You're listening to a stage talk titled Identifying
Far -Right Fashion. This week we were joined
by my colleagues Michael Colburn and Juri van
der Waard. We discussed the meanings behind some
far -right symbols, why merchandise is such an
attractive element to far -right groups, big
and small, and how investigating these financial
structures can give you an insight into their
secretive internal structures. You can find links
to all the resources mentioned in the talk in
the podcast description. This talk was hosted
by me, Charlotte Mar, on Thursday the 23rd of
October 2025 in the BellyCat Discord server.
Hello and welcome to this week's Stage Talk.
Today we're diving into the fashion of fascists.
Exploring why creating the latest garb with their
messaging or symbol on it is important to far
-right groups. Well, you've got to look fabulous
while spreading hate, right? Speaking to this
is Bellingcat researchers Michael Coburn and
Eurovan Devide. Michael is known around these
parts as somewhat of a far -right guru. He's
spent years mapping out transnational networks
and building research into these extremist organisational
structures, identifying those driving the movements
forwards. Yuri has worked on a wide variety of
topics, but his focus on human rights abuses
in Africa have led him into the world of groups
like Wagner and Rusevich, Russian paramilitary
groups associated with far -right ideologies.
In his latest article, he identified the man
helping to sell Rusevich merchandise from key
chains to sticker packs that depict Alexei Miltryakov,
an infamous Russian neo -Nazi, and a figure Bellingcat
revealed last year may have committed a war crime.
Michael and Yuri will unpack why merch is important
to these groups and how you can identify a far
right tee versus an ordinary logo. As we talk,
please make sure to add your questions in the
chat box via the message bubble icon in the top
right corner of your screen. And as I just mentioned,
this is being audio recorded. So please note
within your question, if you do not want me to
read your username out. Okay, Michael, it's your
time to shine. I will shut up. And I believe
we're starting with you. Thanks, Charlie. Yes,
thanks Charlie and thanks everyone for taking
the time to to come to this I have ten minutes
I could talk for much Much longer than that,
but I will be disciplined and keep myself to
ten minutes talking about this so Far -right
fashion those words. Well, first of all far -right
fashion. It is a thing What I'll mostly be talking
the brief presentation are is this phenomenon
of specific brands that are worn by far -right
and neo -Nazis, but also a bit of symbolism that
they use, but also some of the more mainstream
brands that they co -opt. It's more of a European
phenomenon than it is in the United States or
in the so -called English -speaking world that's
starting to change. So just wanted to say that
for a bit of context before diving in. The why
of far -right fashion, I've mentioned it exists,
but why does it exist? Well, the number one reason
to mention, but maybe actually not the most important
reason, is money. Selling clothes, selling merch,
selling anything can be a source of revenue for
the far -right. That being said, however, a lot
of the kinds of brands that I look into and I
research, they are even some of the ones that
I may not mention by name in a few minutes, but
you'll see some pictures of these are small brands
are not going to be bringing in a lot of money.
These are brands that are bringing in usually
tens of thousands of dollars or euros, particularly,
or anything like that. They might be bringing
in maybe a few thousand, maybe not even that,
but they see it as part of It's not it wouldn't
be the only revenue stream odds are if you're
running or if you're running one of these far
-right fashion brands There are you have other
revenue streams like hosting events concerts
things like that and also For example getting
your own members to give you money to for for
your propaganda Thinking of a specific group
in the United States with that one and also another
reason related to money why far -right fashion
is a thing or why, I guess, entrepreneurs want
to be far -right entrepreneurs get into starting
up a fashion brand. Well, it's a bit of status
on the far -right. It can give them a bit more
profile within a movement, make people within
a movement see, oh, such -and -such is doing
good things for quote -unquote us. He's making
cool stuff. It's usually going to be a he, I'll
mention that. And it gives them a bit of status
as well. However, I would argue the more important
reason, essentially the more central reason as
to the why of far -right fashion is that it's
about identity. Particularly in the times that
we live in, fashion is... more than ever a fundamental
component of identity building, consolidating
identities, both as an individual and in a group.
And that's certainly the case across the board.
We're not just talking about the far right here.
