Pressed, Karelian Government Admits Having Signed Agreement with Notorious ‘Russian Community’ to Keep Order in the Republic

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 12 – Pressed by residents, the Karelian government has admitted to having signed without fanfare a special agreement with the Russian Community that calls for that organization, notorious for its attacks on immigrants and minorities, to help keep order in the republic.

            Petrozavodsk gave no further details about this accord which had been rumored in Karelia  except to say that the arrangement was being handled by the republic interior ministry (ru.thebarentsobserver.com/novosti/administracia-petrozavodska-priznalas-v-zaklucenii-dogovora-s-nacionalistami/455638).

            Such an agreement is worrisome both for Karelia and for Russia as a whole. For Karelia, it is worrisome because the Russian Community organization there last week openly interfered with a commemoration of the victims of Stalin’s crimes at Sandarmokh and thus appears even then to have had official sanction to do so.

            And for the Russian Federation as a whole, it represents yet another precedent for the integration of bullyboys from the Russian community into the Russian state in ways that will allow Moscow to repress more people but preserve the kind of deniability that unfortunately many in Russia and the west will accept.

            For background on the Russian Community and its activities, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/russian-community-is-becoming-orthodox.html and www.jamestown.org/program/russian-community-extremists-becoming-the-black-hundreds-of-today  and the sources cited therein.