‘Russian Community’ Now Largest Extreme Right Group in Russian Federation, ‘Bumaga’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 – The extreme right Russian nationalist group, the Russian Community, which includes many veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine and has been terrorizing the North Caucasus as an adjunct to the police there, has now spread to and expanded in St. Petersburg and other Russian cities.

            Now, according to the Bumaga portal, the Russian community has become “the largest ultra-right organization in the country,” supporting the war in Ukraine, attacking LGBT and abortion activists, and thriving as a result of its close contacts with the Russian security services (paperpaper.ru/migranty-bary-aborty-a-teper-i-seks-v/).

            Many of the leaders of this group are closely connected with Konstantin Malofeyev, widely known as “the Orthodox oligarch,” and there are unconfirmed rumors that he has financed the group and its expansion not only online but into the realm of public actions against those deemed not reflective of traditional Russian values and support for Putin.

            As of now, the group has more than 600,000 subscribers on its telegram channel, more than a million on YouTube, and another 440,000 on VKontakte and is increasingly prominent in news reports for its attacks on its enemies and its work to collect aid for the Russian military in Ukraine.

            Until recently, the largest bastions of support for this group were among ethnic Russians in non-Russian regions and especially in the North Caucasus where the Russian Community works closely with the police to suppress ethnic activism (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/clashes-between-ethnic-diasporas-and.html).

            The group was organized in 2020 but by 2023 it had spread to numerous Russian cities including St. Petersburg where it has attacked various groups it doesn’t approve of. Recently, for example, it acted against what its members called “a sex evening” in a hotel in the northern capital.

            While the group has increased its recruitment among Russian nationalists, many of the latter do not approve of it, either because they disagree with its tactics or because they are wary of any group that is so obviously linked to the police (sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2024/07/d50132/).