A group of uniformed men, at least one of them masked, walk up to a pair of watermelon sellers in a street on the outskirts of the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. The men are dressed in black, wearing tactical vests with patches bearing the emblem of a bogatyr – a mythic warrior of Slavic folklore – riding on horseback.They inform the traders, who they believe to be foreigners, that they are trading without a permit, and the black-clad men help load their goods into a van to be confiscated by the authorities.
But these men-in-black have no official position in law enforcement.
A video of this operation was uploaded online on Monday morning by the Russian Community, or Russkaya Obshchina (RO), who boasted of shutting down an “oriental bazaar”.
Since the invasion of Ukraine, the RO has become the largest and most influential ultranationalist organisation in Russia, with 1.2 million subscribers to its official YouTube page and more than 660,000 readers on its main Telegram channel, as well as its own app, and enjoys support from powerful allies within the clergy and security services.
“This is a classic movement of Russian ethnic nationalists,” says Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the SOVA Centre, which monitors hate movements in Russia.
“There used to be …
