Ukraine Crisis Divides Russian Far Right

Many Russian nationalists now support Putin’s policies, which they previously deemed “anti-Russian,” while others align with the liberal opposition, with which they otherwise share little in common.

by Matthew Kupfer

On July 27, something unexpected happened in St. Petersburg, Russia. Two dozen activists gathered in the recently created “free speech zone” on the city’s iconic Field of Mars and held a state-sanctioned LGBT rally—the first of its kind since Russia banned “homosexual propaganda” in 2013. But that was hardly the biggest surprise. Unlike…