Automatic machines for children
Military training programs for children in St. Petersburg and the region have been held for more than a year, and the emphasis is not on ordinary schoolchildren, but on children from boarding schools, difficult teenagers and cadets of various schools. This training is carried out by mentors from ANO "Center for Special Patriotic Sports Training "Volunteer"" and the North Slavic Community (SSO). Over the past few years, cadets of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, teenagers from the Search Movement of Russia, detachments of the Yunarmia "Thunder", detachments of DOSAAF, orphans from the Kolpino boarding school, students of Lyceum No. 126, children from St. Petersburg special school No. 1 of a closed type for teenagers have passed through their courses with deviant behavior and many others.
In the classroom, “trainers” dress ten-year-olds in military uniforms with a Z patch and teach how to use a machine gun:
The exact number of students who pass through the hands of mentors cannot be calculated from open sources, but we are talking about hundreds of children and adolescents.
Volunteer conducts all this activity with the approval of the authorities and periodically meets with Governor Beglov.
Neo-Nazis, sadists and murderers
“Volunteer” is essentially part of the same structure with the North Slavic community, which positions itself as a “Russian military-patriotic community of modern Cossacks” (they do not explain how the “Cossacks” ended up in the north of Russia).
The director of Volunteer, Aleksey Savinsky, who also calls himself Yar, is a supporter of the far-right Resistance movement, formed by people from the DNI, skinheads and members of the Slavic Union. The movement was created by Savinsky's friend, Roman Zentsov, who calls himself the "Russian Hammer" and told in an interview that Russia needs to be ready for a war between races and nations.
Until recently, the Russian authorities believed that Zentsov should be kept away from young people. So, in January 2012, the Altai department of the FSB, together with the regional authorities, sent out the following memo to local schools and universities: “Dear leaders! The Department of Education and Youth Affairs of the Altai Territory received information about the formation in the Altai Territory of a regional branch of the right-wing radical movement “Resistance”. In order to spread his ideas and attract new supporters, the leader of this movement, Zentsov R.P., under the pretext of promoting a healthy lifestyle among young people, holds meetings with schoolchildren and university students, organizes master classes in martial arts, including in the Siberian Federal District.
But a few years later the concept changed, and the right-wing radicals ceased to be enemies of the FSB.
Other friends of Savinsky and his movement are members of the Rusich neo-Nazi group, which is led by an open supporter of Hitler, flayer and sadist Alexei Milchakov, who likes to be photographed with the cut off heads of puppies, and after the start of the war in Ukraine, with the cut off ears of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
SSO and "Volunteer" regularly arrange joint military-tactical exercises with "Rusich".
Savinsky manages training programs for all ages, holds lectures and meetings, oversees regular joint exercises with Rusich and the Armada military-patriotic club. But there are other teachers on his team.
Vladimir "Ulfer" Bakin is a self-styled ataman of the "Cossack" North Slavic community of St. Petersburg and an active participant in the occupation of Ukrainian territories since 2014. A member of a separate Cossack battalion "Georgievsky" and the Union of Volunteers of Donbass, in the spring of 2022, he fought near Izyum in a volunteer unit as part of the 80th rifle battalion of the 20th Army of the Russian Federation. The Rusich militants and the Rusich reconnaissance unit Zimargl were stationed in the same area. "Ulfer" regularly attends meetings of the Public Chamber of St. Petersburg, "Wagner Center" and lectures of "Cyber Front Z".
Bakin regularly speaks and appears in public with another neo-Nazi, Timur "Kiba" Gromov , the communications chief for Rusich and Zimargl.
Another instructor, Mikhail "Pitbull" Turkanov , is an open neo-Nazi who served time from 2012 to 2017 for kidnapping and extortion. He is also an active participant in Russian aggression in Ukraine. Now Turkanov is in command of the Espanyol football fan squad. He is also a member of the Union of Donbass Volunteers.
The symbolism used by "Yar" and his associates is indicative. Savinsky's body armor is decorated with a chevron with an eight-pointed yellow kolovrat on a red background. The developer of this symbolism is the founder of Russian neo-paganism, Alexei "Dobroslav" Dobrovolsky – he proposed the Kolovrat in 1996 as a symbol of the struggle against the "Jewish yoke".
In addition to the Kolovrat, the neo-Nazi rune and the slogan "I am a Russian occupier" are often found on the chevrons and logos of "Volunteer" and the MTR. The cars in which they traveled around Ukraine are marked with the number "88", which for neo-Nazis means the coded greeting "Heil Hitler!". In addition, the SSO and the Volunteer borrow the symbols of the Resistance – a white wolf on a black background. The SSO also publicly justified on social networks and supported the call of neo-Nazis from Rusich and Zimargl to torture and kill Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Who supports neo-Nazis
"Volunteer" and the MTR definitely enjoy the patronage of the authorities (and not only the governor Beglov). Both organizations are members of the Association of Military Training Centers of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region and are residents of the Prigozhin-based Wagner Center. Information support to organizations is provided by the Society for the Development of Russian Historical Education "Double-Headed Eagle" ("Tsargrad") and "Cyberfront Z". Neo-Nazis also like to be photographed with the odious St. Petersburg homophobe, deputy Milonov.
Savinsky also has close ties with Alexander Borodai, ex-chairman of the Council of Ministers of the "Donetsk People's Republic", and now a State Duma deputy from United Russia and chairman of the aforementioned Union of Donbass Volunteers.
Savinsky was regularly spotted at events at the Wagner Center, including in the company of another State Duma deputy, Maria Butina, a former assistant to Torshin's Taganskaya OPG frontman.
The main curator of relations between Volunteer and SSO with St. Petersburg officials is, apparently, Konstantin Blokhin – Deputy Chairman of the Commission on Youth Policy, Volunteering Development, Patriotic Education and Sports of the Public Chamber of St. Petersburg, he is also Chairman of the Board of the Strong Russia Public Sports Movement ".
Under the auspices of Beglov, neo-Nazis from the SSO became the real masters of St. Petersburg: now they are involved not only in teaching children, but also in patrolling the city together with the police and district administrations. The group acquired good connections in the St. Petersburg police. Since 2016, Vladimir “Ulfer” Bakin has been in regular contact with Viktor Usanov, head of the Krasnogvardeisky district of St. Petersburg’s law, order and security department, according to The Insider’s source.