Neo-Nazi terror in Russian cities

In a district of Irkutsk (Siberia) 16-year-old Olga Rukosypa was beaten to death by thugs who witnesses say looked like Neo-Nazi skinheads. Irkutsk neo-Nazis are suspected of murdering anti-fascist Ilya Bondarenko a year ago. People in the city are asking why the “law enforcers” have allowed the neo-Nazis to get so out of hand.

According to witnesses on 8 October three young people who looked like skinheads walked up to Olga and asked her some question, after which they grabbed her by the arm. Olga made such sharp response at which they threw her on the ground and kicked her for some minutes. Passers-by called an ambulance which took her to hospital, but she died that night.

People who knew her say that Olga was not involved in any political movement but she dressed like a punk and wore red laces in her shoes. Since red laces symbolize membership of the “antifa” movement, this, together with non-formal appearance, probably aroused aggression from the neo-Nazis and the fatal attack.

The first murder suspects are the Irkutsk neo-Nazis “Bumer” and “Def”.  Both are among under investigation over the attack on an environmental camp in Angarsk in July 2007.  The website www.grani.ru reports that Bumer is notorious for his aggression and also his collaboration with the police.

According to Alexandr Verkhovsky, Director of the Sova Centre, “this case is not typical since the victim was female and a very young girl. She was identified as antifa, and here you have the result. The local neo-Nazis don’t usually kill girls – they don’t see it as “warrier-like”. I’ve seen a discussion of the case among Nazis in blogs. On the whole they agree that “you have to kill, of course, but not girls”. The skinheads suspected of the murder are involved in the case over the attack on the environmental camp. Irkutsk is a small city and there shouldn’t be many skinheads. A lot of them are already under investigation over the attack of the Angarsk camp so among small bands it shouldn’t be hard  to find the murderers. If the investigators are proactive, then I’m sure it will soon become clear. On the other hand, the attack on the camp has been under investigation for more than a year and no particular results have been presented”.

Last week in Moscow a 26-year-old anti-faschist Fyodor Filatov was murdered.  He was attacked in the entrance to his block of flats in the early morning as he was going to work.  A representative of the “Antifa” movement said that according to their information between four and eight people with knives were waiting for him in the entrance.  A murder investigation has been launched.

An “Antifa” member said that the movement believes that this was a planned attack by extremists. “After all it’s not long since another of our people, the anti-fascist Alexei Krylov was murdered”.

Galina Kozhevnikova from the Sova Centre stresses that Russia is seeing an increase in racially-motivated crimes. In 2008, according to the Sova Centre’s data, 75 people have died as the result of such attacks and around 300 have been injured.

The number of those murdered is considerably higher than that for the same period last year. Ms Kozhevnikova says that attacks on xenophobic grounds have been recorded in 37 Russian cities.

Information from www.hro.org, www.grani.ru, and http://sova-center.ru/