OPERATION NOVOROSSIYA: Part 2 of 6 (Separation of Dignity: The Rise of Wagner)
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| Russian propaganda and GRU Active Measures blindsided Western media during and after Maidan. As all the reporting was strictly focused on Ukraine's far-right, Russia's own neo-Nazis and FSB informants were operating freely in Ukraine for years. |
Separation of Dignity
Kyiv, March 2014. The Maidan revolution has taken a different course. The protestors reached the gates of The Rada (parliament) within the crowd, teams of men (and some women) dressed in black with masks on, carrying bats and weapons, leading the chant of “Revolution”. Clearly, agitators, this group is called Privy Sector, and they came with the “Not Fucking Around” crowd. Climbing the walls of the Rada, its clear their intent is to break in and kidnap the interior minister and cause chaos inside the grounds of parliament. “No STOP!” is yelled by other protestors “Stop doing the work for Putin”..”This is what Putin Wants!” is heard. We would later find out, chaos and far-right violence is exactly what was planned inside the walls of the Kremlins' intelligence agencies years prior.
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| The Revolution of Dignity 2014 Maidan Square |
The Ukrainian revolution involved people from all walks of life and all political orientations. Mixed in with the crowd of Left Wing, Right Wing, Nationalists, old, young, gay, straight, rich, poor, as well as far right extremists and Neo Nazis in what seemed like an organic necessary movement, were teams of trained FSB informants and undercover infiltrators, some even infiltrated the far right groups which would become Azov and Right Sector.
To read Russian propaganda in the final weeks of Maidan, you would be forgiven if you thought that the Ukrainian far right and the Kyiv "junta" were running SS brigades with thousands of Nazi Banderists rounding up Russian speakers for mass executions in concentration camps. That was the media narrative being spun by Kremlins propaganda spin doctors, not to mention Western media, who at the time did not have much invested in resources inside Ukraine. Very few journalists were familiar with the history of Ukraine or the Orange revolution just 10 years prior, most never even stepped foot in Donbas, let alone know the complexities of the region. Many Western outlets just lazily piggybacked FSBs' alternate facts without vetting or any actual knowledge of the situation on the ground, Ukraine would be the unfortunate revolution to occur in the online age, a "Rusipedia" revolution if you will. Where conspiracy theories and disinformation spread unchecked. Below normal internet & media literacy rates in parts of Ukrainian and Russian society, led to a significant percentage of the public believing anything posted online was true. More importantly, non-mainstream and independent media spent the better part of 2 decades tearing apart US and NATO foreign policy, while completely ignoring the clandestine actions of the Kremlin. Anti-West/anti-American conspiracies began circulating, critical of the mainstream media's "signing off" on the horrible geopolitical decisions that led to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan post 9/11. Western media outlets seemed untrustworthy and compromised, thus an easy target for tainted grassroot investigative journalism, as well as many "do my own research" online conspiracy sleuths.
At the very beginning of the protests, Russian propaganda undertook deliberate efforts aimed at discrediting the protesters with a view to convincing Russians that the protesters represented a foreign force and that no Maidan must ever be permitted to occur in Russia. So they quickly had to change any narrative that Ukrainians were behind the movement. The fact that the Kyiv protests began after Yanukovych’s foreign policy decision to refuse to sign the EU Association Agreement “in favor of moving closer” to Russia—made it easier for Russian mass media to present the Euromaidan as sponsored and orchestrated by the “devious” and inherently anti-Russian and Russophobic West. This task was made easier still after additional Maidans followed in L’viv and several other cities in West Ukraine. The protesters were depicted as “extremists”, “radical nationalists”, “Banderites”, “neo-Nazis”, and “fascists”. With Russian propaganda trying to tap into the Western region's tolerance of Bandera's struggle for Ukrainian sovereignty and contempt for Soviet-era symbolism, and use that to bridge division between east and west. Something that was not a major issue prior to 2014. Despite the fact Banderites were at the time isolated to a few minor groups in E Galicia in the far West of Ukraine, Russian propaganda would equate anyone that opposed Russian rule, even ethnic Russians, a "Bandera Nazi".
Right Sector appeared during the Euromaidan in Kyiv as an
association of marginal Western Ukrainian nationalist organizations. Right Sector activists were distinguished by their radicalism (not Neo Nazism) and played the most active part in the clashes with the “Berkut” Interior Ministry special police force in January-February 2014. But the majority of the protesters in Kyiv did not support Right Sector's radical platform. For example, of the 42 “Maidan self-defense” companies, only one (the 23rd) was formed by Right Sector, but watching Russian state media, you would be hard-pressed finding any coverage not 100% dominated by Right Sector. Polls of The Donbas population would reveal that 67% would list Right Sector violence as their biggest fear resulting from Maidan. Fake news stories circulated of Right Sector overthrowing the Ukrainian army and National Guard, as well as executions of Russian speakers, would dominate the information sphere in the East with little to clarification from the overwhelmed Ukrainian authorities or pushback from fact-checkers from legitimate media sources, who were still oblivious to Russian Active Measures in the region. Russia would also create anti-Maidan defense groups called titushkas. Manned by hired Neo Nazi thugs, Ukrainian criminals, football Ultra hooligans and paid provocateurs from Ukrainian Nationalist circles.
Russian Neo Nazi and far right organizations also took part. Many were released from jail and bussed in. Russian insiders like Vladislav Surkov and Dmitry Rogozin were confident that, in Ukraine, they would be able to hire all the Football Ultras and street gangs. Since Neo Nazi were isolantionists, with the majority being anti West and anti NATO, indeed many joined the Russian anti Maidan movement. To everyones surprise however, many of these Neo Nazi Ultras, majority ethnic Russian, felt outraged that their counterparts & colleagues were taking money to attack innocent civilians. They would also begin forming defense forces, but to protect the Euro Maidan and the Revolution of Dignity, as a direct reaction to Russias actions.
Russian propaganda has also sought to legitimize the Russian-sponsored separatist cause. This aim has been pursued via the creation of the “Novorossiya” myth which in turn, as we shall see below, is also entwined with and dependent on the cultural memory of the Great Patriotic War. after the regime change in Kyiv and the annexation of Crimea, the Kremlin launched the “Novorossiya” propaganda myth. On April 17, 2014, Putin, speaking live on TV and radio referred to South-East Ukraine as “Novorossiya”
In reality, the Ukrainian general public had little tolerance with far right politics at the time, even after the far-right overrepresentation in the clashes with pro-Russian police and military in the final weeks of the Maidan. The newly formed parliament had members of the right-wing party Svoboda holding a handful of portfolios in the new government, although far more were held by conventional political parties and people of different views. The following elections demonstrated the limited popularity of Neo Nazis and right-wing within Ukrainian society, which would seem surprising after the way the situation unfolded. However, the global media, (still 2 years before Russia's hybrid warfare tactics got exposed in its role in the 2016 US election interference) ran unfiltered Kremlin propaganda, a strategy that Ukrainians and many former Soviet states were all too well familiar with.
Tsargrad
Way before Maidan and even before the Orange revolution in 2004, Putin and his minions at the FSB and GRU, with the help of intel from the SVR, devised a brilliant plan. By using a combination of Soviet Era techniques such as Firehosing, Active Measures to accomplish a Psyop mission of Reflexive Control, all in order to destabilize and weaken European Governments (Ukraine included) by secretly funding and training a dangerous web of far-right and Neo Nazi groups. A strategy Russia was very familiar and comfortable dealing with.
Famed KKK Grand Wizard David Duke characterized Russia as the “key to white survival,” and American white supremacist Richard Spencer recently identified Russia as the “sole white power in the world.” Both Jared Taylor—founder of the white supremacist outlet American Renaissance—and Matthew Heimbach—a Unite the Right organizer and leader of the now-defunct Traditionalist Workers Party—have met in person with ultranationalist Russian political leaders in 2015 and 2017, respectively. Russian intelligence officials have directly interacted and financially supported many other far-right groups around the world, such as the Hungarian National Front, (a neo-Nazi supported political movement with a strange affinity for Putin), The Nordic Resistance Movement in Sweden and has acknowledged soft but substancial support of several other right wing groups around the globe including the United States, South America, Africa, new Zealand and Europe.
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| American Neo Nazis, including Ortho Fascist Matt Heinbach (center) of the Traditional Workers Party along with the racist Orthodox Priest Matthew Raphael Johnson (back right) visiting occupied Donbas |
In recent reporting, Michael Weiss uncovered emails from a Russian National Mikhail Yakushev, describing meetings set up with Matteo Salvini, an Italian former Deputy Prime Minister and member of the Italian Far-Right League (Italys Nationalist and Neo-Nazi, anti immigrant party.) Salvini, who Putin once described as “the best statesman currently on earth” was outed by the London based Dossier Center, which found documentary evidence linking Salvini and his party to dark funds from the Kremlin and basically a proxy arm for Putin, peddling support for Russia’s war against Ukraine and for stronger ties with Russia.
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| Mikhail Yakushev |
Who is Mikhail Yakushev? Well, he is the director of Tsargrad, (an organization and media conglomerate financed by Putin and the propaganda wing of the GRU unit 54777 or GLAVPUR, whose mission is to revive the greatness of the Russian Empire, but whose real main clandestine goal is to acquire foreign assets, mainly focused on Far-Right, Extremist, Radical and Neo Nazi groups. Tsargrad is just the tip of the spear, it oversees dozens of companies that donate, sponsor, and even finance political parties, politicians, and even high-ranking military personnel and defense contractors. With Tsargrad being an umbrella company, it gives the GRU some distance and plausible deniability by not having any direct connection to political donations and the shell companies that operate globally under the guise of business-as-usual organizations.
Yakushevs boss is a lovely fellow named Konstantin Malofeev, who is the chairman of Tsargrad. Malofeev is a known radical with ties to the DPR and is widely known as the money man for the Separatists and pro-Russia military groups in Donbas and Luhansk. He was also blacklisted and sanctioned by the EU and the US for financing the operations in Crimea in 2014 during the illegal annexation and Invasion of Ukraine. The “Little Green Men” that Russia claimed was definitely not their military? That was Malofeev.
