June 15, 2016
Exclusive: Kim
Sengupta talks to a young Russian who explains how the culprits behind the
Marseille thuggery are well-trained combatants unlikely ever to face sanction,
and finds that some in the country are revelling in the violence.
Nikolai cannot
understand why so much fuss
is being made about the violence
during the Euro 2016 championship. He has, he said, seen
far worse. That, indeed, is the case – the young Russian had served as a
“volunteer” with separatist forces in Ukraine’s bloody civil war.
Two years ago, at
the towns of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, in rebel eastern Ukraine, Nikolai had
claimed to me that he was there to distribute aid and help those injured in the
fighting, rather than take part in combat himself. Now he insists that he is in
France simply to watch the football and not to seek any trouble.
The French
authorities have announced that 29 Russian supporters were being deported
following the strife in Marseilles before and during the game with England.
Uefa has also fined the Russian Football Federation and imposed a penalty of
suspended disqualification.
“They are trying
to kick out more than 50 people, not 29 as they are saying, and this includes
women. These people were travelling with the official party. If they are after
violent troublemakers don’t think they have got the proper people,” Nikolai
maintains.
“The French have
already stopped six people from entering the country. There was a charter flight to Marseilles from
Russia when the French wouldn’t let these six people in because they said they
were some kind of hooligan bosses. This was last Friday, the day before the
game with England, but English fans had already been fighting by then and
blaming the French supporters.
“So why is it
just the fault of the Russians? They are now saying that there may be fighting
in Lille. Russia is playing in Lille, not England. We are going there, so if
the English turn up there, who is responsible for the provocation? People
should be careful about provocation, some people get angry when they are provoked,”
he warns.
“I am not denying
there are Russian supporters who like a fight and some of them were being
overaggressive. That shouldn’t have happened. But that is the same with English
supporters and other nationalities as well. I was in Warsaw at the last one
(Euro 2012) when we were attacked by Polish fans. It was a well-organised
attack, lots injured, but there wasn’t much publicity about that.”
When I first met
him two years ago, back in eastern Ukraine, dressed in camouflage uniform,
Nikolai – in his late twenties, of medium height, physically fit but not
steroid-muscled as some of the Russian football supporters look in France – had
been happy to talk about his home at a southern suburb of Moscow, his deeply
held Orthodox Christian faith, his previous service in Russia’s naval infantry
and his empathy with the Donbass Peoples Militia. Now in Marseilles, in T-shirt
and shorts, he does not want to go into any of that, because, he is convinced
“the British media want to show all Russian supporters in a certain negative
way”.
Nikolai wants to
stress that he is not a member of an organised football gang, but, he says, he
knows about football hooliganism in Russia and the motivation of the violent
Russian fans. “Maybe it’s not known in the West, but the Russian authorities
are actually quite hard on the gangs now. There isn’t much fighting in the
stadiums and in the cities. They now have to arrange fights outside, in the
woods. They train for these fights, they do boxing, martial arts, that is why
they move in formations and can carry out ambushes,” he explains.
“In Marseilles
they found themselves and the English were on the same streets. That’s how trouble
started. Maybe the French should have studied how fighting supporters behave.
The media have also got basic things wrong. They are calling everyone ‘ultras’.
But the real fighters do not call themselves anything. The ultras just do a
little bit of fighting and shout a lot.”
The Russian
authorities may have clamped down on football hooliganism at home, but
statements by officials have overwhelmingly ranged from defending the violence
to glorying in Russian machismo. The day 49 people were murdered at the Pulse
nightclub in Florida, Vladimir Markin, the spokesman for the Russian equivalent
of the FBI, was declaring the fault for what happened in Marseilles lay with
the French police: “A proper man comes as an amazement to them. They are used
to seeing ‘men’ at gay parades,“ was his view of law enforcement.
So there is no
incentive for those who are taking part in
trouble at the Euros – mainly supporters of Lokomotiv Moscow, Spartak
Moscow, CSKA Moscos and Zenit St Petersburg – not to boast about their
proclivity for violence as it is highly unlikely they will face any sanctions
back home.
Videos and
accounts of fighting are being widely
disseminated on Russian social media. One man, calling himself Molodoi,
describes how “there were eight of us, moving around central Marseilles near
the Old Port in two cars, bathing in the atmosphere of good old street
violence”. There was a skirmish with English supporters, but “when they
realised there were only a few of us, they got cheeky and swarmed us. Pure
English style, but that is their right, our low numbers are our own problem.”
On The Orel
Butchers website, a Russian football supporters' forum, there are colourful
accounts of assaults and, at the same time, protests about the criticism
received over the violence. One man has posted: “The British press are calling
us animals, saying that their fans, women and children were running from us.
But we all know the British are far from being children.”
In Nikolai’s
view, “It’s a bit like the way it was in Ukraine. Those who boast the most are
not the most dangerous, nor are they the leaders. The most dangerous ones, and
the real leaders, are the ones not saying much and making sure their faces
remain hidden.” A bit like Nikolai, some may think, but of course he was only
there to enjoy the football.
