Members of Ukrainian neo-Nazi community detained in Gelendzhik and Yaroslavl

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained 14 members of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi youth community M.K.U. in the Russian cities of Gelendzhik and Yaroslavl, the FSB said in a statement on Friday.

"As part of criminal proceedings under Article 282.1 of the Russian Criminal Code (arranging the activities of an extremist organization), the Federal Security Service and the Investigative Committee exposed an organized group of supporters of the M.K.U. Ukrainian radical youth community, which was created by Ukrainian national Yegor Krasnov, born in 2000, whose online alias is Yegor Yakovlev," the statement reads.

Thirteen members of the group were detained in Gelendzhik and another one in Yaroslavl. "A large amount of neo-Nazi materials, bladed weapons, communication means containing manuals for making explosive devices and firearms were seized from their homes," TASS cited the FSB as saying.

The detained are making confession statements, the FSB noted. According to them, the group was established in 2019 under Krasnov’s guidance. "The group later received orders from him and other Ukrainian members of the M.K.U., based in Kharkov and Kiev, to make weapons, carry out terrorist attacks and mass murders and take violent actions against common people," the statement said. "They gained practical skills through beating homeless people and members of youth subculture communities," the FSB noted. The group’s members put a replica of the Victory Banner on fire to prove their commitment to Nazi ideas.

In 2020, the M.K.U. leader called online on his supporters to step up terrorist activities in Russia.