Tsargrad and Malofeev, under the GRUs direction, continued to worm their way into far-right organizations across Europe, financing political parties and spreading Anti-Ukraine rhetoric. Trying to drum up support for what became the invasion of Ukraine. In March 2021 Malofeev started a plan taken straight out of the Soviet playbook, he created a network of assets and useful idiots all to recruit foreigners abroad in order to foster Bolshevism and foment coups. One of the main “idiots” turns out to be none other than French Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, a famed chauvinist, and Neo-Nazi sympathizer. Malofeevs right-hand man Sergei Rudov, head of Malofeev's Saint Basil the Great Charitable Foundation, which was one of Russia’s wealthiest philanthropies which were responsible for contributing tens of millions to US right-wing political groups like the NRA (infiltrated by FSB agent Maria Butina) and the anti-LGBT lobby as well as White Supremecy groups responsible for the Neo Nazi "Unite The Right" rally.
Ironic that Putin's premise for the invasion was the De-Nazification of Ukraine. All while he was funneling billions to nazis across Europe and the United States
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| Orthodox tycoon: Konstantin Malofeev, the highly sanctioned oligarch and GRU propaganda tool responsible for the deaths of thousands in Donbas and Luhansk. Putin's money man in Europe and Eastern Ukraine his Tsargrad TV channel openly promotes hate and violence towards LGBT and supports killing Jews and Ukrainian citizens. Even the Human Rights Council of Russia recognized it as “a provocation containing a mechanism of inciting social hatred”. |
Takes One To Blame One
Ukraine's Nazi problem which Putin roared about was something in turn a Russian Nazi problem. From 2008-2014 it is estimated that 3000 Russian Neo Nazis either traveled to or immigrated to Ukraine, however, immigrated might be stretching the term, closer to willingly deported or exiled. During Surkovs "Managed Nationalism" Russia would set up recruitment and relocation for any Neo Nazi or Nationalist that was willing to start a new life in Ukraine. Some of those were even involved with different facets of Russias government, including politicians, military and even FSB & GRU.
It might seem at first that the ideology between Russian and Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and far-right would be similar. They shared the same music, violent videos, literature, and love of football, However, nothing can be further from the truth. Both Russian and Ukrainian groups naturally rally behind a huge sentiment of Nationalism. The main discord is Russia’s first and foremost belief that Ukraine is in fact not even a nationality. Ideologically what is perceived as the “Ukrainian Question”. An ultranationalist belief that Ukraine does not itself have a unified and distinct ethos and does not actually exist. Many Russians just considered Ukrainians as Russian, fellow Slavs, and some were not keen on a war with people who they considered to be "white brothers". Many were willing to forget the Ukrainian question. A great many Russian Nationalists were anti-Kremlin and anti-Putin fanatics and felt the 2010 election of Anti-Western Yanukovych would make Ukraine a polarizing base of operation. Many Russian Nationalists felt betrayed by Putin's crackdown on patriotic ultra-nationalism and political opposition. Figuring a temporary partnership with groups in Ukraine would serve their needs in the short term.
The 2014 annexation of Crimea sparked an ideological shift among the Russian Nationalists. It would seem some were willing to put aside previous criticisms of Putin's political grandstanding andwhat they felt was pandering to the West, and rally around their core Imperialistic beliefs of restoring the Russian empire to its formal glory. Putin would use this moment in nationalist unity to further advance his options in Donbas, motivated mainly by the West's lack of a response in Crimea. He would use this lull in judgment to feed the insurgency in Donbas with the worst Russia had to offer, not only vile Nationalists and violent Neo Nazis but also corrupt criminal chekists within his military and intelligence services, adding Chechens, Cossacks, glory-chasing extremists, online trolls, and armchair generals that dreamed of MANPADS and mayhem. Convinced that staffing Donbas with some of Russia's worst and most troublesome nationalist leaders would at least leave most of them in graves in Ukraine, rather than organizing political opposition at home.
Vladimir Putin launched his “Russkiy Mir” project and invaded Ukraine in the hopes that radical Russian nationalists who represented a threat to his rule would go there and die, thus “killing two birds with one stone,” according to Dmitry Demushkin of Neo Nazi group Slavic Union. Who explained he was offered money and political positions within the new Donbas government by Dmitry Rogozin. The FSB also offered him his own military commander position, an office and a slew of military equipment.
Shortly after the Maidan began in Kyiv and the concept of “Russki Mir (the Russian world)" was dreamed up in Moscow, claimed Demushkin. He personally “read an analytic note which was then presented to Putin” in which there was a section devoted to Russian nationalists and their use against Ukraine. The Kremlin hoped that 30,000 would go, but far fewer did. Demushkin would be arrested after refusing to work with the FSB
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| Demushkin at his annual For Russia for Russians March |
In the early days, however, Politically and socially, the influence of right-wing in Ukraine was marginal at best. In-fighting and rotating leadership left the movement extremely weak and unstructured for the better part of the two decades since its independence. They were unable to establish a cohesive political presence in the Parliament and had nothing to offer to society, and were essentially a laughing stock within the state. Their ultra-nationalist platform of Banderist ideology of anti-Russian imperialism seemed outdated and did not seem to scare the Ukrainian public. So their strategy focused on promoting Ukrainian language platforms and breaking away from the Moscow patriarch and rallied around the Ukrainian Orthodox church. When Yanukovych came into power, it gave the far right the rallying point they were looking for.
The main breaking point was the 2014 Maidan revolution and leading up to it. Many of the Russians broke factions with their Ukrainian counterparts and in fact joined with Russian and pro-Russian actors to join in the Anti-Maidan protests which were funded by Putin oligarch and Ukrainian politician Vadym Kolesnichenko. At the same time some decided to split and side with Ukraine, feeling deceived by the Yanukovych administration believing he was just a Putin and pro-Kremlin puppet. After Maidan, it is estimated that roughly 1500 Russian Neo Nazis & Nationalists already living in Ukraine headed to Donbas, creating pro-Russian and fascist militias in DNR and LNR.
Despite the shift in the Government and split within groups, many Russians were already accepted within Ukrainian Nationalist circles and respected Ukraine’s sovereignty and claimed to accept and were willing participants in the Western Ukrainian, Banderist Nationalist ideology and their anti-Russian or mainly Anti Putin beliefs. Some of those we would soon find out were also Russian agents and informants.
Yulia Kharlamova was born in 1989, in Odesa Ukraine and studied at the Lobachevsky University in Nizhni Novorod Russia. Although her area of study is still to be confirmed, she is thought to have studied Archaeology and Ethnology of Ukraine. If this is correct, this may account for her popularity among Russia’s neo-Nazis, where she was known by the nick name ‘Nordika’, and was respected for her vocal support of their nationalist and racist views. She served with Russian Airborne forces where she underwent full combat training and there are several references of her serving with Unit 54164 Moscow Region and 38 Separate Parachute Brigade.
Sometime in 2013, reference was made of her being a communications specialist with the Parachute Brigade. However, as we look further into her activities with the GRU there is a possibility that the use of the world ‘communications specialist’ was used to mask the fact that Kharlamova was trained in psychological warfare. She started to engage members of the Ukraine Army, their families, and anyone with grievances against the Ukrainian government. During the same period she also increased her influence over Russia’s neo-Nazi movements and renewed her relationship with the notorious neo-Nazi, Alexi Milchakov, who she had known since 2000.
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| Neo Nazi paratrooper (and Spetsnaz soldier) Aleksei Milchakov |
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| Rusich's Milchakov and his girlfriend: GRU agent Yulia Kharlamova, who was responsible for initially recruiting and promoting false flag riots during Maidan. Starting with Ukrainian National Guard members and pro-Ukrainian nationalists along with dozens other Russian chaos agents, attacked police, incited violence and promoted unrest. The goal, to make Ukraine's government weak and the Dignity movement irrational and violent |
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| Yulias sister Maria, a fellow Hitler loving Nazi of the DPR |
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| Yulia Kharlamova admitted to being an FSB agent but denied her involvement in the riots. Claiming she stopped working for the FSB 2 years prior, she went on to be a reporter for Anna News. However and investigation into her background revealed she was an active operative of GRU. Milchakov went on to Donbas, joining the Batman detachment, eventually becoming the commander of Rusich Group. Rusich was deployed in 2022 and involved in the fight in Mariupol. They are wanted for countless amounts of war crimes in the region, most notably manning checkpoints dressed in Ukrainian military markings , kidnapping civilians for interrogation |
Weimar Russia
Russian nationalists and propaganda regularly exploited the post-imperial thesis of Russian people being “divided” by the new borders. In 1998, one of the more prominent thinkers in post-Soviet Russian nationalism and famed Neo Nazi ideologist, Alexander Sevastyanov called to “recognize the right to unify the (ethnic) divided Russian nation” in his right wing manifesto titled “The Russian Project”. in 2003, the thirst for this rhetoric reappeared, as he designed the political ideology for the fascist National Sovereignty Party of Russia, which was one the last real attempts to create a united radical-nationalist and ultra-violent political force within Russia.
