Crime news
The group conducts its information operations through at least six Telegram channels
Crime news
Neo-Nazis, Misogynists and Thugs: The Russian Group “The State of Men” Rides Putin’s War
Who are the Russians behind yesterday’s bomb threats against three flights bound for Italy? Banned since 2021, the extremist group has continued to operate as an unofficial arm of the regime
“The State of Men,” a violent Russian extremist group, tried to sow chaos yesterday by sending bomb threats against three flights bound for Italy. A court in Nizhny Novgorod formally banned the group in 2021, a year before Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In Russia, being placed on the list of extremist organizations usually seals a group’s fate: its members end up in prison, fall out of a window or flee abroad. Yet “The State of Men” — Muzhskoye Gosudarstvo in Russian — has not only expanded its activities but also taken on a more prominent role. It has become a quasi-state actor.
Even if yesterday’s threats against European aircraft prove to be a hoax, or an attempt to claim responsibility for an operation carried out by someone else, the very fact that a Russian group can spread panic over an issue as sensitive as European aviation security is difficult to imagine without the tacit approval of Russia’s security services. This is information warfare. It is as if the group were signing its name: Russia. And if Moscow did not want that signature attached to the threats, “The State of Men” would be silenced before its members could even begin writing their emails.
“The explosion will happen in 60 minutes. Today your skies will turn red,” one message read.
“We, the fighters of ‘The State of Men,’ will make history with our actions today. Your feminist regime will remember this forever,” another said.
For years, this extremist Russian gang of racists, homophobes and misogynists has been escalating its activities, taking on the dirty work and sowing the kind of information chaos that serves the Kremlin’s interests — tasks that the FSB, Russia’s domestic security service and successor to the KGB, might prefer not to carry out itself. Its targets have included women threatened for no apparent reason, dissidents, Russian citizens who have expressed support for Ukraine and bloggers with substantial online followings who have challenged the official rationale for the war. “The State of Men” has become one of several informal pro-war online vigilante groups.
The group has tens of thousands of online supporters. It conducts its information operations through at least six Telegram channels, none of which has been shut down — unlike the channels of groups that genuinely pose a threat to Putin. The channels have between 60,000 and 80,000 subscribers. Not all are willing to take part in paramilitary activities, but a significant number are, according to researchers at the investigative collective Bellingcat.
The group claims to fight anything it perceives as a threat to Russia. Its members do not openly identify as Nazis, but their ideology is neo-Nazi in all but name. Their channels have even featured videos of a fighter from Rusich, a Russian neo-Nazi paramilitary unit, giving the Nazi salute. It would hardly be unprecedented for the Kremlin to make use of such informal groups, just as it has drawn on some of the most violent soccer hooligans — including the Espanyola Brigade — even on the battlefield.
Vladislav Pozdnyakov founded “The State of Men” in 2016, initially on VKontakte, Russia’s social network. After the group was formally banned, it moved to Telegram, where it has continued its activities undisturbed: waging hybrid warfare.
Its members became fervent supporters of the invasion of Ukraine, which they greeted with messages on the group’s channel: “Victory is with us, the Ukrainians are beneath us”; “The sky is above us. Forward, Russian brothers.”
They spread disinformation about Ukrainians and antisemitic conspiracy theories about President Volodymyr Zelensky. They have even called for the killing of Ukrainian leaders and the summary execution of Ukrainian soldiers. Such calls, illegal even under Putin’s own laws, have been allowed to stand. “The State of Men” serves the regime, much like the many freelance criminal gangs operating in its orbit.
The same is true of the NoName hackers, who are not directly affiliated with Russian intelligence services but have claimed responsibility in recent days for attacks on refrigerators across Europe. Carrying out attacks while preserving the ability to deny involvement — or claiming responsibility for false alarms — is part of the Russian playbook.
A few days ago, Pozdnyakov launched his latest campaign against Asya Shiska, a Moscow-based blogger whose offense was posting TikTok videos set to Ukrainian music. The young woman has since apologized and pleaded for mercy. She now faces the threat of physical violence.
Some of the administrators of “The State of Men’s” Telegram channels, including Vladimir Ivanov, a St. Petersburg university graduate, have operated within Russia’s far-right, anti-immigrant milieu. More significantly, they have worked alongside organizations linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group and the St. Petersburg troll factory, or with Tsargrad, the media empire of Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, a staunch Putin ally.
War is waged with bombs and Shahed drones, but also through the calculated exploitation of the enemy’s fears.
