Neo-nazis - 71 murders last year in Russia

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Russian Neo-Nazi Murder Squads Kill 71 In 2009
Amanda Walker,
February 02, 2010

Russia's battle against the country's neo-Nazis is reaching boiling point as it emerged they killed 71 people last year. One group recently posted a sickening video message on the internet celebrating a stabbing attack which killed a Ghanaian man in December. Yet members of the country's most prominent ultra-nationalist group deny their tactics are violent.

The Slavic Union spoke to Sky News during their bi-monthly "training" in remote woods just outside Moscow. Dressed in winter camouflage they greet each other with macho hugs as they gather round a campfire and help each other attach red arm bands emblazoned with their adapted swastika. Rifles and semi-automatic weapons are assembled and they are ready to start flexing their muscles.

These neo-Nazis see themselves as hero warriors fighting for the rights of Russians in Russia. They begin "practice" fighting with knives and firing at trees - all part of the "non-violent" approach. Up to 20 of their members are in jail for racially motivated murder and attacks - senseless murder of those whose crime may simply have been not looking Russian enough. Sasha Zorg's upper body is covered in tattoos, one of which is a swastika. He has been in prison twice for shooting two migrant workers. "I call it my struggle," he tells me. "I'll continue."

The group spend as much time photographing each other with guns as they do training. The man at the centre of many of the poses is the Slavic Union's leader Dmitry Dyomushkin. He's keen to cultivate an image of himself as the respectable face of a Far Right which he sees as a legitimate challenge to the current government. "Sixty per cent of Russians support our goals," he said. "But even with this majority we are not allowed to be part of the political process because the government has squeezed out opposition. The whole new generation of Russians are nationalists - our influence on young people is very strong."

His quest for a publicly acceptable image is not helped when his followers do a group Nazi salute, hailing the regime which 25 million Russians gave their lives to end. The chilling face of extremism was revealed when another neo-nazi group calling themselves "the warriors of the white revolution" unveiled their video message of the attack on Ghanaian Solomon Attengo Gwa-jio in St Petersburg. They described the footage as "a new year gift" as they pledged further acts of terror. No one has been arrested for the December attack, during which the victim was stabbed 20 times.

It sadly echoes so many other incidents of random racist brutality. Most are committed by young Russians who seem to inhabit a world of violence where patriotism and nationalism have become - too often fatally - confused. Moscow-based human rights group SOVA said authorities are finally tackling the problem, though not for the right reasons. "I think mostly it's not because of the murders themselves but because the potential of riots based on this ethnic hatred," SOVA director Alexander Verkhovsky told Sky News. He says the situation is reaching boiling point, forcing the authorities to act. "The authorities would hate to lose control over some district or city," Mr Verkhovsky said. "And so they try to suppress any activity including violent activity which may turn to such riots."

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How depressing.

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