Early on, Sevastyanov avoided overt statements of violence while he led the campaign against the repatriation of WWII ‘trophy art’. As the leader of his radical nationalist party, he repeatedly affirmed his commitment to legality but hinted that violent militants also had a role to play. However the peak of his influence (2004–2012) coincided with a wave of racist killings committed by neo-Nazi gangs and FSB extremists, he glorified this carnage as the beginning of a national revolution. From 2013–2016, Sevastyanov, (thanks to Surkov's Managed Nationalism) was forced to switch from Swastikas to more traditional Russian Nationalist symbols, and he shifted his framework to the Russian insurgents in the Donbas, whom he extolled as the vanguard of the revolution that would ultimately transform Russia itself. An important place in the activity of Russian national extremists was given to staking territorial claims and taking steps designed to stir up pro-Russian activism in Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, frequently engaging in violence and antisemitic/islamophobic rhetoric, with overt undertones of Third Reich glorification, repackaged for the post-Soviet mindset and angry disassociated Russian, lost youth, or unemployed, uneducated alcoholic laborer, who felt the world was slipping through his fingers and that only a strong Russia could bring balance and meaning back into their lives. This kind of fear-mongering, familiar to many current Neo-Nazi and right-wing skinheads in the West, bears a striking resemblance to the Beer Hall days of post-WW1 Nazi Germany. This turbulent time in Russian history (1995-2015) would forever be described as "Weimar Russia"
Between 2005 and 2009, disenfranchised youth and pro-Russia militants from the Donetsk Republic (DR) movement took part in the National Bolshevik linked training camps run by the Eurasian Youth Union (EYU/ESM). They propagated the ideology of pro-Russian separatism in the Donbas and as early as 2005, invented the symbolism that would later gain “official” status in the Donetsk People’s Republic. The EYU which was started by Alexander Dugin, as the youth group of The National Bolsheviks and taught his version of Neo-Eurasianism, which cuts and stitches together ideas from many sources to produce a whole. Mainly a dichotomy between land-based, continental civilization and coastal, seafaring civilizations based in the work of several historical figures, chiefly Alfred Mahan and Halford Mackinder. He stressed the superiority of tellulocratic (land based) civilizations over talassocratic (sea based) ones. For him the former USSR and the Eastern Bloc embody Eurasian, continental civilization, while NATO and the United States are talassocratic ‘Atlanticists.’ Nations, peoples, and ideas that Dugin views sympathetically are labelled Eurasianist, while all those he opposes are Atlanticist. Dugin preached Friedrich Ratzel’s theory of Lebensraum, which would become the central idea motivating Nazi expansionist aggression. It sought to preserve Russian culture from a perceived Masonic/Zionist/Western threat, and that youth were Russian society's last hope. Mixed with the occult and new age apocalyptic beliefs that they were living in the last days in fight against Satanic Western society and that an army needed to be raised to begin "The Great Cleansing" of Ukraine. They would receive an education in the occult traditionalism & Third Way fascism, even worshiping psychopaths like Corneliu Codreanu, the leader of the Romanian Iron Guard, whose cruelty (towards civilians) even the Nazis were amazed. So drawing parallels between the EYU and the Hitler Youth would be more than justified.
Participants in EYU events learned to handle weapons, build bombs, and terrorist tactics among other things. EYU stated in 2008 that its goal was “to carry out a people’s revolution in Ukraine”. In Ukraine, EYU activists have been accused of abusing state symbols and were suspected of carrying out a range of other crimes. They would receive an education in the occult traditionalism & Third Way fascism. EYUwould worship psychopaths like Corneliu Codreanu, the leader of the Romanian Iron Guard, whose cruelty (towards civilians) even the Nazis were amazed
During 2005-2007, branches of the EYU were established in the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Sevastopol and some others. These branches cooperated with the Ukrainian cells of the National-Bolshevik Party as well as with Ukrainian far right parties such as the Rus’ky blok (Russian bloc), the misleadingly named Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) led by Natalya Vitrenko, and “Bratstvo” (Brotherhood) headed by Dmytro Korchynsky. Both Vitrenko and Korchynsky were members of the Highest Council of Dugin’s MED. The Ukrainian branches of the EYU remained on the margins of the Ukrainian political life, while most of its activities were limited to anti-NATO protests and other similar anti-Western actions, and did not produce any significant result in terms of undermining the Ukrainian state.
Vitrenko, who Dugin called the future of Ukrainian politics and the leader of the pan-Ukrainian resistance to the US, promoted the idea of creating a political union of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus and rejected any form of Ukraine’s rapprochement with the EU and the US and the West in general. She labeled all advocates of Ukraine’s independence as Ukrainian ultranationalists or even Nazis. She freely substituted “NATO” with “Nazism” (and vice versa) in her political speeches, attempting to create a strong association between Nazism and the West in general, and – appealing to the Soviet mythology of the “Great Patriotic War” – portrayed a struggle between the “fascist” West and “anti-fascist” Russia.
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The EYU/ESM training to overthrow Ukraine. Donbas youth participated in "war camps" between 2005-13. Many ended up leading the coup in 2014 in Donbas |
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| A young Daria Dugin(right) from 2006 at the EYU summer camp |
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| Former EYU member Egor Prosvernin- founder of Sputnik & Pogorom. Prosvernin considered the pro-Russian rebellion in the Donbass to be a continuation of the "white cause" and Russian Nazism |
June 22 is celebrated as the Day of Remembrance and Mourning. I do not think that this is a day of remembrance and sorrow. This is the DAY OF REVENGE... On June 22, 1941, White Europe returned to Russia. The sky darkened with airplanes. The earth shook from the tanks. The trees shook from the laughter - it was the laughter of hundreds, thousands of ranks of the Russian Imperial Army who volunteered for the Wehrmacht, the SS or created their own units. The White Russians returned to the Red Soviet Union. Without pity. No mercy. Without sentiment. Without a glimmer of sympathy.
Nazism, in a way, can be considered as a bacterium that carries the virus of sacred Russian madness, the madness of people who have lost everything, scorched by the fire of the underworld and dried up by the thirst for revenge. And on June 22, this revenge, this resentment, which asked the hearts of the White Guards who became Nazi ideologues, oozed in the veins of the National Socialists who enlisted in the front-line army, seething under the skin of the peasants and workers who would go to Dirlewanger a little later, this insane, black, all-crushing irrational revenge broke out [...] The Russian Beast broke free for a moment, and it was during these short days that Stalin escaped to the dacha, where he drank terribly, drank without stopping. [...] I was prompted to write this post by two things: attempts to use the June 22 text to organize an information campaign against us and (more importantly) a persistent feeling that that the Beast wakes up again. This time — in the scorched steppes of Donbass
Managed Separatism
Inspired by the so-called Arab Spring, Russian nationalists on both sides of the Russo-Ukrainian border started to talk about a Russian Spring – the possibility of uniting all land all over the former Soviet Union where Russians were living (Russian world – Russkiy mir), and this appeal resonated far within the Russian Federation, from where volunteer fighter joined the rebels in Donbass. The Donbas itself became a staging ground for Russian radical nationalists and extremists. It allowed the fantasy of Russian exceptionalism to become reality. In itself, a perfect execution of Reflexive control and Russification, victimizing a population already primed for mass brainwashing and pacification due to years of submission under the Soviet regime. All that was needed was the right antagonists, with the right ideology, propaganda and a familiar boogeyman to fear and rally around. The Donbas population lived in harmony for decades but Russian propaganda and imported Russian rhetoric from long-time right-wing and Neo Nazi militias, now political groups such as Russian National Unity (RNU or RNE), National Bolsheviks, Russian Imperial Movement, Eurasian Youth Movement and the politicized Cossack extremists all had their headquarters and were operating freely in the Donbas since Surkov's decision to alter Ukraine's demographics. For years these organizations overwhelmingly rejected the global status quo that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union and rallied supporters to act in Russia's best interests. In the year leading up to Maidan and to after the annexation of Crimea, they would almost instantly transform from intellectual, philosophical movements, theoretically preaching the destruction of the Ukrainian State into violent extremist militias that would use the ISIS asymmetrical terrorist platform as their template.
Eduard Limonov, the founder of the National Bolsheviks party, later to become “Other Russia”, whose work with Alexander Dugin would birth the anti-Ukrainian rhetoric back in the early 90s and his haunting manifesto released in 1998, titled “Scenarios for an Armed Uprising” outlined almost a carbon copy detailed description of how Crimean authorities and Russian militancy could successfully fracture the Kyiv regime and launch an armed insurrection that would kick start a Russian revolution in Ukraine. Limonov would be banned from Ukraine due to his extremist rhetoric but his cult-like following would rally hundreds of Russian militants to fight in Donbas under the flag of “Other Russia”
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| Founder of National Bolsheviks Eduard Liminov under the banner of Other Russia |
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Alexander Barkashov and Russian National Unity |
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| The Russian National Unity (RNU/RNE) Neo Nazi Separatist militia, before and after "Managed Nationalism", which forced their symbol change in 2014 in order to reinforce Russia's fake war on Nazism" |
The Neo Nazis at RNU/RNE played one of the biggest roles in the Separatist movement in Donbas, Founded by a KGB/FSB agent named Alexander Barkashkov in 1990, RNU was created to mirror a military unit and provided training for its activists, including the first new Governor of Donetsk Pavel Gubarov. Members of RNU would also branch of recruiting Ukrainian volunteers in forming the Russian Orthodox Army, whose members included thugs, criminals, and violent Neo Nazis that would oversee and detail the plans for the original referendum. After the launch of the Donbas hostilities, RNU would switch their symbols from the modded Swastika to its current chevron badge, however, the other Neo Nazi/Ortho Fascist Imperialst battalions such as Russian Imperial Movement RIM and their militia Russian Imperial Legion, Russian Orthodox Army, Rusich (Wagner), Ratibor, Oplot, Batman, Slavic Union, Pheonix, Black Hundreds, Karpaty, Kornilovtsy Battalion, Sparta, Svarozhichi all had ties to Russias Neo Nazi movement. Neo Nazi Alexander Matyushin, who started as a skinhead in Moscow for the National Bolsheviks would become a senior youth leader at the Eurasian Youth Union and start the Donetsk Republic movement in 2005, organizing Russia marches in Donestk, Nazi rallies and violence against minorities all throughout Donbas. He would openly say that DNR is an Orthodox Fascist state, to be taken by Iron and Blood. His overtly fascist Varyag Battalion would play a big part in the clashes of 2014.
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| Oleg Vargon, commander of Nazi Rodnover pagan “Svarozhichi” Battalion of the Oplot Brigade |
Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) was among the first to to arrive from Russia in Feb 2014.. Proudly stating they came to Maidan due to “the inevitability of war and the need to physically eliminate the cancerous tumor of Ukrainians".Led by Ortho Nazi Stanislav Vorobyev RIM ended up In Crimea after Maidan, recruiting volunteers to train for the Imperial Legion, training hundreds of Neo-Nazis & extremists from Russia and Ukraine. By February 2015, RIM fighters were engaged in heavy combat in the crucial battle for Debaltseve, in Donetsk, the last major military clash before the tenuous ceasefire of the Minsk Accords was introduced, which ended with a Russian victory.
