionary leftists, and leaders of various religious denominations. All in all, the gathering included more than 300 representatives from 130 countries.
While Moscow has hosted large conferences attended by significant far-right groups in the past, these two events mark a shift towards official institutional support as high-ranking government officials officially sanctioned the gathering. Present were two members of Putin’s cabinet, Maria Zakharova, the director of the information and press department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, who presented opening remarks from Putin.
Other foreign state officials were invited to the congress as well. They included Darko Mladić, the son of General Ratko Mladić, convicted war criminal for genocide and former general of the Republika Srpska (RS), Zhang Weiwei, an ideologue for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Syrian diploma and current ambassador to Russia Bashar Al Jaafari, former Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic Jan Czarnogursky, and South African MP for the African National Congress (ANC) and grandson of Nelson Mandela, Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela. Pierre de Gaulle, the grandson of former French President Charles de Gaulle, who has expressed pro-Russian sympathies throughout the war, noted his grandfather’s alleged support for relations with Russia.
“Russophobia,” the “racism” of the West, and the “canceling of Russia” were common themes at the event. Tsargrad TV founder Konstantin Malofeev claimed that the current wave of alleged xenophobia and racism against Russians was comparable to what happened in Nazi Germany. Going further, he underlined that, “we understand that this is the hatred of the globalist elite, not the people.” However, at times, some speakers revealed that the “russophobia” they were referring to was not simply a perceived xenophobia towards Russians, but the West’s insistence that LGBTQ+ people simply not be discriminated against. In fact, one of the three thematic sections for the International Russophile Movement Congress included a section on “traditional values.” In his speech, Alexander Dugin mentioned the following:
“The West has racistly and imperialistically identified itself with humanity. There was a time when Britain claimed all seas and oceans as its own. Western civilisation declared all of humanity its property — primarily its consciousness. This led to the formation of a unipolar world. In this world, there are only Western values. Only one political system — liberal democracy. Only one economic model — neoliberal capitalism. Only one culture — postmodernism. Only one conception of genders and family — LGBT. Only one version of development — technological perfection up to post-humanism and the complete displacement of humanity by AI and cyborgs.”
Dugin, the leader of the International Eurasian Movement (Международная евразийская движения, MED), and theorist of “Eurasianism,” and the neo-fascist “Fourth Political Theory” which aims to unite far right and far left groups around the world to destabilize Western democracies, was a key speaker at the event. He received widespread attention from conference attendees and Russian propaganda outlets RT, Sputnik, and Tsargrad. Other followers of the “Fourth Political theory” present at the conference included Raphael Machado, leader of the far right Brazilian group Nova Resistência (New Resistance), which the U.S. State Department recently classified as a source of “Pro-Kremlin Disinformation” in Brazil. According to Machado, the conferences, which were first organized in 2023, are the brainchild of he and Dugin, with support from the Thinkers Forum in China and the International Movement of Russophiles. Following the 2023 conferences, Machado was named the Latin American coordinator for the event. During Machado’s trip to Moscow, he met with many of the speakers, including Maria Zakharova, the President of the Eurasian Youth Union (Евразийский союз молодежи) chapter in Russia, Pavel Kiselev, and Leonid Savin, the longtime editor of Dugin’s website Geopolitika.ru.
Another individual with whom Machado had contact while on his trip was a member of the ultranationalist Two-Headed Eagle movement (Всероссийский съезд общества “Двуглавый Орел”), led by Malofeev, and which Machado claims has a formal partnership with Nova Resistência and is currently fighting in Ukraine. The Two-Headed Eagle movement was created by Malofeev in 2017 with the objective of supporting Putin, ridding the country of secularism and returning the Orthodox monarchy to the country, as well as the demolition of Lenin’s mausoleum.
Malofeev, the director of Russian Christian nationalist and conspiracist media platform Tsargrad (Царьград), and wealthy financier of anti-LGBTQ+ causes around the world, who has paid millions of dollars to separatists in the Donbass region of Ukraine, was another star speaker. During his speech, he made the following comments directed at the LGBTQ+ community:
“I think everyone in this room is well aware that the World Health Organization was created with Rockefeller money, and now its main sponsor is the Bill Gates Foundation. Therefore, transnational corporations and international organizations have long merged and serve the interests of the globalist elite. WHO recently adopted the International Classification of Diseases No. 11 (ICD-11), which excluded perversion from mental disorders and pedophilia ceased to be a disease, but became just a disorder. This is not the imposition of new social norms, but rather it is the abandonment of God and the embodiment of Satanism.”
