The following is our monthly review of instances of xenophobia and radical nationalism, along with any government countermeasures, for June 2025.

In June 2025, according to our data, no fewer than eight people suffered in hate-motivated attacks across Russia. This year to date, we have recorded 145 such attacks, which have claimed the lives of three people.

We learned of only one act of xenophobic vandalism committed this June. In St. Petersburg, young ultra-right activists tore a victory banner from a building, and destroyed it. Three suspects were detained. In total, since the beginning of the year, we have recorded 28 acts of xenophobic vandalism.

Ultra-right vigilante activity continued this June. The “Russian Community” led its own raids, and also participated in anti-migrant police raids at migrants’ homes and places of work.

There was widespread media coverage of a case in the Moscow Region at the Nemchinovka station, where a vigilante in camouflage uniform forcibly detained a woman born in Ulan-Ude under the pretext of “checking migrants.” The vigilante turned out to be a 42-year-old member of the “Russian Community” (RO) in Odintsovo, Alexei Marov (social media nickname “Wolf”); it turned out that activists had joined the local people's vigilante group a year ago. And in Yekaterinburg, people with RO chevrons segregated visitors in front of a migration department: they stopped them and let people of“Slavic appearance” pass without queuing.

We are aware of only three rulings delivered in June, against 28 people, on the basis of xenophobically-motivated violence. In St. Petersburg, a court sentenced 16 teenage gang members to jail time ranging from three and a half to five years, on the basis of attacks on passersby. In two separate cases, Stavropol Kray courts sentenced participants in mass riots at the Makhachkala airport to jail terms ranging from five to nine years. To date, 122 people have been convicted for acts committed at these riots.

June saw one new criminal case opened on the basis of hate-motivated attacks, with two defendants. The case involves teens who fired a flare gun and pepper spray at two people in Izhevsk.

So far this year, we have recorded some 25 convictions of 128 people on the basis of xenophobic violence, and seven rulings, against the same number of people, for xenophobic vandalism. In one other case, the defendant was exemptfrom criminal liability and committed instead.

This month, we noted 11 convictions for participation in extremist societies and organizations, against 17 individuals. A wide range of organizations figured in these cases: MKU (“Maniacs. Cult of Murder”), the “Citizens of the USSR” movement, the “Artpodgotovka” movement, the Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR), as well as AUE. Especially noteworthy was the imprisonment of Yegor Bobylev, the leader of the “Edelweiss” group, who set fire to a house of “non-Slavs.” After Bobylev joined MKU in 2023 his group committed six different attacks, recorded to video.

Also in June, four new criminal cases were opened against seven people, for participation in the activities of banned organizations – the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), LSR and another, unnamed, ultra-right society.

So far this year, we are aware of 56 such rulings delivered by Russian courts against 93 people, not counting those we consider to be patently improper.

We recorded 28 June rulings, against the same number of people, issued on the basis of aggressive public statements:

• Five people were convicted under Article 205.2 Part 2of the Criminal Code (CC) (calls to commit, or justification for, terrorist activities) in connection with statements of approval of the arson of draft offices, support for the “Georgian National Legion,” calls for violence against the state, and the posting of a video praising ISIL.

• Six people were convicted under Article 280 CC (public calls to extremist activity) for social media posts calling for violence against natives of Central Asia, Jews, ethnic Russians, and representatives of state power.

• Two people were sanctioned under a combination of the two articles for online comments with calls to violent action against president Putin and members of the Security Council as well as Russian servicemembers; as well as xenophobic (including Islamophobic) comments.

• Five people were convicted under Article 282 CC (incitement to hatred) – these are the already-mentioned members of a teenage gang from St. Petersburg who called for violence against Russians and Uzbeks, and attacked people on the streets. They videotaped their attacks and published the clips to the Telegram channel “Life of a Vagrant.”

• One inmate was convicted under Article 282.4 Part 1СС (repeated demonstration of banned symbols) for the demonstration to other inmates of his tattoos of Nazi symbols.

• Two people were convicted under Article 354.1 CC (rehabilitation of Nazism) – both of them, for Holocaust denial. (One of them was convicted under Article 280 of the CC as well.)

• The remaining seven individuals were convicted under Article 205.2 Part 2 CC in combination with a range of other articles, for example Article 275 (treason) and 222¹ (possession of explosive materials).

Nineteen of 28 people were sentenced to prison; two were given suspended sentences; four were fined; one was sent to corrective labor, another – to compulsory labor, one more was sentenced to community service. Two others were committed.

Another five people were sentenced to prison time in June, though we have not been made aware of any information about circumstances favorable to imprisonment with respect to these cases.

We recorded 23 new criminal cases opened in June, against the same number of people, on the basis of aggressive public statements.

This year to date, we have recorded 184 rulings regarding such statements, against 190 individuals.

We noted 13 people fined in June under Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO) (incitement to hatred) for xenophobic statements on VKontakte, Telegram and unnamed social networks about Jews, Roma people, natives of the Caucasus and Central Asia, and believers. In total, we are aware of 217 such court decisions since the beginning of the year.

Our data also show 19 court decisions against three people – one of whom was punished 17 times – imposing fines under Article 20.29 CAO (production and distribution of extremist materials) for videos of the neo-Nazi group Format 18 and the movie “Games of the Gods” posted on VKontakte. Since the beginning of the year, we have learned of a total of 60 cases in which penalties were imposed for distributing information included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials.

The Federal List of Extremist Materials was updated twice (on June 5 and 11) to account for new entries 5469 and 5470. The new additions are a book published in Nazi Germany about an exhibition on the USSR organized in 1942 in Berlin, and a Russian-language Ukrainian propaganda song about Russian soldiers.

The Federal List of Extremist Organizations was also updated: new entries 121 and 122 were added to include members of two societies of Ukrainian businessmen. The named members of the first were Igor Kolomoyskiy and Pavel Shitov, and of the other, Alexander Gerega and his wife Galina, as well as Gennady Galchuk and SergeiLyubchik.

Five items were added to the list of terrorist organizations in June. These included the radical left-wing “People's Communist Movement” (NKD), a certain “terrorist community created to prepare and carry out sabotage and terrorist acts against the security of the Russian Federation on the territory of the city of Perm in order to assist the Security Service of Ukraine,” the community “Megion jamaat”, as well as the public organization and anarchist rock band Antisocial Distancing, which was deemed as terrorist by the Kaluga District Court of Kaluga region on January 10, 2025.