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| The Ortho Nazi battalion of the Imperial Legion |
Also to note that many members of banned Neo-Nazi gangs like Movement Against Illegal Immigration (known by its Russian acronym DPNI) would find themselves mixed in the milieu and the group Sputnik and Pogrom was found setting up humanitarian and financial aid for Russians injured in the hostilities. The Terek Wolves, a regiment of Neo-Cossack nationalists, fought under the banner of the infamous Nazi Wermacht 10th regiment of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Cossack Division. The Tereks were made famous for their barbaric attempts at enforcing laws relative to their own skewed worldview and code of ethics, which included victim-blaming underage girls and other local women who were violently raped. Saying it was their fault for wearing skirts and lipstick around men who are drinking. Aleksandr Mozgovoi, leader of the quasi-rogue Prizrak (Ghost Brigade) in Luhansk, announced (an ultimately unenforced) ban on women going to bars and clubs. In his own words, they should instead “sit at home and embroider.” Well-known Russian Neo Nazi groups like Restrukt and Slavic Union would find themselves split, as some went on to Ukraine to fight for Azov due to their absolute distrust of the Putin regime, However many of those volunteers had links to FSB and Kremlin informant networks, (a topic discussed in the upcoming parts of series.
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| Kseniya Shykalova aka the lady Sniper "Vasya" of Vympel Unit |
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| The self-promoted anti-fascist Alexi Mozgovoi of Prizrak with Kseniya Shykalova (aka Veselina Cherdantseva), a notorious neo-Nazi murderer from Saint-Petersburg. |
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| The Neo Nazi Pagan "Pheonix" detachment of the Prizrak (Ghost) Brigade |
Among other things, the self-proclaimed "people's mayor" of Slovyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, openly admitted that he ordered a pogrom against Roma in the suburbs of Slovyansk. According to human rights activists, the non-Orthodox Christians of Slovyansk were persecuted, tortured and murdered during the occupation. The "People's Mayor" also called for the Ukrainian-speaking people of Slovyansk to be "reported" to the "authorities." How great the support of the Russian occupiers in Donbas was is best shown by Igor Girkin's desperate video appearance, in which he complains that he cannot even bring a thousand people under his command and wonders why his forces have not yet been given any a career officer and declared the male population of Donbas as cowards
There were also members of a KGB-spawned antisemitic Stalinist cult called Concept of Public Security or “Konceptsiya Obshchestvennoy Bezopasnosti” (KOB) had taken over broadcasts at the city’s TV center. The group broadcast lectures recorded in the 90s by the late Russian Maj. Gen. Konstantin Petrov, laying out antisemitic conspiracy theories and mind-numbing management jargon.The aim of KOB was to indoctrinate politicians, civil servants and officers and ensure the centrality of the role of the security services within the very soul of the state. Lectures were held on the grounds of Parliament on a weekly basis via the State Duma Committee on Geopolitics following an introductory hearing “on the Concept of Public Security” in November 1995.
In Ukraine, the diehard, organizational KOB members were noticeable on the margins of several pro-Russian actions, most often in concert with members of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSPU) headed by Natalia Vitrenko, herself a member of Dugin’s International Eurasian Union.
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| General Petrov, founder of KOB, who organized the pro-Russian Communist Party in Ukraine. Which considered itself the only force that managed to “reveal the essence” of the Jewish question - the rest were attributed to “fear of the Jews,” “Judeophobia,” “quivering admiration for the Jews,” “hidden admiration for the Jews,” or “evasion from consideration.” |
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| The KOB pagans believed Christianity was a Satanic doctrine because it was based of Judaism |
KOB was the largest Rodnoverie (Rodnevery) political organization in the world. Originating in Russia and was first promulgated at the direction of Filipp Bobkov, head of the KGB’s 5th Directorate. The movement combined veneration of Stalin and the USSR with neo-paganism. KOB played a quiet but key role in the network operating in Ukraine. A network of assets was sprung into action in 2013 and 2022, with members appearing at protests and rallies, organizing militias and “communes,” often in concert with other esoteric fringe movements, and eventually coming to prominence in the form of long-time adherent and activist Kiril Stremousov, who served as “deputy governor” and the face of the Russian occupation administration in Kherson until his death in a purported car crash in November, 2022.
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| Alexey Dobrovoisky |
Russian Rodnoverie, a perverted version of Slavic paganism was revived in the 80s thanks to one of the early pioneers of Russian traditionalism: Alexey Dobrovolsky. Dobrovoisky, who was a member of Pamyat and a devout Nazi, would push the idea of Russian National Socialism and Eurasianism, he interpreted the concept of blood and soil literally, believing that some powerful material force emanates from the ancestors' graves that influences the fate of the living. He called for the extermination of Jews, which is considered to be a qualitatively different civilization, experiencing absolute hostility to nature, in contrast to all the “indigenous peoples” of the world.
In addition to these Russian and Ukrainian groups, Neo Nazi and Ortho fascist volunteers from Hungary arrived at Donbás, forming the so-called St. Stephen's Legion, a group linked to the Hungarian anti-Semitic and far-right extremist Jobbik party, Bulgaria's Orthodox Dawn fascist battalion, the Serbian Chetnik 'Jovan Šević Detachment, as well as members of Serbian Action. According to the Italian newspaper la Repubblica, well-known Italian neo-fascist Andrea Palmeri (former member of the far-right New Force party) has been fighting for the Donetsk People's Republic since 2014 and was hailed by Gubarev as a "real fascist". In June 2014, a Russian media media also reported the presence of a Polish detachment led by Bartosz Beker, former leader of the neo-fascist and anti-Semitic group National Radical Camp (ONR) as well as members of Polish neo-fascist group Falanga and Italian far-right group Millennium had joined the Donbas separatists. French Eurasianists, notably the far-right organization Continental Unity, have also been accused of recruiting far-right extremists across Europe to fight for the Donbas separatists. Swedish and Finnish far-right groups, such as the Power Belongs to the People party, reportedly recruited volunteers to fight for the separatists, while members of the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement were seen attending paramilitary training in Russia. German newspaper Deutsche Welle warned that German neo-Nazis were receiving paramilitary training in Russia, something unthinkable without the consent of the Kremlin, whose security service - the FSB - should not have ignored the presence of these elements in Russia.
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| Italian Neo Nazi Andrea Palmeri (far left) |
The success of the Maidan revolution resulted in coordinated widespread violent pro-Russian protests in South and East Ukraine. FSB assets and far-right collaborators within Ukraine's military (who broke off in the Anti-maidan minority) took full advantage of the vacuum of civil obedience. Including violent retribution by right-wing groups like the Odessa Brigade led by Russian Neo-Nazi and admitted FSB informant Anton Raevsky. Raevsky, who was once a prominent member of the far-right radicals of The Black Hundreds in Oreyl Russia, ended up in Odesa Ukraine in March 2014, with instruction from FSB (through the direct orders of Sergei Glazyev and Vladislav Surkov) to recruit and radicalize local criminals, Neo Nazis and Ultra soccer hooligans in order to start counter-protests and instigate clashes with pro-Maidan activists.
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| The leader of the Anti-fascist and anti Nazi protests in Kulivko Pole Odessa was a Hitler loving Neo Nazi fascist from Orel Russia named Anton Raevsky of the Black Hundreds |
The group would call themselves Odesskaya Druzhinya (later to become Odessa Brigade) and would be involved in several violent altercations, including the burning of local Synagogues. Raevsky would shortly be arrested for inciting ethnic violence and deported back to St Petersburg, where he would coordinate bombings and attacks with new Odessa leader Alexi "Foma" Fominov. Corroborating sources within FSB and even Raevsky himself explained that Surkov personally (through Glazyev) directed his intelligence networks to turn up the heat in Odesa. The FSB directed Raevsky to coordinate with Fominov and local Neo Stalinist from Borotba to create chaos and to delegitimize the pro-Maidan movement. Following a Football match on May 2, 2014, Raevsky's Odessa group, (in his absence)and a total of around 2-300 anti-Maidan militants, armed with bats, knives, guns, wearing bulletproof vests and helmets, attacked a mainly peaceful march of football fans and pro-Ukraine protestors, resulting in a direct confrontation with Maidan self-defense forces guarding the march and Ultras from Right Sector who were ambushed on their way from inside the stadium. The resulting street violence ended up killing 3 pro-Maidan and 2 anti-Maidan activists as well as an innocent bystander. Hospital records noted 88 people were hospitalized in total from both sides. The eventual escalation, later on, ended up evolving into full-blown chaos, forever known as the Odesa Trade Union Fire in which 38 people perished in the fire and 63 anti-maidan militants arrested. Many corrupt police and a Kyiv prosecutor were also involved, but charges never brought forward.
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| "Peaceful" Russians anti-Maidan during May 2 in Odesa |
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Intercepted telephone conversations between Sergei Glazyev, a senior adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin and various other figures, including Konstantin Zatulin, (Director of the Russian Institute of CIS Countries). In them Glazyev openly acknowledges organizing and financing the provocations and paid separatist protests in Odesa, as well as in Crimea, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhya. Zatulin admitted soon after the initial publication that it was indeed his voice is on the tapes, though claimed that they were a manipulative montage. Both Glazyev and Zatulin have reportedly received the Russian state awards ‘For the return of Crimea’ given to those who played a direct role in Russia’s annexation.
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| One of the Russian FSB linked thugs behind the May 2 Odessa attacks in 2014 and Russian Military officer Oleksy Fominov, call sign "Foma". Was sent by Russian Special Services to connect with Neo Nazis Ultras among the Raevsky loyalists and the local anti-Maidan in Odessa. Though he had never been to Odessa before, he still named his unit the "Odessa Special Purpose Brigade" |
After the fires, Fominov and the remaining members of Odessa would travel to Luhansk and join up with local armed extremists and released prisoners to become the official Separatist Odessa Brigade, while others from Luhansk would form Prizrak (Ghost) Battalion. At the end of 2014, Fominov would stop cooperating with the GRU run government in Luhansk and switch allegiance to the FSB. He would mastermind large thefts of Humanitarian aid and theft of property of the LPR population, not to mention establish smuggling routes with the FSB. Throughout the year they would go on to perform terrorist acts, kidnapping and robberies, as well as fighting in several key battles alongside the LPR.
