In general, far-right and nazi activity in Russia during January 2022 was small.
M.K.U. detention
The 19-year-old administrator of the Telegram group for the neo-Nazi youth organization “Maniacs: Cult of Murder” was detained in the Tver region.
MGSU racist video
A video was posted on Telegram of young people on the campus of Moscow State Construction University (MGSU) harassing black students, throwing snowballs at their backs and handing them bananas as “gifts,” and saying racist insults. The protesters filmed all of this on video and posted it on the Internet.
The University security is conducting an inspection after a video showing unknown people handing bananas to black foreign students on the campus of the university, the university press service told media.
Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova commemoration day
The annual all-Russia action in memory of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova, killed by neo-Nazis in 2009, took place on January 19 in Moscow, in a flower laying ceremony at the site of their deaths. The organizers, like the year before, were unable to coordinate the march with the authorities due to coronavirus restrictions. A temporary memorial was erected at the murder site on Prechistenka Street: people gathered to lay flowers and light candles at the murder site. The police officers on duty at the site did not prevent the laying of flowers. In the evening the Sakharov Center hosted an anti-fascist concert by the groups “Arkady Kots” and “Alerta”. The action took place without any incidents, except for a neo-Nazi prank three days later: on 22 January the intruders wrote insulting slogans on the portrait of the dead and planted portraits of former members of the neo-Nazi group BORN Nikita Tikhonov and Yevgeniya Khasis, convicted for the murder of Markelov and Baburova in May 2011, with thank you notes on them.
On 19 January two anti-fascist rallies were held in St. Petersburg. In the morning the anti-fascists came out on the roof of the building on Ligovsky Prospekt with a banner “To remember is to fight!”, and in the evening about 20 people gathered near Solovetsky stone to commemorate the anti-fascists killed: flowers were brought to the monument and candles were lit.
January 19 memorial events were also held in Yekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Murmansk, Novosibirsk, Penza, Tomsk, Ufa, as well as in Lithuania and Ukraine.
Legal cases
There were eight convictions for xenophobic statements in January against eight people. In Novomoskovsk two schoolchildren were convicted under part 2 of article 214 of the CC (vandalism with a hate motive) for drawing Nazi symbols on an apartment house and a garage and making videos of their actions. The court sentenced them to ten months’ restricted freedom and one year of educational measures. At least six court decisions were made under Article 20.3.1 of the Administrative Code (inciting hatred) for publishing various ethnically xenophobic publications, materials directed against Christians, and posts humiliating women in social networks.