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SAMARA, Russia – Before the kickoff of the World Cup football in Russia, the country's Attorney General announced the crackdown on a group of football hooligans who mixed nationalism and violence in the streets of this green city of the Volga
The move is part of an effort by the Russian president
Vladimir Poutine
use the tournament to conduct a charm offensive and show a friendlier side to the country, as the West has sought to isolate Russia from its military interventions in Ukraine and Syria and its alleged interference in Western politics.
muscular Russian fans whose French officials said they were trained in combat fought violently with English supporters in the French city of Marseille, further strengthening ties between geopolitical foes. Critics suggest that the violence has been sanctioned by the Kremlin.
But before the World Cup, Russian security forces arrested leaders of groups of hooligans, known as ultras, and pushed many of their members to the tournament
in Samara, Authorities have banned the Opposition to Young Supporters, or TOYS. The group had publicly espoused Slavic superiority. Like other right-wing Russian fan clubs that were steeped in English 80s hooliganism culture, TOYS mingled violence and Russian nationalism.
Beyond the rituals of Russian hooliganism, including often bloody mass fights between supporters TOYS took its extremism into the normally sleepy streets of the city, seeking and beating traders and taxi drivers migrants.
"They were more interested in violence than football"
Alexander Chernyshev,
a local lawmaker who runs a fan club for the local Samara football team, the Wings of the Soviets.
After a police operation using a network of informants, the leader of the group
Yevgeny Gavrilov
He was arrested in 2016 and the Attorney General of Russia accused the planning group of disrupting the events of the World Cup in Samara. He confessed in court the creation of an extremist group, said he was giving up his radical racist views and asked for clemency. He was sentenced to six and a half years in prison in November.
Attorney General
Yuri Chaika
He did not give details of how the group had planned to disrupt the World Cup events, but said that it was one of five extremist groups banned before the Games.
The events in Marseille, which ended in France by about twenty Russian fans, including the leader of the All-Russian Federation of Fans
Alexander Shprygin,
According to a Russian security official working for the World Cup, the Federal Security Service, a KGB agency, tried to infiltrate groups and the Interior Ministry interviewed dozens of fans. and fan groups across the country, he said.
"Many were invited to leave just to make life easier for everyone," he said. "We did not want anything like Marseille to be repeated, you get hard Russian fans and hard English fans together and you know what could happen."
Russian authorities also crack down on nationalist groups, some of whom have links with groups of soccer hooligans. Those who criticized Kremlin politics in Ukraine and minorities living in Russia were closed, leaving only groups that support the Kremlin.
The Russian security official said that the fan clubs of the country were not under the control of the Kremlin. but many critics claim that the events in Marseille have brought to light the almost official imprimatur of many Russian fan clubs. Before the match between England and Russia in 2016, the Russian Ministry of Sports and Union of Russian supporters helped organize a charter plane to transport 220 Russian fans, said the Union of Russian supporters at the time, hinting that the violence had been "Fans are controlled to some extent by the authorities, they do what the authorities want," said Sergei Leybgrad, the conservative of a vast private museum dedicated to the Soviets' Wings of Samara. "Look what happened in Marseille, it's unlikely to happen without some understanding between fans and authorities."
"But from elsewhere, look what's happening now, the security services do not want violence." Some Russian fans think the measures went too far, saying that anyone who traveled to Marseille in 2016 have been denied fan IDs, a necessary document received only after being subjected to security checks by the Russian authorities.
Mr. Shprygin of the Russian supporters' union posted a photo on
showing that his request for identification had been rejected.
"There are a lot of rejections for fan IDs," he wrote on his Facebook page after his own request was rejected. "Every day, I get some messages from those whose requests have been rejected.I can not understand these excessive measures with a total ban on our fans," he writes.
Write to Thomas Grove at [email protected]
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