By Jan 2015 the Kremlin would eventually take control of the situation and arrest Foma. Wagner would go on to liquidate some of his Odessa commanders. He would spend 7 months locked up in a basement in a Luhansk quasi-prison/torture chamber. With the majority of the brigade actually being Russian citizens, friction among them and locals ended up in a violent power struggle resulting in the disbanding of the brigade and the arrests of many of its remaining members. The majority would agree to fight for the LPR army, and the rest would go back to Russia.
Raevsky would go back to Oreyl and become an open critic of the war, which he admitted was being fully run by the FSB and GRU. "In my last visit to Donbas, when I directly began to command a motorized rifle platoon, I was simply stunned by what I saw in the "army" of the LPR. This rampant drunkenness is not only in the rear, but also in the positions, on the front lines, when the Ukrainian regular army is standing on the front line a kilometer from us, we can see them perfectly, whether through binoculars or through the sights, they also see us, despite everything this is total drunkenness. They can get drunk on the front line, they can leave their post and go to the nearest department for moonshine, exchange it for stew, buy moonshine. They smoked weed, the so-called "plan". This is a mass phenomenon not only among non-commissioned officers, but also among officers."
Raevsky was given the rank of Lieutenant by the FSB and given his unit in the DPR army. After 6 months Raevsky became dissilusioned with the whole war, frustrated at the sheer incompetance and criminality within the militias and army. "The composition of the army of the DPR, LPR - there is a large skeleton of previously convicted people, people who are not acceptable to either the Ukrainian side or the Russian side, people whom no one will ever hire, but pleased go to the army, they are needed there." Raevsky stated in a 2016 interview, People who were imprisoned for various crimes, for robbery, serve in the army of the LPR, DNR, fight for a certain "Novorossiya" - this is ridiculous. These are prisoners, they don't care about "Novorossiya": they are poaching, they will kill someone. I have encountered such. I also had fights with them, they repeatedly pointed the barrel of a Kalashnikov assault rifle at me, and threatened to kill me more than once.
Open testimonies of Russian servicemen and volunteers are relatively rare. In 2015, businessman Bondo Dorovsky , who went to fight for "Novorossiya" and was disappointed in this war, told Radio Svoboda in an interview:
"We entered this territory, the Russian authorities supported the (Separatists) terror. If we hadn't gone there, if Russia hadn't helped form the militia, there wouldn't have been thousands of people killed, and there wouldn't have been anything there at all. From the first moment, I understood that if someone can kill me here, it's not going to be the Armed Forces of Ukraine, not the enemy, but simply someone from our militia thats going to get drunk and shoot me dead.""
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| Raevsky in Odesa in March 2014, 4 weeks before the attack on pro-Ukraine protestors leading up to the fire at the Union House. |
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| The Black Hundreds march in Lugansk, hilariously calling Ukraine a country of "zhids" and Jew lovers controlled by American Zionists. They were responsible in buringing down synagogues in Donbas as well as vandalizing Jewish cemetaries |
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| The Black Hundreds of Odessa Brigade |
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| The Sorok Sorokov or the SS Guard of Kirill, an crew of Neo Nazis, Football Ultras, boxers who were recruited by the Kirill to be the face of the new Russian Orthodox Church and anti-Fascism. Many members, along with Neo Nazis from Black Hundreds, were in Odesa for the deadly fire on May 2nd 2014. Dozens took the train into Ukraine to fight on the side of the anti-Maidan after being recruited by Raevsky to attack Odesa residents in a provocation organized by the FSB. |
Donbandits
The new wave of political wannabees that started to appear in Donbas at the end of Maidan were less ideological and more criminal. A bunch of outsiders who proceeded to use violence as the primary means of solving political problems and eliminating their political opponents. In the first phase, marked by the armed seizure of several cities in the region from April12-20 2014, the initial pro-Russian fighters were comprised of several different groups. The main group was primarily made up of gangs of minor street thugs who hustled their way through the stratosphere of disaffected and disadvantaged young hoods known colloquially as "gopniki". These criminals had an interest not only in escaping prosecution by the Ukrainian authorities but also in displacing the old mafia bosses that dominated the region like billionaire Rinat Akhmetov and of course Viktor Yanukovych and his clan.
The economic and political elite who were closely associated with Akhmetov and who formed the core support for the Party of Regions, clearly did not want the Donbass region to be annexed to Russia, as it would undoubtedly have undesirable ramifications for them, including the redistribution of assets. The lower-level ranks of the criminal and semi-criminal world, on the other hand, from gang leaders through to the corrupt militia officials linked to them at the district (raion) level, had much to gain from a radical upheaval of this kind.
The example of Crimea was an influential model here. If a minor crime boss such as Sergei Aksenov a.k.a. “Goblin” could become Prime Minister of Crimea, then why shouldn’t Valery Bolotov, (a low level Party of Regions rep who ran illegal mining operations) try to become Prime Minister of the Luhansk People’s Republic? Why shouldn’t a minor official like Igor Bezler a.k.a. “Bes”, or “Demon”, a former GRU Lt. Colonel in Russia in the 90s, who fell on hard times due to alcholism and worked running a veterans cemetary in the municipal administration in Gorlovka, become boss of that city of 300,000? And why shouldn’t Aksenov’s old school Neo Nazi buddy, the former corrupt cop and failed entrepreneur Sergei Zdriliuk a.k.a. “Abver”, from the German Abwehr or “defense”, be put in charge of Kramatorsk, a city with a population of 150,000? There was also Vasily Nikitin, a failed entrepreneur and swindler con man who was named LNR “prime minister” from May 18th to July 7th 2014. Hilariously he was the first of four successive prime ministers in the space of just four and a half months. Igor Plotnitsky, the founder and commander of the Zaria battalion and who became the Minister of Defense and eventual head of the Luhansk People’s Republic, worked in the heavily criminalized fuel trade in the Russian city of Penza in the 1990s after completing specialist artillery training.
In Luhansk the lack of a single command was one of the main problems of the LPR. Some militia members were subordinated to LNR leader Valeriy Bolotov, while others were building cooperation directly with Donetsk commander Girkin. Admittedly, there were also positives for the insurgents in this division: Various groups began moving behind the Ukrainian lines, inflicting great damage on their troops. Confusion and lack of a communication led to countless friendly fire incidents. Including a situation when a whole regiment of separatists was taken prisoner after one detachment mistook them for Ukrainian spotters on top of a high rise hospital. The aftermath led to the shelling of the hospital grounds resulting in damage to infrastructure and civilian casualties. They took 15 prisoners, tortured them for 24 hours in a basement, only to realize their mistake afterward.
A Russian reporter witnessed the incident and while discussing the mixup, militia members admitted that prior to this they had repeatedly found themselves in confusing situations under fire from other detachments.
Bondo Dorovsky, a Russian volunteer in the Prizrak (Ghost) Battalion went public about what was really happening in Donbas was not what was being propagated in Russia "From the very beginning. Only after we crossed the border, the first thing we saw literally 5 minutes later was a fight between militiamen. Then the column came about two hours later, Deputy Brigadier Mozgovoi Nikolaych was walking with a pistol, he wanted to shoot the two drivers. I immediately understood where I was, it did not smell like an army. I was disappointed right away, and later it was only confirmed"
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| Russian volunteer Bondo Dorovsky (on the motorcycle) with the Russian Imperial Legion. Who ran an organization recruiting Russians to fight in Donbas in 2014. After returning to Russia he shut it down. Instead telling others "Dont come, you will end up in a gang. They are just scumbags with weapons" |
Some separatists linked the tense relations between the various detachments to the pre-war rivalry between Donetsk and Luhansk. Early on there was talk that the two regions might unite under Donetsk’s jurisdiction – however such an arrangement naturally did not suit the local political and financial elites linked to GRU siloviki. It was clear that the LDPR leadership were not prepared to transfer unlimited powers to Girkin in a war situation. But many fighters did see him specifically as the people’s leader.
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| Fominov and the Odessa militants, before the fires on May 2 |
The collapse of law and order in Donbas would, in itself, result in a power struggle between the Cossacks, Chechens, and Separatist leadership in DPR and LPR, on top of the feud in the Kremlin between GRU and FSB siloviki. Resulting in a civil war in Luhansk (2015-17) that crescendoed in an FSB-backed coup over the GRU-appointed leadership. In 2017 LPR head Igor Plotnitski would openly call out the Kremlin siloviki and FSB for the mushroom poisoning of his parents in Russia. Plotnitsky eventually was forced to resign on charges of corruption and alleged plotting with Ukrainians.
Ideological and financial issues were the main reasons behind the conflict between the central government of the LPR and the Cossacks – the Cossacks do not want to subordinate themselves to Plotnitsky because they would thus risk a reduction of their profits from the controlled territories. In effect, clashes between the groups controlled by Plotnitsky and the armed groups who are beyond his control are seen there on a regular basis. Some of their leaders had been executed. The government itself was unable to control the territory of the ‘republic’ since it did not have sufficient forces to fight all the Cossacks.
There was no real way of controlling the region or installing law and order, as numerous pockets, especially in LPR were controlled under warlord rule. Infighting between the Russian Nationalists, Neo Nazis, Cossacks, Chechens and DPR/LPR armies would spill over onto the streets of Donbas, resulting in waves of innocent casualties, (not to mention targeted assassinations).