Formally, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the head of the International Movement of Russophiles (MDR) Nikolai Malinov, a former Bulgarian politician who was once accused of spying for Russia and sanctioned by the United States, organized the events. In practice, however, it is understood that Malofeev was the primary financier of the congresses.
Italian far right leader Roberto Fiore, acting as a representative on behalf of his neo-fascist political party Forza Nuova (New Force, FN) and the EU parliamentary far-right coalition Alliance for Peace and Freedom (APF), made up of the Die Heimat (DH), Parti Nationaliste Français (PNF), Democracia Nacional (DN) and other far-right parties, was also an invited attendee of the conferences. Fiore presented a proposal for “a Russian intervention of 50 billion euros to regenerate the agriculture of our territory and consequently its social fabric, eroded by years of capitalism and policies distant from the earth.” This would apparently “allow Italy to gradually move away from the diabolical Western world that is leading our country to the abyss.”
Another attendee was Belgian Kris Roman, a Russian propagandist with ties to both Russian intelligence, and various groups on the international far right. Roman, who considers himself a “reformed racist,” has a history steeped in Nazism and white supremacist politics, which later led him to make connections with the Russian far right in the early 2000s and build bridges with Russians over the years through his organization Euro-Rus. During the event, Roman met with Maria Zakharova. Other far-right attendees included Zmago Jelinčič Plemeniti, the leader of the far right, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-Roma party Slovenska Nacionalna Stranka (Slovenian National Party, SNS), Mitsuhiro Kimura, the leader of the Japanese ultranationalist and anti-American group Issuikai (一水会), and Kemi Seba, a French-Beninese, pro-Russian activist against French colonialism in Africa with a history of holding strongly antisemitic beliefs.
A number of pro-Russian journalists, who frequently speak on air on Russian propaganda channels such as RT and Sputnik, were present for the event. Brazilian journalist for the Asia Times Pepe Escobar, who commonly appears on Russian media channels, was invited to speak alongside Maria Zakharova. Another attendee was conspiracist and Syrian dictator Bashar Assad propagandist Maram Susli, AKA “Syrian Girl,” known for her television appearances on Russia Today (Россия Сегодня, RT) and the American conspiracy outfit Infowars, who has ties to white nationalist identitarian groups in Austria and the US. Other influencers present at the conferences were Peruvian war correspondent and Russian propagandist Carlos Mamani, American MMA fighter and RT host Jeff Monson, and Russian-American television host for Channel One Russia (Первый канал) Dimitri K. Simes. A representative from the far right conspiracist website Counterspin New Zealand was present to cover the event.
A cohort of representatives from religious movements were invited to the conference, including the Archbishop Savva of Zelenograd, the Catholic Cardinal Viganò, Sheikh Iman Hussein, and Archpriest Tkachev. The Duginist outlet Geopolitika’s summary of the event described their speeches as follows:
“In the speeches of Cardinal Viganò and Archpriest Tkachev, a verdict was made on the hegemony of Western elites, a condemnation of their diabolical roots and the closed club of Satan worshipers. They openly criticized the hatred of traditional biblical man, dotting the i’s and calling a spade a spade.”
The Portuguese commentator Alexandre Guerreiro, was also present to give a speech on multipolarity. Guerreiro was previously named in a report by Portuguese news outlet Sábado to be a part of the “far-right network spreading Russian propaganda in Portugal,” and has appeared several times on the podcast of Nova Resistência. From Poland, Tomasz Jankowski, previously the general secretary of the pro-Russian Zmiana political party (Change), and the magazine Myśl Polska, made an appearance. CIA veteran Larry Johnson was another popular guest who claimed in his speech that the United States had become a country like the Soviet Union that “restricted free speech, jailed political opponents, and had elderly leaders.”
Finally, testifying to the Red-Brown alliance (between far left, far right, and nationalist groups) that the Russian government has done so much to help foster in recent years, members of the traditional radical left also sent representatives to the conferences. Chief amongst them was Jesus Salazar Velásquez, the Venezuelan ambassador to Russia who voiced his support for “Russia and the country’s fight for a just world without the hegemony of the ‘collective West.’” From the U.S., the pro-Russian communist Haz Al-Din, and the German communist Liane Kilinc, president of the “Peace Bridge – War Victims Aid,” met with other pro-Russian influencers outside of the event. Two attendees coming from Latin America, Elier Ramírez Cañedo, the Deputy director of the Fidel Castro Ruz Center, and the Argentinian sociologist Atilio Boron, were in attendance. Jackson Hinkle the “MAGA Communist” from the United States, was another attendee who met with many of the speakers including Alexander Dugin, Maria Zakharova, Sergey Lavrov, and Kris Roman.