What I would argue is more important for the
far right, the kinds of folks who are behind
some of these brands, it is one, yes, money,
but it is really more about trying to build a
culture. It's about trying to not to build an
identity that is, that keeps, keeps the old garden
or keeps people excited or group identity. It's
also something that they deliberately do to try
to, well, bring the youth in. And especially
given that fashion for youth is even an even
greater part of identity formation. This is why
they do it. It's a strategy. And this is a quote
from somebody who's affiliated with a far right
fashion brand. This is an exact quote from theirs
about the strategy behind fashion, quite literally
being something to look good, to attract more
of the youth. They are that transparent about
it. Moving on quickly, more about the why. One
of the reasons why, to answer that question,
why. Not just why, but the... Answering the question
of how the far -right not just uses fashion,
but what it communicates with using fashion.
They do so in several key ways. They do this
thing called, we would call it game playing.
Plausible deniability is another way to think
about it. Basically having a shirt with symbols
on it and a slogan. That is, maybe it doesn't
have to look that extreme, but maybe only a few
of us nerds recognize the hateful ideology behind
the symbol or what's even being alluded to or
referenced in the symbol. They try to claim some,
basically play games and play this plausible
deniability game. It's like, oh, well, it's just
an ancient Slavic sun symbol. It's nothing more
than that. And they do that so that... for lack
of a better way to put it, to take a bit of the
heat off themselves and to sort of, you know,
get more, relatively more into the mainstream.
That relates to this phenomenon of double speak,
which refers to in studying the far right where
there is a front stage, how the far right presents
itself to a much more public audience and the
backstage and with the game playing, these kinds
of people can stand on the front stage and say,
oh, there's nothing extreme about this symbol
or this slogan. But in the backstage, the proverbial
backstage with all their bodies, they all use
and relate and under relate to and understand
that symbol. Or that said, those sets of symbols
references the same way. And also it functions
as a sort of secret handshake. Now you might
not know what the specific brand is that might
be on a shirt, maybe without even a symbol on
it. You might not know what some of those symbols
being referenced are. But the other guys, they
do. It's a matter of, same with a lot of subcultures.
It's a way of recognizing who is, quote unquote,
one of us, who's friend and who's foe. And that's
something that further helps build and then solidify
identity. And to quote one of the academic articles,
which I think has been or will be, I'm giving
everybody a reading list. It's not very long.
This is a quote from one of the articles. The
whole approach of far -right fashion is inculcating
this deliberately produced style of confusion
where, for example, people spend two days on
blue sky in the internet trying to figure out
whether somebody's tattoo is a Nazi symbol or
not, or whether they knew it was a symbol or
not, or et cetera, et cetera. If you don't know
what I'm referring to, you're in luck. Related
to this, another key component of far -right
fashion is basically being Nazis without quote
unquote, looking like Nazis. I think a lot of
us in our countries and our societies, no matter
how old or young we are, because of movies, because
of popular culture, we often have an image of
what somebody on the far right or what a neo
-Nazi looks like. We all think they might look
like the character in American history acts,
skinhead with Doc Martens and white laces and
the kinds of people do still exist. But most
of the contemporary far -right extremists, they
play a more clever game than that. They always
deliberately try to be a bit more subtle than
that within boundaries. Sometimes they're more
subtle, sometimes they're not. And as you'll
see, they use some lesser known symbols as well,
symbols people won't know. Just checking for
time here. All right. I'm just going to have
all these up on the screen here. So I won't go
into detail on all of these right now, but Essentially,
there are larger Far -right fashion brands. I'm
only going to name some of these larger ones.
Some of them, maybe you've heard of Thor Steiner
is one of them. European Brotherhood is another.
However, there are smaller, more local or national
brands that exist only in some countries or in
some parts of Europe, particularly, or some regions.
But there are also, there's also long been of
the far right co -opting mainstream brands like
Fred Perry. I don't know if you can see the polo
shirt that I'm wearing. There's a reason why
I'm deliberately wearing it today. There are
some mainstream brands that have often been associated
with football casual subcultures or other subcultures
for decades that the far right has co -opted.
Some of them they've co -opted for a long time.
But the key thing to keep in mind with these
co -opted brands is that they're often associated
with other subcultures or no subcultures at all.
