Western thugs advancing the Kremlin’s bid

Russia’s influence operations in the West have found enthusiastic support among unexpected allies: motorcycle gangs, Neo-Nazi soccer hooligans, fight clubs – mostly recognized as social outcasts in Western countries.

At first the story seems like the vigorous imagination of a Hollywood screenwriter enmeshing cold-war style spies, outlaw bikers and neanderthalic soccer thugs. Yet it’s a true depiction of how enraged men in extremist groups, including neo-Nazis and skinheads, have been recruited by Russian intelligence to subvert Western democratic institutions.

Eerik-Niiles Kross, former intelligence co-ordinator for Estonia, has said that European Union authorities had not paid enough attention to Russian intelligence special operations. By 2017 fully 63 fight clubs in Germany alone had been identified with dozens more in the rest of Europe. Nine of them were known to have founders who were all officers of the GRU (Russian military intelligence) or FSB (heir to the KGB).

Kross pointed out that by that time, the GRU had given combat training to a neo-Nazi group in Hungary and to similar groups in Slovakia. The martial arts (fight) clubs teaching an offensive style called “systema”, are all said to have connections to the GRU or FSB intelligence services in Russia, tasked with recruiting potential troublemakers throughout Europe and also North America.

The Systema Ryabko school in Europe, has branches in the UK, Sweden, Spain, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Portugal, Poland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Latvia, Italy, Ireland, Hungary, Greece, Germany, France, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and Austria. In addition, the Systema Siberia Cossack school also has branches in many of these countries, including Croatia, Finland.

Many of these clubs have not kept their direct or indirect links a secret and in fact have publicly bragged about them. In fact their Systema schools in Cyprus, Greece and Italy displays their GRU insignia and slogans openly as a matter of pride.

Observers indicated that for Germany, on the basis of three to five recruits for each fight club, the GRU’s pool of agents could number approximately 350, ready to organize combat sleeper cells. It’s been noted that some five recruits have actually been drawn from Germany’s own security services.

This contingent could be used to attack civilian targets such as airports, communication centres, even military bases. But they’re also assigned to create havoc behind enemy lines should hostilities break out with NATO or sow general distrust, suspicion and apprehension during peacetime.

A former Russian FSB has told a German broadcaster that a Russian martial arts club had recruited pro-Moscow Chechen men sent to Germany as bogus refugees. These agents could be given orders for any type of subversion or military action and also to influence the Muslim community in Europe, giving it support in committing terrorism.

The Euobserver contacted the largest martial arts school, the Systema Ryabko for comments on this. An email from Ryabko’s Toronto office responded: “The allegations you have heard are a fruit of someone’s malicious imagination and are completely false.” (A Systema school is located in Don Mills, Toronto.) According to a German source, it’s unlikely that the Kremlin would go beyond cyber operations and propaganda as part of their anti-EU campaign.

But Kross has viewed Russian activity in Europe to be much more hands-on. He stated that an anti-government rally in Berlin in 2016 had the distinct signature of a Russian special operation. At that time, a Kremlin-connected German organization, the International Convention of German-Russians, had 700 people on the streets protesting against migrants who had, according to Kremlin-backed propaganda, raped a Russian girl. The accusations proved to be faked.

As per the known connections between the Kremlin and Western far right, the organization urged neo-Nazis and anti - Muslim groups to help spread the rape fabrications via social media.

Experts have traced this aggressive activity back to 2011 an 2012, when Russia experienced wide-spread anti- Putin protests. Putin was convinced that the protests were given impetus and help from the West, and intruding in Russian domestic affairs. Somehow, the Kremlin felt, they must react, to retaliate by molding public discourse, by taking advantage of European weaknesses, by sowing dissent and disunity in weakening the EU.

(to be continued)

LAAS LEIVAT