The following is our monthly review of instances of xenophobia and radical nationalism, along with any government countermeasures, for April 2025.
In April 2025, by our data, 19 people were targeted in hate-motivated attacks. One of them — a nine-year-old boy from Kyrgyzstan — was killed. One third of the attacks were committed in the last week of the month, timed around the birthday of Adolf Hitler. A “white carriage” action, staged by teenage far-right activists on a commuter train headed for Yaroslavl, was also dedicated on the same date.
This year to date, we have recorded 109 hate-motivated attacks.
We also learned of 12 acts of xenophobic vandalism committed in April. For example, in Khabarovsk, unknown assailants destroyed a stand with verses from the Koran, and tore down the gates of a Muslim cemetery. In the village of Ulakhan-An in the Khangalas district of Yakutia, unknown assailants burned down a local Baptist church. Aside from these acts, ultra-right activists published an entire series of video clips showing attacks on properties of alleged “non-Slavs” in honor of Hitler’s birthday, including the arson of a Doner kebab kiosk by Molotov cocktail, smashing windows of a shashlik restaurant in the Rostov Region, as well as the arson and tire-slashing of cards with license plates from Adygea, Dagestan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc.
So far this year, we have recorded 21 acts of xenophobic vandalism.
April saw the continuation of traditional ultra-right vigilante activity.
The “Russian Community” (Russkaya obschina) and “Northern Man” participated in anti-migrant police raids on dormitory houses and retailers, and also led their own such raids.
In the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the “Russian Community” participated in a joint visit of members of the FSB, Russian National Guard and Ministry of the Interior to an unregistered mosque.
In the Khanty-Mansi Okrug, the “Russian Community” of Nizhnevartovsk, following a meeting with the management of “Domtransavto,” announced that it was going to control migrant drivers: “community members” plan to be present when future drivers take exams on traffic rules and safe driving, as well as “teach them the basics of ethnic Russian culture and norms of communication with passengers”.
Nationalist activity continued in the field of struggle for “traditional values.” Thus, on April 19, the “Russian Community” reported that it had detained a person who had publicly desecrated an icon and posted the video on the Internet. The Surgut community came to the desecrator's home, forced him to apologize on camera to the Orthodox and called the police on him.
In Moscow, the “Russian Community” reported that it had disrupted a concert at the Eclipse club of the band Autopsy Night; “Community activists” described the group as “Satanist musicians” who promote “suicide, abortion, necrophilia and other misanthropic manifestations.” Particularly indignant to these activists was the fact that the Autopsy Night performance was scheduled for the evening of Good Friday. The “Russian Community” filed statements with the FSB and the Investigative Committee.
However, it was not only the “Russian Community” that complained about undesirable elements in April.
The “Call of the People” movement appealed to Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastyrkin with a request to inspect the Moscow bookstore Falanster for compliance with the legislation on labeling and dissemination of information produced by foreign agents.
In addition, “Call of the People” demanded that actor-foreign agent Anatoly Bely be verified for promoting terrorist activities, and blogger Alexei Zhidkovsky for LGBT propaganda; the movement opposed the arrival of Jean-Claude van Damme to Russia and proposed to nationalize the Moscow apartment of Latvian singer Laima Vaikule.
According to “Ostorozhno, novosti” Telegram channel, since the beginning of 2024, Russian “patriotic” activists and organizations have authored at least 350 public complaints.
The count included denunciations from Ekaterina Mizulina, the head of the Safe Internet League, Vitaly Borodin, the head of the Federal Project on Security and Anti-Corruption (FPBC), and the movements “Call of the People” (Zov naroda), “Russian Community,” and Forty Forties (Sorok sorokov). The latter wrote the largest number of complaints — about 130 in less than 16 months. In second place is Mizulina with nearly 80, in third place — “Call of the People” with more than 50. These complaints resulted in at least 30 criminal cases. Another 15 led to on-camera apologies. More than 40 lectures, concerts and other performances were disrupted or canceled as a result of the appeals.
