by Stefano Caprio

The ideal of the “universal reunion of peoples” under Moscow's leadership is now giving way to the pursuit of the purity of the Russkaya Obshchina, the "Russian community" that excludes all others from its proud universal solitude. So far his year, 276 attacks motivated by ethnic hatred have been reported in Russia, with seven people losing their life.

While the drama of “peace negotiations” between Putin's increasingly aggressive Russia and Zelensky's increasingly disintegrating Ukraine wearily drags on, with mediators Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev taking a friendly stroll across Red Square, Russia is caught up in an increasingly radical nationalist and ultraconservative drift, which seems alien to the imperial ideology of Russkij Mir (русский мир), the Russian World, the ideal of the "universal reunion of peoples" under Moscow's leadership.

Now, the prevailing trend is the pursuit of the purity of the Russkaya Obshchina (Русская община), the "Russian community", one that excludes all other peoples from its proud universal solitude.

Russian nationalists are called “ultras”, often groups of “migrant hunters”, hard to distinguish from similar movements in the regions they target, such as the Caucasians, themselves super-nationalists, followers of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov or other North Caucasus leaders, who align themselves with the "Russian Community" in defending the “nation”.

As Stephania Kulaeva, Memorial's expert on racial discrimination, said on Grani Vremeni (Грани Времени), “Edges of Time,” a Radio Svoboda programme, until a few years ago, Russian authorities sought to stamp out these groups through tough repressive measures; now she wonders “what purpose do ultranationalists serve to the Kremlin's policy today?"

Nationalist groups are multiplying in Russia today, from Severny Chelovek (Северный Человек) or Northern Man, and Rusich (Русич) or Man of Rus’ to Russkaya Obshchina and dozens of other local groups with a similar orientation.

On the eve of the National Unity Day celebrations on 4 November, their representatives marched in Lyubertsy, a city in Moscow Oblast, wearing black masks, carrying Nazi symbols, and  banners hailing “national purity”. They were surrounded by police who refused to intervene.

Today's ultras support the war in Ukraine, carry out various actions against abortions, terrorise immigrants, persecute LGBT activists, and their "traditional values" practically coincide with those officially propagated by the Kremlin.

In the 2000s, far-right movements were suppressed and crushed after the first "Russian marches" drew tens of thousands of people in the streets of Moscow and St Petersburg.

The first leaders were arrested and charged with various crimes, such as Alexander Potkin, the founder of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration, along with his associate Dmitry Demushkin, found guilty of "creating an extremist association," which was banned and dissolved in 2011. Another leader of this movement, Maxim Martsinkevich, convicted of extremism, was found dead in his solitary confinement cell after an interrogation.

Today, however, the authorities are striking deals with nationalists on various issues, both at the regional and federal levels, highlighting Russia's increasingly isolationist drift after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, despite imperial proclamations of ecumenical sobornost (соборность) or spiritual community.

The rhetoric on immigration is increasingly turning to hostility and the marginalisation of foreigners, especially those from Central Asia, the former Soviet "backyard" that is increasingly distrusted by Russians.

Putin recently approved a new state migration policy concept, which clearly demonstrates Russia's unwillingness to adapt and integrate migrant flows to solve its ongoing demographic crisis. Instead, the "natural growth of the Russian population" is extolled with every form of birth incentive, including state subsidies to teenage girls who agree to become pregnant out of patriotic duty.

Migration is increasingly based on rejecting the principle of family reunification, so that wives and children are excluded, denied healthcare, barred from Russian schools, and preferably sent back home.

As experts, including government officials, have quietly pointed out, this approach runs against Russia's demographic and economic needs. Instead, nationalist propaganda is trying to work up young people especially, who engage in brawls with migrants' children, posting the images on Telegram channels.

This spiral of violence is closely linked to the need to mobilise the population for war; the Russkaya Obshchina does not just express xenophobia or Islamophobia, it seeks to extol the “foundations of Russianness”, and in doing so, it supports the Kremlin's motivations for the “liquidation of Ukraine”, the goal not only in the war in the Donbass, but also in the radical opposition to any limitation on Russianness.

Without war, frustrations could easily dissolve, and right-wing extremists could become dangerous and uncontrolled, and in any case unnecessary to state policy. This is one of the reasons why the Kremlin has no intention of reaching any peace deal.

In recent days, the "All-Russian Ideological Forum" was held in Moscow, whose central theme was "restoring the Russian World to God" and the proclamation of the Russian Empire, according to the intentions of its organisers, Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeev and philosopher Alexander Dugin.

In their view, the image of the Russia of the future is inextricably linked to the "Trinitarian Russian nation," in the sense of the union of Great Russia with White Russia and Little Russia, as Belarus and Ukraine are known.

According to their proclamations, "to form a nation, we must find a common idea that meets the demands of social justice," and this is precisely the “Russian idea”, and the ideologists promise that it “has nothing in common with Nazism”.

A scandal broke out after the well-known actor Sergei Bezrukov grotesquely imitated an Uzbek accent while describing a recent visit to Tashkent.

A group of neo-Nazis from St Petersburg gathered at the Mariinsky Theatre, somewhat grotesque characters, according to various commentators, under the banner of the Rodina (родина) or Homeland Party, with nostalgic tones reminiscent of Soviet times and the international communist network.

Russian nationalists try to attract people from the most extreme and marginalised groups, talking about the “restoration of the original Holy Rus'”, the topic of Dugin's lectures at the School of Patriotism, at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, which until the war was renowned for its ability to engage with universities around the world.

In November alone, 28 people were reportedly victim of anti-foreigner hatred, often confirmed by videos posted on Telegram channels by the attackers themselves, as was the case during the patriotic holiday of 4 November.

"Marches against the occupiers of Russian land" have increased, with the emergence of a new movement, the “National Socialist Organisation for the Liberation of White Europe”.

Since the start of 2025, 276 attacks motivated by ethnic hatred have been reported in Russia, with seven people killed. However, many more acts of xenophobic vandalism go unreported by law enforcement.

In the city of Vyatka, nationalists took pictures of themselves holding the imperial flag while marching through the streets. In Perm, signs reading "Enough Tolerance" were displayed. In Nizhny Novgorod, flowers were laid in the city's central park at the memorial for those fallen in Afghanistan and the civil war in Chechnya.

Members of the Russkaya Obshchina have participated in religious processions in numerous cities, from Vladivostok and Orel to Yekaterinburg, Ussuriysk, and Kaluga. Other rallies were held during the "patriotic month" in museums, cinemas, and concerts, and numerous "vigilant rallies" were held in cities against Central Asian migrants, in city ghettos where "masses of illegal immigrants of other cultures live," as the Russian Community put it in a statement.

Xenophobia is widespread in many countries, including Europe and Trump's America, and could be one of the main consequences of the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, increasingly fuelled by nationalist, sovereigntist, imperialist ideologies, or whatever ideological form of artificial traditionalism is fashionable today, with Russia undoubtedly as one of the countries from which to draw inspiration.

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• russia
• moscow
• nationalism
• xenophobia
• imperialism
• racism