Vostok
In April 2014 The early Separatist movement was controlled mainly by thugs, convicts, crime bosses, low-level officials and corrupted, even jailed politicians. All of whom were inspired by similar criminals who received powerful political positions in Crimea. Other rebel leaders included local and Russian former FSB and GRU officials. All of whom served in the Soviet/Russian army, and were part of organized veteran organizations that came over to Donbas in the past decade. This influx of corrupt leadership, rogue intelligence agents and overall criminality mixed with the emerging PMCs was a recipe for disaster, resulting in a violent struggle for power. Russian battalion "Vostok" led by disgraced ex SBU commander Alexander Khodakovsky, arrived in late May and was comprised mainly of 120 Chechen mercenaries known as Kadyrovsty and GRU Spetsnaz war veterans, but would eventually recruit untrained volunteers from local street gangs and Neo Nazi Ultra thugs. The only obvious difference was that Vostok was directly linked to the GRU and rolled in on 6 trucks and an APC into Donetsk in a parade style grand entrance with their own Russian State media team and production film crew, directing locals into the streets in a celebratory manner in order to propegate their arrival. Their first action was on May 23rd against the Ukrainian Donbas Battalion, followed up by the brutal beheading of a woman pensioner on May 26th, though the death was listed as a victim of Ukrainian shelling. According to locals, she was an election official accused of being a Kyiv saboteur that criticized the presence of Chechens in Donbas. Mass roundups of pro-Ukrainians and rival rebels resulted in several executions as Stalin Laws from 1941 were implemented by Vostok and DPR commanders. The Ukrainian Anti Terror Operation began almost immediatly after the Poroshenko administration took office. Resulting in the first large scale military action by the Ukrainian Government.
The Chechens would spend the next few years robbing, killing and stealing anything that wasnt nailed down. They would begin campaigns for recruitment which would include children as young as 14.The Chechens would be more than DPR bargained for, as Chechen criminality often spilled over in large confrontations over stolen property with other members and rival bandit battalions, leading to the shelling of cilivilian infrastructure.
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| The May 26th death of an female election official in Donetsk was blamed on Ukrainian shelling in the local and Russian media. However her throat was sliced from ear to ear, body was found in front of a grocery store, miles away from any range of Ukrainian artillery. No damage or explosion was reported, not even broken glass |
The majority of blood spilled would be squarely left at the feet of the Ukrainian authorities, Right Sector, and of course the newly formed Azov Brigade. Who were not innocent in their own regard by any small margin, and were involved in many isolated war crimes. However, any loss of life was used by Russian media to propagate Ukrainian incompetence and barbarism. Much of the lawless homicidal madness in the region in the first years of the conflict would be easily dismissed as Ukrainian Nazis and Bandera Death squads, giving these units of criminals a free ticket to rape and pillage anyone that did not agree with the rebels hard line pro Kremlin stance and Anti-Ukrainian propaganda, allowing the systematic abuse of authority without consequence. Up until the eventual arrests and liquidation of the commanders.
Eventually many of the smaller Nationalist and right-wing units would be disbanded or absorbed into the DPR army, even more returning back to Russia or joining up with Wagner PMC. The eventual stabilization of the quasi States of Donetsk and Lugansk would eliminate the need for these roaming militias. The army, which was briefly led by the former FSB colonel and GRU operative Igor Girkin and his 50 man battalion, who came over from the Crimea operation, including groups of GRU spetsnaz and Cossacks, bringing forth his (but really Vladislav Surkovs) vision of 'Novorossiya', with the ability to smuggle enough weapons and logistical support to mobilize an actual army. Russia would create a big enough divide between the Donbas society that they helped fracture by using traditional KGB hybrid warfare. Besides Girkin, there were a number of other questionable figures and war criminals that came to prominence, such as the long-time president of DNR Aleksandr Zakharchenko, Alexander Matyushin (Varyag), Aleksey Mozgovoy, (leader of the Prizrak (Ghost) brigade), Khodakovskiy (leader of the Vostok battalion), Mikhail Tolstykh (aka Givi, commander of the Somali battalion) a maniacal torturer who loved filming executions and fake or staged incidents for FSB State media, the madman Arseniy Pavlov (call name Motorola) leading the Neo-Nazi Sparta battalion, GRU colonel Igor Bezler and Aleksandr Borodai who became the first president of DNR and forced to resigned in 2014. There were also a number of persons taking political positions such as Denis Pushilin, Igor Plotinskiy, and others, working more in the role of political technocrats.
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| Alexander Matyushin and his Varyrag Battalion. Matyushin would be one of the founders of "Donetsk Republic" back when he was training with Dugins EYU in 2005 |
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| One of the heads of DPR militias Alexander Matyushin and the flag of Russki Obraz |
By the beginning of 2015, a Kremlin-loyal leadership had been installed. Girkin was dismissed in August 2014 due to the shooting of Malaysia Air, Gubarev was denied candidacy for parliamentary elections, and Mozgovoy was killed in an ambush in May 2015.
The following years would eventually liquidate several more high-ranking commanders and leaders of the Novorossiya so-called "Separatists".
Oleksandr Bednov, head of Luhansk rapid reaction force aka Batman, shot dead with bodyguards.
Yevgeny Ishchenko, the so-called commander and "people's mayor" of Pervomaisk, known for being at odds with "LPR" and "DPR" leaders, was shot down along with three volunteers from Russia who supplied militants with humanitarian aid.
Pavel "Batya" Dremov, another Cossack commander who repeatedly criticized Plotnitsky was killed by a car bomb, in a very nefarious way. Dremov, who was returning from his wedding in St Petersburg, was blown up, along with his young wife in their wedding gift, a Range Rover, gifted by his his deputy "Borchev".
Nikolay Minin, Dremov's close associate, was killed in occupied Luhansk. According to one version, Minin was murdered for organizing an assassination attempt on "LPR" leader Ihor Plotnitsky. As reported, the militant was killed right in his bed, his head cut off.
Motorola, killed by a bomb blast inside his apartment complex while riding the elevator in Oct of 2016. Russian media would release a video allegedly from the Misanthropic Division linked to Azov Movement, taking credit for the assassination. But the video, which magically appeared in the hands of Russian State media propagandists, was full of Nazi imagery and "Heil Hitler" salutes, a comical attempt by the FSB to blame Ukrainian "fascists" for the explosion. The logistics, timing and professionalism of the killing could only be done by somebody familiar with Motorola's movements and knowledge of his security detail.
Evgeny Zhilin, the Oplot militant group leader, was shot down by a killer at a suburban Moscow restaurant.
Oleg Anashenko, the self-proclaimed Defense Minister of LNR would be killed in a car explosion in Feb 2017.
Givi, would be killed 4 days later when a rocket blasted through his offices. On top of the poisoning of ex-LNR leader Valeri Bolotov a month earlier in Moscow, it would conclude one of the bloodiest periods in Eastern Ukraine since the freezing of the conflict in 2015. 2017 would expose the 2 years of instability, embezzlement and corruption leading to a power struggle between GRU and FSB, resulting in the FSB backed coup in Luhansk that forced the resignation of Igor Plotnitski (head of Luhansk government) which followed the arrest of 27 of his prosecutors and officials, avoiding a full out civil war in the region. Gennady Tsypkalov, Plotniski's own deputy/advisor, who was detained a month prior, charged for plotting a coup, was found dead, hanged in his cell. Ironically, the year before in August 2016, Plotnitski would survive an assassination attempt on his vehicle and both of his parents would be killed in Moscow a month later, reportedly of mushroom poisoning.
Siege Of Troy
The most stunning liquidation was not of a single corrupt commander or rogue bandit, but that of a whole Battalion that would accuse DPR officials of widespread corruption, theft and murder, while DPR would call the Battalion a unit of drug addicted, drug selling rapists and murderers, responsible for torture and weapons smuggling. This event pretty much sums up the level of lies, criminality and overt lawlessness that was Russian occupied Donbas, and proves that nothing that came out of the mouths of DPR officials or Russian State media can be believed.
In December of 2015 The DPR army led by Neo-Nazi leader A. Zakharchenko along with tank and artillery support from the Oplot Detachment began a bloody month-long siege on the compound of Troy Battalionin in Horlivka, liquidating the whole battalion with an unknown number of casualties, rumors ranged from 8 to 93.. But the main question was why?
The fighters of the special purpose company “Troy” according to their command, participated in the battles for Saur-Mogila, Ilovaisk, Horlivka, Zuevka and Debaltseve. The wife of Troy commander Vladimir Novikov (call sign Alabai), Tatyana Mosaeva, clarifies that many fighters from the reconnaissance company began their combat career in Slavyansk and consisted of 100-150 volunteers from Russia and Ukraine. Commander Novikov (Alabai), a shady criminal and convict, who was overseeing the unit while living in Moscow , was accused of setting up his own unit after internal conflicts arose. Telling his people to lock themselves up and not cooperate with the DPR investigation into the units dealings, afraid that too much information about what happening under his watch would come out and become the property of the iinvestigators. Meanwhile, Alabai himself, with insults and false accusations, provoked the command of the DPR 3rd SME and 1st BTR to storm his accomplices, so that there is no one left alive to tell the world about the real “exploits” of the Troy organized crime group and its role in this process,”
The Troy detachment made headlines in Russia for guarding Russian singer Joseph Kobzon in December 2015 during his visit to Donbass. Troy commander Vladimir “Alabai” Novikov previously said in an interview with reporters that Ukraine had prepared five sabotage and reconnaissance groups for Kobzon’s arrival,
According to DPR: they intervened after learning that the ruthless gang, being in a state of drug intoxication, killed their fighter with the call sign “Zuy” with several shots in the back of the head. They claimed clouds had been gathering over this group for a long time. That they were fake Spetsnaz and that in total, the law enforcement agencies of both republics have collected more than 120 statements regarding the facts of “spin-ups,” racketeering and murders of civilians and military personnel on the territory of Donbas; the investigation is aware of more than 500 episodes of criminal offenses. Other claims that they murdered several locals and accused of rape, were always on meth & drunk on Vodka.
According to Troy they were gathering evidence against the DPR officials and were stormed because they knew too much about the criminals and fraudsters in the government. They claimed the commander of Oplot, Ostap Cherny, together with his unit were involved in the distribution of drugs in the DPR and LPR and involved in human and arms trafficking, not to mention mass extortion of civilians as well as robbing the Privitbank in Lugansk in 2014.
At the end of the nearly month-long standoff, the DPR & Russian State media chalked it up to a simple misunderstanding and stated there was 28 people inside the home and that only 2 of their unit were killed, including a commander. There was no info given on how many were actually in the compound or how many were killed, or what happened to the ones who were arrested. The Battalion was "officially disbanded in 2016,with Russian media burying the whole story until hilariously, like a cockroach, their shady commander "Alibae" surfaced back in DPR in 2022, recruiting volunteers in relaunching the nefarious Troy Battalion.
