Returning Veterans Powering Rise of Radical Russian Nationalist ‘Northern Man’ Group

Executive Summary:

• Veterans returning from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine are powering the rise of the radical Russian nationalist “Northern Man” group, putting it in a position to challenge the better-known Russian Community controlled by the Kremlin and Orthodox Church.
• Many of the young veterans now joining the Northern Man group are attracted to it because it is more radical than the Russian Community, has links to nativist and pagan groups, and, unlike the Russian Community, rejects cooperation with all non-Russians.
• Since the Northern Man group, similar to the Russian Community, supports Putin’s war in Ukraine, the Kremlin leader remains reluctant to attack it, thus giving this more radical group more room to grow and threaten public order.

A decade ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime destroyed what many now call the “old” Russian nationalist groups and leaders. In the last five years, in part as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the rise of anti-immigrant attitudes, and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a “new right” has emerged (BBC Russkaya Sluzhba, June 7, 2024; Bereg, April 4). Until very recently, the Russian Community was the dominant group in this revival, enjoying the support of the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church (see EDM, October 15, 2024, May 27, July 30). Now this group is being challenged by other Russian nationalists who generally believe that the Russian Community is not radical enough either in its support for traditional values or for Putin’s war. In particular, these nationalists are unwilling to cooperate fully with the Russian Orthodox Church or with non-Russians, even if they support the Kremlin’s line. Because these groups are decentralized and have diverse membership, some have cooperated in part. They have therefore often been lumped together (see EDM, July 30; Window on Eurasia, August 20, 27). That is no longer justified because their positions vastly differ, with the young veterans from Putin’s war against Ukraine now more attracted to the most radical of these groups rather than to the Russian Community, despite Kremlin hopes to the contrary (see EDM, May 27; Bereg, September 3). The largest beneficiary of this change has been the Northern Man organization, and as more veterans return home and join it, it seems likely that its importance will only grow, potentially destabilizing the situation in Russia.

The Northern Man organization was formed in 2022 by Misha Mavashi, a Russian rapper and nationalist who has supported Putin’s foreign and domestic policies, opposes immigration and non-Russians more generally, and promotes physical fitness among his followers (Natsionalniy Aktsent, April 27, 2023; SOVA, July 10, 2023). The group’s exact size is unknown, as it remains highly decentralized, with each of its branches self-supporting. In many cases, they operate independently. The group’s web page, its activists, and Telegram channel have said that it operates in 45 Russian cities, has almost 200,000 members, including more than 40,000 in Moscow itself, and its Telegram has 131,000 subscribers (Severniy Chelovek; Telegram/@sevchelrussia, accessed September 17). Given the influx of veterans returning from Ukraine and Moscow’s fears about their joining the Northern Man, there is every reason to think that these numbers have grown in recent months and will continue to do so, quite possibly catching up with and even surpassing the figures for the Russian Community (see EDM, May 27). The organization does not have a clearly expressed and agreed-upon doctrine, but its leaders have declared that they favor “the consolidation of citizens on the basis of the Slavic ethnos,” favor the war in Ukraine, oppose non-Russians and especially immigrants, and want to see Russians become more physically and spiritually healthy. Some of them have also expressed hostility to the Russian Orthodox Church, favoring various strains of Aryan-style paganism   (Gorizontalnaya Rossiya, November 20, 2023; Orlovskie Novosti, March 23; Gazeta Balakovo, May 16; Meduza, September 12). These schematic and radical messages clearly attract the younger Russian veterans of Putin’s war (SOVA, May 25, 2016; Vremya, March 26; URA.RU, March 27).

The group’s actions have been more consequential than its ideology. These include organizing popular militias—sometimes with the support of the authorities and sometimes in opposition to them—and interestingly, these militias are increasingly separate from the Russian Community. These actions have attracted criticism from many non-Russians and Russians who are more liberally-minded, but they have also served to attract new recruits to its ranks (Meta MMA, April 25, 2024; Telegram/@rksmb, May 21, 2024; Severniy Chelovek; Telegram/@sevchelrussia, Telegram/@mikhailmavashi, accessed September 17). These ties between the Northern Man group and veterans will only strengthen if, despite Mavashi’s prior pledge to stay out of politics, the group backs candidates in next year’s Duma elections who have fought in Ukraine, regardless of their declared party affiliations (Meduza, September 12).

It is not just veterans who are drawn to the Northern Man organization. Some older Russians who do not like the Russian Community’s cooperation with the Russian Orthodox Church or the Chechens have also grown to support the Northern Man group. Moreover, some officials in Moscow have welcomed these moves and have even granted the group funding, while many of their counterparts in Russian regions have been supportive as well. They have utilized the Northern Man militias against their opponents and even involved Northern Man leaders in regional government bodies (RIA Voronezh, August 2, 2024; Meduza, September 12). As the Northern Man organization has grown, Moscow appears to be at a loss as to how to respond and, according to Meduza, has not issued instructions to regional leaders as to how they should respond. This has led some to cozy up to the organization, others to try to ignore it, and still others to try to repress it (Meduza, September 12). That crazy-quilt pattern has allowed the group to grow and even to present itself as opposed to cooperation with the authorities, even if in some places it has done precisely that (YouTube/Misha Mavashi, July 22, 2022).

The rise of the Northern Man organization does not mean that it is without competitors, even within the radical Russian nationalist part of the political spectrum. The Russian Community still has a great deal of support in the population as well as in the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate, as a recent church procession in Moscow demonstrated (Riddle, September 12; Versia, September 15). On the other side of Northern Man is the Future Society, which is nationalist but with greater intellectual pretensions (Obshestvo Budushee, accessed September 17). That group, also founded five years ago, remains far smaller than either of its rivals and has attracted far less attention (Kommersant, April 22, 2024; SOVA, February 3).

These groups’ leaders and supporters hope they will set the course for Russian politics in the future, but the more tempered judgment of a Siberian businessman sympathetic to the Northern Man organization is likely correct. He suggests that as long as these groups operate in close march with the Kremlin, Russia’s rulers will allow them to continue to exist. When Moscow changes direction, however, it will consider them as “too independent” if they do not follow its course (Meduza, September 12). Given the growing number of people involved in these radical groups, however, Moscow may very well find it more difficult to put this genie back in the bottle than it did in the case of much smaller radical nationalist activists earlier (Window on Eurasia, July 8).