The following is our monthly review of instances of xenophobia, radical nationalism, and hate crimes, along with any government countermeasures, for February 2026.
In February 2026, we recorded incidents in which 17 people suffered in hate crimes. The most notable of them was a February 7 incident in Ufa, in which a teenager armed with a knife attacked a dormitory at the Bashkir State Medical University. He accompanied his acts with shouting racist slogans. This year to date, we are aware of no fewer than 36 violent hate crimes committed across Russia.
We did not record any acts of xenophobic vandalism in February (repeating our January results).
In February, neo-Nazis affiliated with the NS/WP network announced that it had been behind provocative Azeri-language graffiti that appeared in Yekaterinburg around the time of tensions in relations between Russia and Azerbaijan during summer of 2025. One Daniil Nuryev is currently facing charges on the basis of the graffiti, which he is alleged to have painted for a fee paid by unknown people he connected with in Telegram.
The “Russian Community” and Northern Man continued with their traditional vigilante raids. In February, they conducted approximately 15 anti-migrant raids each week.
The Forty Forties movement actively participated in the fight against the folkloric holiday Bakshevskaya Maslyanitsa, which has been held outside Moscow annually for forty years. In its Telegram channel, the group accused organizers of spreading paganism, and “worshipping Yarilo” (a pre-Christian Slavic deity) “with male genitalia,” and being parallel in spirit to the Euromaidan movement in Ukraine. Authorities in the town of Istra recommended against holding festivities related to the holiday there, citing threats and the lack of consent from police, the forest service and local emergency response teams. After the holiday was officially canceled, many participants decided to head to the forest all the same, without the organizers. Representatives of the Forty Forties showed up to the scene together with riot police.
We have recorded two February 2026 convictions, against three people in Moscow and Yekaterinburg, for violent hate crimes. One neo-Nazi skinhead, Sergey “Young” Ponomarev, was sentenced to prison time after being convicted of attacking Chinese and Pakistani nationals. Ponomarev is the leader of a gang of neo-Nazis and follower of the late Maksim “Tesak” Martsinkevich.
Also in February, an appellate court in Kostroma harshened the prison sentence against a member of the gang called Made With Hate, who shot a teenager in the face with a flare gun in November of 2024.
This year to date, we recorded three such convictions, of four individuals.
A group of teenage far-right activists was detained in Yekaterinburg this February. According to the regional department of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the teens attacked passersby and put up neo-Nazi stickers in various parts of the city.
We also recorded one conviction for xenophobically-motivated vandalism delivered in February: in the Chelyabinsk Region, a court sentenced the teenager Igor U. to a one-year suspended sentence for dropping a pig’s head at a mosque in the village of Chesma and setting the same mosque on fire.
Aside from that, we are aware of one criminal case initiated on the basis of xenophobic vandalism in February.
We address prosecutions under other provisions of anti-extremist legislation in a separate review.