We are aware of three sentences handed down in April against 17 people on the basis of xenophobically motivated violence. These are all sentences delivered by courts in the Stavropol region to participants in the riots at Makhachkala International Airport, sentencing them to between eight and ten years in prison. A total of 101 people have already been convicted in related cases.
We also learned of five criminal cases against 13 people, filed in April for hate-motivated attacks. Among the defendants in these cases are Maxim Andreev and Vasily Volkov, who were arrested on charges of the xenophobic murder of a cab driver in 2013. It is reported that one of the participants in the attack turned himself in to law enforcement more than a decade later, explaining that “he had been suffering from remorse for the act for a long time.”
We also have information about one case against three people, initiated in April for xenophobic vandalism: the arson of a house of worship in Yegoryevsk.
In total, since the beginning of the year, we have recorded 18 convictions, of 83 people, for xenophobically motivated violence; and five convictions, of the same number of people, for xenophobic vandalism.
In April, we noted three convictions for involvement in extremist communities and organizations against eight people. Among those convicted were veterans of the Erzyan national movement Nuyan Vidyaz (Yevgeny Chetvergov) and Yogan Minka (Mikhail Chetvergov), as well as alleged supporters of AUE.
In April, there were also reports of seven new criminal cases brought against eight people for participation in the activities of banned organizations — the neo-Nazi network NS/WP, the Artpodgotovka movement, and the “Freedom of Russia” Legion fighting in Ukraine.
This year to date, we have recorded 25 convictions of 48 individuals in cases related to participation in the activities of extremist and terrorist communities and organizations — here as elsewhere, excluding those we consider to be patently improper.
According to our data, there were also 15 rulings delivered in April, against the same number of people, on the basis of aggressive public statements. Among them:
— Six people were convicted under Article 205.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code (CC) (calls to carry out or justify terrorist activity) for posting various materials on Telegram, VKontakte and unnamed social networks, including comments justifying the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall and the murder of military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky; one of the defendants was sanctioned for a YouTube stream with certain statements about the Russian military.
— One person was convicted under Article 280 CC (public calls for extremist activity) for posting on VKontakte “calls for violent actions against representatives of a political party.”
— Two people were punished under Articles 205.2 and 280 CC for posts in Telegram featuring comments justifying the actions of the banned Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) and the Azov Battalion, as well as calls for violence against supporters of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine.
— One person was penalized under Article 282 CC (incitement to hatred) for threatening people who had participated in the Special Military Operation during a stream.
— Two people were punished under Articles 205.2 CC for publications in social networks: one for videos and audio recordings justifying the actions of ISIS and targeting representatives of certain ethnic groups, the other for photos and comments with “calls to commit crimes against law enforcement officers.”
— One person was convicted under Article 282 CC as well as Article 280.3 (repeated discrediting of the army); the charge under Article 282 may have been related to antisemitic publications.
— One person was punished under Articles 205.2 and 222 CC (possession of weapons). Under Article 205.2, he was found guilty of justifying the activities of the Azov Battalion online.
— One person was convicted under Article 282.4 Part 1 CC (repeated display of prohibited symbols) for repeatedly displaying his own tattoos with AUE symbols.
Seven of the 15 were sentenced to imprisonment, two to suspended sentences, four to fines, one to compulsory labor, and one to correctional labor.
Four people were sentenced to prison time in April in the absence of any information as to the circumstances justifying such punishment.
— In St. Petersburg, a court sentenced Bakhodur Zukhurov to three years in a minimum-security penal colony under Article 205.2 Part 2 CC for comments in the Telegram chat room “St. Petersburg communicating / Yandex food” justifying the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall.
— The Central District Military Court sentenced Artyom Omoryan, an employee of a private security company from Yekaterinburg, to six years in a minimum-security penal colony under Article 205.2 Part 2 CC. He drunkenly hosted a stream during which he claimed, among other things, that he was in a war zone and cut chevrons off the bodies of dead Russian soldiers and that he kept their severed ears at home.
