Police watch idly as pro-Kremlin activists disrupt annual memorial service for Stalinist terror victims
Pro-government extremists disrupted a memorial service for Stalin-era repression victims at the Sandarmokh cemetery in Karelia, where thousands were executed during the Soviet Union’s Great Terror in the late 1930s.
Members of the ultra-right “Russian Community,” the Kremlin-backed “Young Guard,” and Cossack groups hung signs with names of foreigners killed while fighting in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, splashed water at mourners, and played loud patriotic music to drown out the traditional reading of victims’ names. State television crews filmed the disruption while traffic police stood by without intervening.
Sandarmokh has served as an international memorial site since 1997, drawing diplomats from European nations and other countries to annual remembrance ceremonies held each August 5. The Russian Community — an FSB-linked ultra-nationalist group that emerged in 2020 — became increasingly active in 2024 amid rising anti-migrant sentiment. This followed the Crocus City Hall attack, where four Tajik nationals allegedly murdered 145 people in a massacre at a music hall outside Moscow.