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| The heroes? villains? of Troy Battalion |
The Kremlin began becoming increasingly concerned that DPR leaders were continuing to operate under their own recognizance. Especially Surkov, who was intent on removing the Russian Nationalists and far-right and replace them with local power-brokers in order to transform the insurrection into a more classic frozen secessionist conflict under Moscow’s stranglehold. Some, would openly defy the Minsk agreements altogether like founder of Donetsk Republic and early Separatist leaders Andrei Purgin, who would be arrested and tortured by GRU/Wagner inside Donetsk after Surkov instructed to remove Purgin from his position as Chairman of the Peoples Council of DPR. They would torture him and his family for 4 days. However upon his release, he dismissed it as just a minor internal disagreement, replaced by his Deputy Denis Pushilin. Other leaders like the highly popular Alexander Zakharchenko, Head of the so-called ‘Donetsk people’s republic’, banned OSCE from monitoring DPRs offensive in Debaltsve during the ceasefire. However his comments admitting the shelling of civilians, blaming Ukraine, claiming it was his land to destroy, made Putin more and more paranoid about having a chance commanders like him would be captured alive to face an international Criminal Court. Edward Basurin, a loudmouth militant commander, told Reuters: "Of course we can open fire. It’s our territory. The territory is internal: ours. And internal is internal”. Judging by the number of leading militants who have been killed or died in unexplained circumstances in Donbas or Russia, Putin was well aware of the importance of such testimonies. Zakharchenko was assassinated, killed in a bomb blast in a coffee shop in Donetsk in Sept of 2018.
The Russian media would continue to blame Ukrainian collaborators and "Nazis" for the violent bloodshed and corruption. Strengthening the Azov Movement retaliation narrative, even going as far as staging interviews with "independent" Western journalists. However, sources within Russian intelligence and former Luhansk officials would confirm that some assassinations were carried out covertly by Wagner Group under the direction of the GRU. By years end of 2017 GRU and Wagner would accelerate their pullout from Luhansk and the Donbas conflict in order to concentrate on the developments in Syria.
In 2018 Surkov and the GRU were in favour of reintegrating Donbas back within the Ukrainian territory but the region would be granted a great deal of autonomy; moreover, it would remain under Russia’s influence to be able to control the Ukrainian politics from the inside. Such a choice was motivated both by political and economic reasons; it would of been a step towards removing Western sanctions while Moscow’s financial help was becoming more and more costly. However, the siloviki and the FSB felt that too much was invested to give back territory just to start another hybrid war.
The exodus of GRU linked PMCs concluded the turbulent chapter of Separatist militia groups operating freely in the region, as majority of the militias would now be fully integrated within local militaries. If only the confused Western media wouldn't have fallen victim to the early Russian disinformation used to discredit Ukrainian sovereignty and actually researched the conflict or spoken to international experts on the far right, they would have come to the obvious conclusion that, as a whole, battalions and members of far-right and Neo Nazis played a much greater role on the Russian side of the conflict than on the Ukrainian side, especially at the beginning. To somehow claim that Ukraine had any separatist movement before Maidan is simply a lie, the movement was created and cultivated by Muscovites, not pro-Russian Ukrainians, but Russians. According to open sources, it is estimated that in total nearly 15k ethnic Russians were at one point or another fighting as supposed “Ukrainian” Separatists. But the global media was in mass hypnosis that surrounded Azov and Ukraine
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| Many fascists were involved in setting up the DPR/LPR, such as Pavel Gubarev, the self-proclaimed first ‘People’s Governor of Donetsk’. His press secretary, Aleksander Kriakov, was described by Donetsk city Chief Rabbi Pinchas Vishedski as “the most famous anti-Semite in the region.” |
Though technically they were not separatists or Russian Nationalists fighting for an ideology, The Wagner Group PMC wound up evolving into a valuable part of the Russian military in East Ukraine and Crimea, especially early on.
Wagner still avoids talking about their involvement in Crimea and Donbas publicly, however, it was confirmed that they were pieced together from PMCs (technically called private security companies) already working directly for Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu at his EMERCON training facility. EMERCON a Russian government agency that oversees the country’s emergency services and is the agency in charge of actually planning the missions for private military groups. It was very specific in contracting personnel. The first private contractors with EMERCON, like Moran Group and Antiterror Orel (a precursor to Wagner) only hired elite combat veterans, a standard that was concrete upon vetting personnel. Unlike Wagner; PMCs such as Orel, Tigr Top Rent Sec and Moran gained international notoriety as respected private security companies, even used for the personal security of Western celebrities, athletes, politicians, and many other high-profile contracts in the Middle East and Africa. Orel even recruited members of some of the world's most elite military units, which included ex-military from the US, England, France, South Africa, Belgium, Serbia, Italy etc etc, the Wagner model of PMC evolved due to the need for shock troops and plausible deniability in Ukraine.
Antiterror Orel and Wagners' history can be traced directly to the Cossack volunteers of old, who even policed the streets of lawless Russia after the fall of Communism in 1991. However their origins come from the networks of strategic state enterprises and the Siloviki private security agencies. Antiterror Orel initially began as a confederation of former and reserve Spetsnaz, with the original investors traced to shell companies of 5 stakeholders in Orel Airborn Forces and the All-Union-Special Forces-Association of Paratroopers founders Igor Iliyin, Oleg Maslov, Alexander Filipinkov, Pavel Ovsyannikov, and Director Sergey Epishkin. The veterans' organization linked to Antiterror Orel served as a nexus for several siloviki private security enterprises, several of which were, at one time or another, registered under Epishkin’s name and appear to reference a connection to FSB Alpha and other Spetsnaz units, according to Russian company registry information.
An archived version of the group’s website indicates that about half of the individuals affiliated with Antiterror Orel confederation of PMSCs at one time served in the Airborne Troops (VDV), special operations forces of the 7th Squad of Special Forces (“ROSICH”) and the 1st Special Purpose Unit of the Internal Forces or MVD (“Vityaz”). Another smaller slice of the group consisted of GRU veterans, Vympel, Alpha and Russian navy marines.
Post 9-11, Orel detachments found themselves protecting Russian interests in Iraq not to mention working FSB assets and establishing GRU connections to establish a footprint in what was an open playing field for anti-US clandestine activity. Overtly, Antiterror-Redut and TigrTop Rent worked as private security and roaming assassins for hire. Unlike American PMC Blackwater, Orel was never registered as a PMC, but as separate individuals working as private security, as well as “peacekeeping” local conflict missions that also did stints in Afghanistan from 2004-06. Because they were only registered as individual private security and not as a whole unit or company, there was no oversight or accountability of their actions and war crimes. They were involved in waves of executions, strong-armed robberies, racketeering, taking full advantage of the lawlessness in-country. Antiterror Redut and TigrTop Rent would later serve in Ukraine under the banner of Slavonic Corps and their members would eventually make up the core of Wagner (OSM), which was owned by parent company Moran Group.
After successful Orel deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, Orel would branch off in 2008 as a new "humanitarian" corporation called RusCorp and began winning demining contracts by low-bidding rival companies. A year later Putin signed a joint pipeline agreement with then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, originating in the Black Sea town of Sochi in 2009, only a few months after a Kremlin-connected firm called Emercom Demining won a major contract to demine a substantial portion of the South Stream pipeline pathway in eastern Europe. EMERCON would later be issued a demining contract in Serbia in 2009, the connections Antiterror Orel Group made in Serbia would open up a new wave of Balkan-based recruitment. Opening training centers that would deploy dozens of Serbian war criminals into Eastern Ukraine, disguised as Ukrainian Separatists. Many would join battalion tactical groups such as Batman, 1st Slavyansk and international brigades. These hardened war criminals and maniacs would later engage in some of the most intense fighting in Donbas.
In 2010 talks about integrating PMCs under Russias armed forces was first proposed by then chief-of General Staff; Army General Nikolai Makarov, who felt that using PMCs for sensitive ops for 'delicate missions' could give the regular Army and security services, the deniability they were looking for, avoiding any beurocracy or oversight for such sensitive things as public assassinations and illegal invasions.
The idea of a secret army operated by the private sector was initiated by the infamous South African Elden Barlow, owner of controversial PMC Executive Outcomes, who in a closed to door top secret meeting with a delegation of the army General Staff and siloviki of the GRU, provided a step by step guide on how to gain influence power without the worry of small formalities such as legalities. Barlow was a former lieutenant general in the South African security forces and founder of the world's first legal private army. In the late 1980s, from the beginning of the fall of the apartheid regime, after which Nelson Mandela dispersed most of the military in the country, he created the Executive Outcomes company, which kept the entire continent in suspense for the next 15 years. Cleanups of militants in Angola and Sierra Leone, suppression of coups d'etat, several civil wars, a head office in London and the provision of expensive services for the protection of valuable cargo and objects to Western corporations - films were made about this African PMC, journalists from the world's largest TV channels were brought to its military bases, and Barlow himself wrote several books.
The creation of a Special Operations Force (SOF) or 'private army' was initiated around 2012 with the emergence of Slavonic Corps Limited, which was considerably different than the PMCs prior, which were used in smaller limited roles and non-combat operations. Making it traditionally different than Western PMCs at the time.
The annexation of Crimea would be a perfect trial run for the private army of the SOF, succesfully executing a Kremlin operation to take Crimea that was first devised in 2008 during the first Yanukovych administration. Crimea was a perfect blend of Hybrid Warfare, where Maskirovka would be the strategy. The SOF/Slavonic Corp renamed briefly as OSM (dubbed the Little Green Men) performed their duties perfectly and the propaganda and Psyops of GRU would take control of the peninsula, without much pushback from the depleted and weak Ukrainian Army, which was rotted with corruption and Russian collaborators. The whole operation was executed with the financing of Konstatin Malofeev and direction of Igor Girkin, under the blanket of the Orthodox Church.