Like for example, not to get into too much detail,
but those, like the brands that I have up there,
Fred Perry, Lyle and Scott and New Balance, those
are the same kind, a lot of the same kinds of
brands that left -wing or anti -fascist communities
wear as well in some countries. But sometimes
they are wearing the same brands, maybe not always
the same colors, but the same brands. And within
the sort of corpus of far -right brands, there
are some that are maybe less explicit or barely
or not at all, where sometimes it might even
be hard to use the terminology far -right to
describe them. However, sometimes there are varying
degrees of subtlety or lack of subtlety even
within a particular brand's product range. And
then there are some brands that are much, much
more overt and much less subtle. And lastly,
this is probably not surprising given that we
are talking about the far right. The vast majority
of this clothing is for men. There are far right
brands who produce clothes for women. They are
just awful. I won't editorialize too much to
be on that. And this is my last slide. I'm just
going to slide over here, no pun intended. Turn
on my laser pointer with a few minutes without
going over too much. If you're watching this
live, you can see what's on the screen. I'll
just try to quickly verbally explain some of
these. Up here on the top left is a shirt from
European Brotherhood, their brand, their initials
in a sort of sun cross or almost Celtic cross
type symbol. This might look pretty subtle, but
the coordinates that are on the shirt are the
coordinates for Vellelsberg Castle in Germany.
which was a castle that the SS took over in which
Heinrich Himmler intended to turn into a sort
of cult -like headquarters. Very obvious what
they're going for there. These pair of shorts
below is from a far -right fashion brand that's
affiliated with the active club movement. Roman
numerals for the 14 words and neo -Nazi slogan,
which I'm not repeating, and also stylized fasces
up on the... center here, this sort of patch
from a France -based far -right or neo -Nazi
fashion brand. That style of patch is meant to
emulate Waffen -SS imagery, and it also uses
black, white, and red colors of the old German
Empire flag, colors that were also used by the
Nazis. There are historical nuances I don't have
the time to get into here. And below, a lot of
what you'll see with the far -right is even co
-opting logos of other brands here. just riffing
off the North face logo with a shirt that says
the white race. Up here, a Canadian brand with
what are called, again, not to get into too much,
there's more subtlety than this, but what are
called life and death runes that were runic symbols
that were co -opted by the SS. This hoodie, this
gray hoodie, it is something sold by a Serbian
brand. And without getting into detail, it is
referring to an anti -Bosnia or chant that is
essentially a genocide triumphalist slogan. It's
three words, but they've only printed the first
two on the shirt because everybody knows seeing
those two words in the Serbian or Balkan context
what the next one is. This is a Thor Steiner
shirt. Again, game playing here. A big white
polar bearer with a slogan. It's okay to be white
again. Ha ha. I've seen this with a great white
shark, I think from the same brand and then Moving
on more quickly, there's another Thor Steiner
belt down here with runes. Runes were very much
co -opted by the Nazis, and they're very much
used in non -Far -right contexts as well. And
lastly, to help lead into what Yuri is going
to be talking about, these two brands here are
related to stuff Yuri has written about. Up here
is a shirt from the Hatecore brand, Fake Cross.
And even though it is a Russian brand, it says
Light and Proud in English. Not very subtle.
And then this shirt here is a shirt sold by people
affiliated with the neo -Nazi Rusich military
unit fighting on the Russian side in Ukraine.
It's got a kolovrat, which is another pagan symbol
that sometimes, I don't think that often, is
used by non -far -right or non -neo -Nazi people.
But with these guys, it's very clear that this
is the context that they're using it. a nice
Odo rune, another co -opted rune of Volknut,
another co -opted symbol that is also used in
more mainstream context. And then in Russian,
what it says here is, we sow death, we reap victory.
So pretty clear what's going on here. So that
is the end of my comments. And so I will stop
sharing my screen. Stop sharing. Oh, thank you,
Michael, for your insights. Um, so I'll do an
introduction explaining, uh, one of the investigations
that I did. Uh, it was the previous one, the
previous investigation, uh, we did a few months
ago. Um, and maybe after I'm done, uh, talking
about this, I'll have some time to talk about
the more recent article. Um, but anyway, um,
so I will talk about the man named, uh, Raman
Morin. I'm sorry. I'm, I'm a little bit sick.
So if my... My voice sounds a little bit strange,
that's why. So, Roman Morin, he, we found out,
is the administrator of a pro -Wagner telegram
channel called White Uncles in Africa. And he
also sells neo -Nazi merch under the brand Hatecore,
Hatecore with an 8. That's one of the shirts
that Michael showed belonged to that brand. How
did this start? I already knew of them before,
but I started investigating them in the summer
of 2024. It was sometime after July 25th, because
back then a big ambush happened in Mali, where
many Wagner mercenaries and Malian soldiers died.
That was a really, really big event. The ambush
was carried out by Tuareg forces and in collaboration
with Janim, a jihadist organization. So many
Russians died there and there were some or many
pro -Wagner telegram channels that had the latest
updates on what happened, but one really stood
out and that was the White Uncles in Africa group.
