Social media soldiers with far-right pasts cross Russian border to capture ‘likes’
Frenzied online activity casts doubt on the true purpose behind daring raid into enemy territory
‘They seem more interested in looking good than achieving anything’
ONE is a failed actor best known for TV commercials about chocolate nuts, one runs a hipster Korean restaurant in Kyiv and another is the frontman of a black metal band.
The rag-tag bunch of fighters who rode into Russia this week on tanks and armoured vehicles in an extraordinary raid appear to have little in common.
But many of them are united by two things: the underground Russian farright scene and a desire for likes.
This week’s “invasion” has exposed Russia’s stunning inability to defend its own borders. But the fighters’ frenzied social media activity has raised questions about the mission’s true purpose.
While there did not appear to be any fighting in the sparsely populated area claimed to have been seized, several ‘soldiers’ involved meticulously documented their journey, posting photos while local authorities scrambled to evacuate residents.
“I have a feeling ... that they are much more interested in looking good and producing content online rather than achieving anything of actual military or strategic value for Ukraine,” Michael Colborne, an investigator for the Bellingcat organisation, said.
Similar fighters in other parts of Ukraine have been referred to as “social media soldiers”. As the posts came rolling in of the daring incursion, some of the faces posing with military kit were instantly recognisable.
The band of fighters say they are from the Russian Volunteer Corps and The Liberty of Russian Legion, ostensibly pro-ukrainian groups of Russians with suspected links to Ukraine intelligence.
The Russian Volunteer Corps was founded by Denis Nikitin, a well-known owner of a neo-nazi martial arts brand.
Alexander Skachkov is one of the men seen grinning next to a Russian armoured people carrier that had allegedly been captured. Two years ago, he was under investigation in Ukraine for selling the translation of a New Zealand mass murderer’s manifesto.
Before he surfaced in the Belgorod region wearing a military patch with a Ku Klux Klan figure holding a rifle and posing next to a Russian APC, Alexei Skachkov was described by the Ukrainian intelligence agency SBU as the “leader of a radical neo-nazi group” when he was arrested in 2020 for selling translated versions of the manifesto of the Christchurch shooter who killed 50 people in New Zealand in 2019.
A photo distributed by the SBU in 2020 showed Mr Skachkov’s alleged living room with a swastika flag hanging on the wall.
Despite the charges against him, Mr Skachkov was released on bail after a month in jail.
Mr Skachkov was posing next to Ilya Bogdanov, a former FSB officer who went to fight pro-russian separatists in Ukraine in 2014 and who has been compulsively updating his Facebook page with photos and videos from Belgorod.
Bogdanov, 34, who served as an FSB officer, said in an interview with Radio Free Europe last year that he initially came to Ukraine to fight “for new Russia” against the Putin region but his views have evolved. “Right now, I don’t need any Russia. I don’t want this state to even be on the map.”
When he is not posing for photos at cross-border raids, Mr Bogdanov runs a Korean restaurant in central Kyiv that serves steamed buns and cocktails.
Another member of the raid, Alexei Lyovkin, stood trial in Russia for hate crimes before fleeing to Ukraine.
Mr Lyovkin, who was also the frontman of a black metal band and once hailed Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik as “hero”, was deemed mentally unfit for trial and sent for compulsory psychiatric treatment in 2006 after charges against him were dropped.
In Kyiv, he founded Wotanjugend, a neo-nazi group that gave firearms training and set up lectures on “racial theory”.
The burly neo-nazi supporter appeared in a video on Monday bragging about breaching the Russian border together with a smiley, short man dressed in sandy camouflage.
Kirill Kanakhin, 41, who previously posed outside a Russian post office in a border village in Bryansk in March, ended up in Kyiv after a lacklustre acting career at home where he appeared in TV ads for the Nuts chocolate bar and a Russian take on US comedy American
Pie and a short stint as a yoga teacher. The March cross-border raid might be plausibly dismissed as freelance work but the use of tanks and other military equipment this week casts doubt on that assertion.
Several well-respected war commentators refused to publicly discuss the Russian volunteer groups when contacted by The Daily Telegraph while privately admitting fighters were directed by the Ukrainian military. They said admitting that in public would hurt the Ukrainian armed forces which are fighting for the nation’s survival.