Critics say the Kremlin is to blame for the rise in neo-nationalist movements, arguing they have been allowed to flourish in recent years.

Unlike many human rights activists and the country’s marginalized gay community, neo-nationalists have been allowed to hold rallies – a right guaranteed by the Russian constitution.

Yet amid this crackdown, President Vladimir Putin’s government has also sought to forge its own state nationalism – and used elements of the ultra-nationalist agenda in its increasingly anti-Western, neo-conservative and isolationist ideology

many ultra-nationalists fled Russia – sometimes preferring to fight in eastern Ukraine on both sides of the conflict.

The largest players in the field of official, Kremlin-sanctioned nationalism are the deeply conservative and immensely powerful Russian Orthodox Church, the resurgent “armies” of Cossacks, czarist-era paramilitary forces, and right-wing parties.

the Kremlin cultivates ties with [far right groups] in the European Union to promote Moscow’s agenda. (…) representatives of Western far-right political parties, including neo-Nazi groups from Germany, Greece, and the UK, met for a Kremlin-funded conference in St Petersburg

Very strong antifascist culture indeed.