Donbas in April of 2014 would become the proving ground for Russian PMCs. PMC MAR and ENOT Corp were the first contractors on the ground. GRU would begin operations around May, taking 2 company tactical groups from their Rostov-on-Don region. The 2 groups or 'cores' were known under their nicknames; "Luna" and "Step". Deployed in Lugansk, the GRU would link with Slavonic Corp members and eventually, Ukrainian 'Karpaty' battalion and the Neo Nazi Rusich battalion would fall in, ballooning their members from 250 initially, to having as much as 5000 members by 2015 years end. They would bring on the now infamous Hitler loving Dmitry Utkin from Moran Group. Utkin would serve as the unit commander under the direction of GRU Colonel Oleg Ivannikov, as well as to Major General Evgeny Nikiforov, chief of staff of Russia’s 58th Army. Utkin would nickname the group Wagner (OSM was the name used first in press reports), a nod to Utkin's call sign and of course Hitler's favorite composer. Though they would operate primarily in GRU controlled Luhansk (FSB would operate in Donetsk), they would fully transfer to their new base of operations inside Syria by 2017. Luhansk and the Donbas would provide Wagner with a huge palete to conduct their Hybrid warfare tactics against a much weaker and untrained force. They would destabilze the situation in 2014, helping slip from political confrontation to a phase of direct violence and hostilities, taking direction from the ascendency of Igor Girkins model in Donetsk.
In October 2017, the Ukrainian SBU claimed it had established the involvement of the Wagner Group in the June 2014 airplane shoot-down at Luhansk International Airport that killed 40 Ukrainian paratroopers, as well as a crew of nine. According to the SBU, Wagner PMCs were initially deployed to eastern Ukraine on 21 May 2014. By late November 2017, the Ukrainian SBU published alleged direct links between Dmitry Utkin and Igor Kornet, the interior minister of the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR). Apparently, Wagner left Ukraine and returned to Russia in autumn of 2015, with the start of the Russian military intervention in Syria. Finally, in late November 2017, with the eruptions of a power struggle in the LPR in Eastern Ukraine between LPR President Igor Plotnitsky and the LPR’s interior minister, Igor Kornet, who Plotnitsky wanted to dismiss. During the struggle, armed men took up positions in Luhansk who allegedly belonged to Wagner. The power struggle was resolved when Plotnitsky resigned and fled to Russia and LPR security minister Leonid Pasechnik was named acting leader. At the time, veteran Russian officer Igor Strelkov who had played a key role in the annexation of Crimea, confirmed that Wagner PMCs had returned to Luhansk.
Regular separatist formations were reinforced with so-called volunteers and supported by Russian military advisors, often with Spetznaz operators or GRU operatives attached, especially for the conduct of reconnaissance and sabotage missions. Given the close links to the GRU It is no accident Wagner and other Kremlin-backed separatists have been using Soviet era legacy equipment with original Russian army unit-markings painted over and often replaced with a white open square. Investigative journalism websites like Bellingcat and Inform Napalm attained considerable success in identifying Russian military hardware and personnel covertly being deployed into Eastern Ukraine and yet groups like Wagner make it very difficult to pin it on the GRU and the Kremlin. Russia has sought to use older vehicles of Ukrainian origin in an effort to conceal its material support including the deployment of Soviet era T64 tanks, which were also in service with the Ukrainian army adding to the layers of deniability.
In the context of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Wagner units were identified in eastern Ukraine, operating in conjunction with regular Russian army formations. The Times reported that the Wagner Group flew in more than 400 contractors from the Central African Republic in January 2022 on a mission to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and members of his government. The objective of this assassination was to prepare the ground for Russia to take control of Ukraine. The war finally started on 24 February 2022. The Ukrainian government was informed of this assassination attempt early on 26 February, and declared a 36-hour curfew to sweep the capital for Russian saboteurs. By 3 March 2022, Zelenskyy had survived three assassination attempts, two allegedly by the Wagner Group.
Concord Management
From October 2015 and at least to 2018, Wagner fought on the side of the Russian military and the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. The total number of the Wagner militants in Syria was estimated at 400 people. The group suffered heavy losses during that war. In particular, it lost many of its militants to mortar shelling of the Russian Armed Forces base in October 2015 and the battles for the city of Palmyra in 2016 and 2017. In the first six months, the group lost at least 32 people killed and 80 seriously wounded. During the new series of battles for Palmyra in 2017, at least 9 mercenaries were killed. The total losses of Russian mercenaries during U.S. Air Force air raids in the province of Deir ez-Zor in just one day on February 7, 2018, are estimated at 200 people.
In 2017-2019, the PMC fighters fought in Sudan on the side of the country's dictator Omar Bashir, overthrown in 2019. In March 2019, it became known that at least 300 Wagner mercenaries were present in Libya, where it supports Benghazi-based Libyan National Army General Khalifa Haftar. According to British intelligence, the PMC operates together with the units of the regular Russian Armed Forces.
Wagner fighters were also present in other African countries and got involved in a series of criminal incidents and international scandals. So, in January 2019, it turned out that they were involved in the murder of three Russian journalists in the Central African Republic who investigated their activities in this country. A month later, American General Thomas Waldhauser told the US Congress that Russia still holds about 500 military personnel in the Central African Republic, with 175 of them belonging to the Wagner PMC. The main interest of armed Russians in the Central African Republic is exactly the same as in Libya: easy access to and control over local natural resources.
Many of the Wagner fighters received Russian orders and medals even though their activity is illegal by Russian law.
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| Dmitry Utkin |
Accused of:
1) Of being the commander of an illegal armed formation, conducting military activities outside the Russian Federation, which is a crime under Article 359 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, “Mercenary.”
2) Murders and war crimes in the territory of foreign states (Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, Libya, and the Central African Republic).
3) Organizing the murder of three Russian journalists in the Central African Republic sent to this country by the Investigation Management Center of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
4) Commanding one of the units of GRU (the special forces of this highly classified department are carrying out subversive work or secret military activities against foreign states).
5) Putting pressure on witnesses to his criminal activities in the PMC, critics of his activities and threats of reprisals against them.
In November 2017, Dmitry Utkin became CEO of Concord Management and Consulting, the management company of the “father of the Kremlin Internet trolls” Evgeny Prigozhin. However, it's not clear if Utkin has retired as the formal or informal head of the mercenary group.
Prigozhin would provide some smoke and mirrors to the organization in September 2022, openly admitting that he founded the paramilitary group. However Prigozhin took control of Wagner as an independent entity in 2014 under his Concord LLC conglomerate. The idea to make the St. Petersburg restaurateur Yevgeny Prigozhin responsible for financial and economic issues was born in the General Staff years earlier. Due to his close connections through his catering business, he was privy to intimite business dealings of Putin and was known to be a reliable, tight lipped buisness man, who not only built his catering business from the ground up, but was known for his extreme loyalty. "He knew how to keep his mouth shut, and had sixth sense for hiring devoted employees and vetting undesireables." a source told RPB "becuase, you can accidentally hear something you shouldnt have"
Being a friend of Putins for 25 years, he sat through & catered events that included even American big names like George & Laura Bush, Colin Powell, Condelezza Rice. In 2005, the restaurateur had the largest catering company in Russia, who had catering contracts to all major government events, including serving all the G8s. In 2004, his company even served a banquet in honor of Silvio Berlusconi in Novo-Ogaryovo. According to the restaurateur himself, in order to solve his problems, he could literally get to the president “through two handshakes” according to Alexander Beglov, who knew Putin from St. Petersburg in the early 1990s. State funds intended for the military were often funnelled through Prighozin's Concord. His forte was staffing & logistics but ranged from anything to do with food contracts, construction, waste supply, uniforms, half of anything to do with military logistics was funneled through Prighozin;s corporate corruption hustle. It was just a matter of time that the corruption would evolve into a PMC, where he would get a piece of anything the military looted.
Payments from Syria's state-owned General Petroleum Group to Prighozin in the form of oil and gas contracts were uncovered, giving Prighozin 25% of all profits from the regions Wagner liberated from ISIS. The GRU siloviki apparently have given him similar deals in Ukraine in 2022. With rumors of 50/50 partnerships in future energy and mining contracts in Donbas. The GRU would use Prigozhin as their front man, making Prigozhin the de facto owner of Wagner and Projekt Lahkta's Internet Research Agency/GLAVSET in 2014, the same time as the Maidan Revolution and to coincide with their Ukraine Neo Nazis propaganda operation. IRA would work simultaneously with their counterpart: The Kharkiv News Agency (NAH), who would leak fake stories about the Anti Terrorist Operation being a Nazi run operation to start a genocide against Russian speakers. Prigozhin would serve as the perfect proxy for Putin and the GRU. A perfect blend of deniability and Flexibility. Putin would even hilariously use Prigozhin as a scare tactic to propagate to Western media as an option as President and rumors of coups. Only for the illusion that any removal of Putin from power would result in a scenario much scarier than the current status quo.
With the success of Wagner as a PMC as well as political buffer, expect Russian PMCs to make more of an impact in future conflicts, such as Serbia, which has seen an influx of Russian PMC on the ground in late 2022. The more disciplined and polished Patriot PMC, which is now considered GRUs new pet PMC project, is currently on the ground in Syria and rumored tp be launching operations in Serbia as well. It is considered a more evolved, disciplined version of Wagner, manned by actual current and former FSB and GRU elite. With Wagners reputation now marred with criminality and cannon fodder, Patriot will likely take the role of what Wagner used to be
NEXT on OPERATION: NOVOROSSIYA Part3 They Grey Cardinal (Vladislav Surkov) and GRU unit 54777
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| The new flag Of Novorossiya or what is supposed to replace Ukraine |
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| The map of the 2014 vision of Novorossiya, strikingly similar to the battle lines currently in 2022 |
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| The 17th century map of Novorossiya, as you can see Putin had a plan in mind when drawing up the new and current boundry lines |
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| Rusich group, the handsome devil on the left is international war criminal Jan Petrovsky from Norway, who is now commanding the unit after the injury to Aleksei Milchakov, |
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Alexander Barkashov |
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| National Bolshevik Skinheads |
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| Other Russia with brand new Novorossiya propaganda printed in Moscow |
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| The New National Bolsheviks Neo Nazi Communist logo |
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| DPNI and National Bolsheviks |
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| Terek Wolves Neo Nazi Cossacks |
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| Prizrak or "Ghost" Battalion |
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