— A military court in St. Petersburg sentenced Alexei Sobolev, a 24-year-old resident of Sosnogorsk in the Komi Republic, to six years in a minimum-security penal colony under Article 280 Part 2 and Article 205.2 Part 2 CC. He posted comments in the Telegram channels “Solovyov’s droppings” (after the surname of Russia’s prominent TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov) and “Popular Politics”, in which he expressed support for the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Azov Battalion (both are recognized as terrorist in the Russian Federation), called those fighting in these units heroes, and called for sending “zetniks” (slang term for supporters of the Special Military Operation) to gas chambers”.
— The 2nd Western District Military Court sentenced Alexei Melnikov, a resident of Moscow Region, to seven years in a minimum-security penal colony under Article 205.2 Part 2 and paragraph “a” of Article 282 Part 2 CC for posting pictures and comments on social networks with “calls for extremist activity, in particular, the commission of crimes within the framework of political hatred or enmity against law enforcement officers.” Judging by screenshots of the comments, the defendant wrote about events in Ukraine and called for violence against the Russian authorities and police officers.
We have information about 21 new criminal cases filed in April, against 22 people, on the basis of aggressive public speech.
Since the beginning of the year, we have learned of 96 convictions, of the same number of people, for such statements.
We have information about eight people sanctioned in April for aggressive statements under Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO) (incitement to hatred). Seven people were punished for xenophobic statements on social networks, including Telegram and VKontakte, about Muslims, Central Asians, Tuvans and other unnamed ethnic groups. Another was penalized for shouting several racist slurs at a fellow villager in a village club. One person was placed under administrative arrest, and the other seven were fined. In total, we are aware of 125 such court decisions since the beginning of this year.
We know of two people fined in April under Article 20.29 CAO (production and distribution of extremist materials). One of them is Vladimir Melikhov, the owner of the “Museum of Anti-Bolshevik Resistance” in Podolsk and the memorial complex “Don Cossacks in the Fight against the Bolsheviks” in the stanitsa Yelanskaya. On April 18, the Sholokhovsky District Court of Rostov Oblast fined Melikhov because of two sculptures depicting Don Cossack ataman Pyotr Krasnov that are part of the memorial: law enforcement agencies and the court felt that they should be classified as extremist materials as portraits of a Nazi collaborator; the court also ordered their confiscation. Earlier, law enforcers seized documents and books dedicated to Krasnov, as well as paintings by Wehrmacht General Helmut von Pannwitz and collaborator Sergei Pavlov in the Rostov complex.
Since the beginning of the year, we have recorded a total of 25 cases of penalties for distributing materials included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials.
The list itself was updated twice in February (on April 2 and April 29), with the addition of items 5461 and 5462. Two Ukrainian songs “Arise, Kursk” and “Rusnya is running through Ukrainian Donbass” were added to the list.
Two items were added to the Federal List of Extremist Organizations in April. One is an association of Arsenal soccer fans called the Cyborgs, which was declared extremist by the Tula Regional Court in January 2025. The second is described as an association “whose members are: Evgeny Alexandrovich Chernyak, ... Bespalov Alexander Stepanovich, ... Lazutin Andrei Andreevich, ...Kurbakov Ivan Mikhailovich”, recognized as extremist by the Leninsky District Court of Kursk on June 4, 2024; it refers to a Ukrainian business group that included owners of alcohol production plants.
On April 17, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation satisfied the claim of the Prosecutor General to suspend the ban on the activities of the Taliban, which had been banned as a terrorist organization in 2003. Thus, the law adopted in December 2024, according to which if a movement has stopped propaganda, justification and support of terrorism, it can be removed from the list of terrorist organizations, was applied for the first time. However, so far, the Taliban has not been removed from this list published on the FSB website.
