Neo-Nazi street attacks are making a comeback in Russia. Experts link it to 2000s nostalgia, Internet clout culture, and the war.

A dark trend has returned to Russia: far-right nationalists sharing videos of brutal attacks on ethnic minorities and other “outsiders.” Each month, at least about 100 new clips of violence against migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia, LGBTQ+ people, and homeless people appear online. According to experts interviewed by the RFE/RL project Kavkaz.Realii, this revival of neo-Nazi and skinhead culture goes hand in hand with the Russian authorities’ ubiquitous wartime propaganda. Meduza shares an abridged translation of the outlet’s reporting.

This description is from a post by the Telegram channel Nazi Video Monitoring Project, which tracks online clips of racist violence in Russia. The post is referring to a video published on November 26 that shows an attack that presumably took place in St. Petersburg. The monitoring channel doesn’t share the video itself, but it does post screenshots showing a man being beaten in the snow.

“If you know the identity of the attackers or the victim, recognize the location of the crime, or have any other information about this incident, please let us know,” the channel wrote.

“I’m a neurosurgeon from India living in St. Petersburg,” reads another post. “As I was walking from the metro to my stop, some man with a completely covered face and a large shovel hit me from behind. The young man, about 22–23, started screaming ‘Russia is for whites, there’s no place for a brown person like you here,’ and began chasing me with the shovel. It was in a crowded area.” Journalists from the outlet Fontanka confirmed that the man really is a neurosurgeon from India.

Attacks like these have happened all over Russia, including in the Moscow, Ryazan, Novosibirsk, and Omsk regions.

One recent high-profile case occurred in the western Russian city of Kostroma. Nine members of a local group called Made With Hate attacked two young people returning from a film screening organized by local left-wing activists. One of the victims was shot in the face with a flare gun and lost an eye.

Since the summer of 2023, the Nazi Video Monitoring Project has recorded at least 50 videos of racist violence each month, and sometimes more than 100. They’ve also compiled statistics on the attacks’ victims: the majority are ethnic minorities, but homeless people, alcoholics and drug addicts, LGBTQ+ people, and anti-fascists are also at risk.

The SOVA Center, which tracks xenophobia in Russia, publishes similar data. In October 2024, the organization recorded 30 racist attacks and 20 cases of racist vandalism. In total, over the first 10 months of 2024, the center confirmed 232 instances of serious physical violence motivated by hate.

A return to the 2000s

Aggressive far-right groups emerged in Soviet Russia during the Perestroika years. In the 1990s, neo-Nazi skinhead culture became more widespread, promoting a lifestyle centered around attacks on “non-Russians.” At the time, the police often ignored this racist violence — sometimes out of sympathy for the extreme nationalists, and sometimes because the country’s law enforcement system was in disarray and unable to keep up with the level of crime occurring in the 1990s and early 2000s.

As police capacity gradually grew, the scale and brutality of nationalist violence reached such a level that the authorities could no longer ignore it. The late 2000s and early 2010s saw hundreds of racist murders. Over time, however, thousands of radical nationalists were imprisoned, and by the late 2010s, these attacks had largely stopped. Attendance at the annual nationalist Russian March demonstration ultimately dwindled to a few dozen participants, compared to the thousands it had had in the previous decade.

“Interest in neo-Nazis has re-emerged with the general wave of fascination with the 2000s. The aesthetics of that time became popular among young people before Russia’s [full-scale] invasion of Ukraine,” said Igor Sergeev, a researcher of contemporary far-right groups.

Unlike in the 2000s, however, if a video of a Nazi attack sparks a strong public reaction, the police now usually respond. Sergeev explained:

At the same time, even as law enforcement cracks down on radical groups, legal nationalist organizations have gained more visibility. The most prominent among them is the group Russian Community, which enjoys public support from Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin as well as other influential politicians and officials.

“The violent videos are generally made by teenagers, usually between 14 and 20 years old,” Sergeev explained. “Meanwhile, most members of Russian Community are middle-aged people who are dissatisfied with their lives. But there are some examples of interaction: in Nizhny Novgorod, the local branch of Russian Community tried to form a youth division out of young neo-Nazis. In Chelyabinsk, the Russian Community took the neo-Nazi teenagers who had started a violent riot at Educational Center No. 5 under its wing. In far-right chat groups, people say that Russian Community’s resources should be used for training, as the organization provides shooting ranges and halls for hand-to-hand combat,” Sergeev said.

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The most popular platform for sharing videos of neo-Nazi attacks is Telegram, which lets users remain anonymous and has very weak moderation. If a channel is set to private, there are no restrictions on the content that can be posted in it. Russian neo-Nazis exploit this feature by creating private channels and adding anyone who wishes to join, ultimately gathering thousands of subscribers. These subscribers include anti-fascists, who gather information and try to de-anonymize members of violent groups.

While racist attacks have been on the rise in recent years, they still haven’t reached the scale of the 2000s. Two sources from NGOs in Moscow and Murmansk that work to help migrants say they rarely encounter neo-Nazi violence.

“Fifteen or 20 years ago, the level of brutality was much higher. Most videos now show attacks on migrants with pepper spray, beatings of drunk passersby, or homeless people. Videos of attacks are the main product of young neo-Nazis. In the past, these assaults in the street were reflected on the Internet; now, they spread from the Internet to the streets, with boys trying to film and post virtually anything they do to Telegram,” Sergeyev said.

A distraction from the war

Russian politician Mikhail Lobanov, who currently lives in Europe, said he believes promoting nationalism is an effective way for the authorities to distract Russian society from the war with Ukraine.

“Every few years, the authorities stir up waves of information that lead to interethnic violence. Right now, this is undoubtedly linked to the public’s overwhelming fatigue from the war. There’s a lot of tension in society, and the government is trying to shift attention away from dangerous social issues and the war with Ukraine to the more convenient target of interethnic hatred. Far-right groups are capitalizing on the anti-migrant agenda pushed by the authorities — they know there’s demand for their actions,” Lobanov said.

Sergeyev echoed this view, arguing that Russia’s current political situation is ideal for the far-right.

“The war, now ongoing for nearly three years, inherently fosters the growth of nationalism and interest in fascist practices. This dovetails with the anti-migrant campaign and fuels the explosive growth of the neo-Nazi subculture,” he said.