Crimean pensioner Maria Zamyrailo-Levytska has been jailed for five days and fined 35 thousand roubles over ‘liked’ posts on the social network Odnoklassniki, including one containing the Ukrainian trident. The 64-year-old is one of a huge number of Ukrainian men and women who have been ‘denounced’ by so-called ‘Crimean SMERSH’ vigilantes working closely with the Russian occupation enforcement bodies to hunt down those expressing pro-Ukrainian views or opposition to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
Judging by the material shown on the Crimean SMERSH Telegram channel, Zamyrailo-Levytska may well have only ‘liked’ the posts of others, with this on Odnoklassniki meaning that the posts appear on her page also. All of the posts which Crimean SMERSH and the Russian occupation regime found ‘incriminating’ demonstrate support for Ukraine, as well as gratitude and deep respect for Ukraine’s defenders.
The occupation enforcement bodies came up with two charges. She was accused of ‘discrediting’ the Russian armed forces, under Article 20.3.3 of Russia’s code of administrative offences. This was one of four charges hastily added to Russian legislation following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and it is standardly used in occupied Crimea to prosecute for Ukrainian patriotic songs, the Ukrainian flag or for expressing opposition to the war. She was, however, also charged under Article 20.3 § 1 because of the Ukrainian Trident on posts. Although the ‘court press service’ typically reported this as being a conviction for “publicly demonstrating Nazi symbols”, it went on to explain that it was, in fact, because it was considered to be a symbol of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, one of many Ukrainian organizations banned in Russia and in parts of Ukraine while they remain under Russian occupation. There were, seemingly, two separate ‘hearings’ on 7 May 2024, with both under ‘judge’ Georgy Davidovich Tsertsvadze from the occupation ‘Kirovske district court’. It is likely that she received the five-day term of imprisonment over the Trident, and the 35-thousand rouble fine over posts claimed to ‘discredit’ the invading country’s armed forces.
‘Crimean SMERSH’ do not appear to have extracted one of their standard videoed ‘confessions’ which are normally shot in occupation ‘police’ offices. It is clear from the part of the ‘court’ hearing that Crimean SMERSH, or the latter’s most notorious collaborator Aleksandr Talipov, posted, that Zamyrailo-Levytska was clearly terrorized, and can be seen ‘admitting guilt’ and promising not to do it again.
The original SMERSH was active in the Soviet Union during World War II and immediately afterwards. While supposedly created to hunt down those working for the Nazis, it is most notorious for having targeted opponents of the communist regime. The term SMERSH was, apparently, coined by Joseph Stalin as an abbreviation for ‘death to spies’. As in Stalin’s USSR, the victims of the modern day ‘Crimean SMERSH’ are those who oppose the current occupation regime. Russia originally used ‘videoed confessions’ as part of its terror in Chechnya, however the Russian human rights monitors OVD.info reported in June 2023 that two thirds of these alleged ‘confessions’ now come from occupied Crimea.
If, in occupied Crimea, Talipov & Co. carry out their denunciations and use torture or terror to extract ‘confessions’ in obvious, yet not officially stated collaboration with the occupation authorities, that may well be about to change.
In December 2023, Russian Duma deputy Andrei Gurulev, a lieutenant general on the Duma defence committee, announced the creation of SMERSH in occupied parts of Ukraine. The aim of SMERSH, he claimed, was “to fight saboteurs and spies” and he called for SMERSH to be revived throughout Russia. While the security service is working all out, he wrote, they could miss something, and claimed that there are internal enemies acting against Russia’s interests “with the help of Western security services”. Although both Russian-installed Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov and Yan Gagin from the Russian proxy ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ were cited as having called for such units, this was seemingly the first time that a Russian official said that SMERSH was already functioning in occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
The Russian capture of Avdiivka and its military’s slow subsequent advance this spring has come at the cost of thousands of deaths of its own servicemen, to say nothing of Ukrainian losses. Since the summer of 2022, Russian commanders have repeatedly sent their soldiers on suicidal assaults, essentially using them as cannon fodder. Deprived of proper support, sapped of motivation, denied medical aid, and left with no route of retreat that does not involve the high risk of being shot by their own side, Russian soldiers are dying in droves for every kilometer of uninhabitable territory “liberated” by Kremlin forces.
Survivors of these “meat grinder” assaults supplied The Insider with harrowing accounts. They took cover behind the corpses of their former comrades during shelling. They were tasked with collecting the shredded remains of blown apart bodies. They were trapped in trenches for days with no food, water, ammunition, or hope of evacuation.
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Mail.ru Group has repeatedly criticized high-profile law bills and laws affecting the internet. Photo by Yevgeny Yegorov. Courtesy of Vedomosti