So that incident led to me taking a closer look
at them, at the group. And I quickly noticed
that they were rapidly growing and that they
started selling t -shirts and merch as well.
Some had clear neo -Nazi motifs. So it was from
that same brand, Hatecore. They created a t -shirt
that was specifically for this group with texts
such as white uncles in Africa, in both English
and Russian. So more importantly, right? They
started sharing or they would also share lots
of gory and graphic content and even more so
than other channels. And that was another thing
that sparked my interest in them. Um, cause they
were really glorifying whatever Wagner was doing
in Mali. And, uh, yeah, they also would share
instructions on how to join Wagner, right? Which
nowadays, um, kind of is disappearing at least
in Mali, um, and becoming something else right
under the Russian government. Right. Okay. Um,
so yeah, it was clear that... They were sharing
lots of footage that degrades their enemies.
For example, decapitated corpses of presumably
their enemies and insinuating that some of their
Mayan partners had practiced even such things
as cannibalism on their enemies. the Malian armed
forces, but people from volunteer groups. Yeah.
So why do I talk about that? Well, all of that
was shared kind of jokingly by these people,
right? By white uncles in Africa. And it seemed
to me that it was partly intended to attract
men to join their cause or at least become supporters.
And when I spoke to Maureen, he personally confirmed
to me that he joined Wagner after he had seen
a video of torture, killing, burning and decapitation
of a Syrian deserter by Wagner fighters in Syria
many years ago. So he said that he is in favor
of justice and that's what attracted him to Wagner.
So, yeah, sharing that kind of footage may also
constitute the war crime of outrages upon personal
dignity, according to some experts I spoke to.
And there is also an article by the AP that said
that the ICC was investigating such cases and
also cases of disseminating this type of material.
And in particular, they mentioned this group
white uncles in Africa in their article. But
the rest of the presentation, I will focus a
bit more on hatecore because through that brand,
I was able to establish who Moirin was. And it's
also an interesting way to see how they operate
and how this, let's say, propaganda works. So
I started this investigation with the goal of
finding out who was behind white uncles in Africa,
right? But really what helped me crack this case
was that the person behind white uncles in Africa,
Raman Morin, was also selling neo -Nazi merch
from his brand, Hatecore. So actually when I
came across Hatecore, I first knocked on the
door of Michael to ask his opinion on it, but
it was pretty obvious even to me. that it was
a neo -Nazi brand because of some of the shirts
that they were selling, the motifs on them, like
the Black Sun or the Kolovrat, things like that.
So Hatecore is a grassroots project that Morin
started more than a decade ago for fun, according
to what he said himself. Because when I spoke
to him during the write -up reply phase... He
said that for him, it wasn't really about the
money, but you know, it was some kind of hobby.
He liked to do it and his customers and friends
also liked it. So there was a lot of information
out there from that decade long history of the
brand. Some of it he had tried to hide, but a
lot of it was still out there and kind of hidden
in plain sight. White uncles in Africa... kind
of pretended that the founder of hatecore and
the admin of white uncles were two different
people, right? Or they kind of insinuated that,
but they also dropped some breadcrumbs every
now and then, and that allowed us to connect
the dots, right? So they would share... promotional
images of their t -shirts and say things like,
the owner of Hatecore is a good friend and a
former Wagner fighter. Oftentimes the person
in these promotional images was the same guy.
So I was able to tell that because of his build,
right? And most importantly, the tattoos. In
some pictures, they would blur the tattoos, right?
But you could still analyze it because of where
the tattoos were located on the body, like on
the same arm, forearm, hand, right? In most recent
images, he had blurred his tattoos and he was
generally speaking more secretive. But I found
other social media where Hatecore was promoting
their products and they were... or are active
on Telegram, but most importantly on VK and YouTube.
VK is kind of the Russian Facebook. So the latter
two social media platforms were very important
for me because they contained history that went
back years and years. In the case of YouTube,
almost like 10 years. VK was still active when
I started. investigating it it is still active
today but they removed lots of pictures but back
then the history would go back really years and
years all the way back to i think 2016 the youtube
channel had died down but it was still online
right so they hadn't uploaded anything new since
2016 but at least they didn't remove the old
videos So that was important for me because I
was able to find old pictures of the man I later
learned to be Ramon Morin. The pictures there,
they weren't censored. So you could clearly see
some of the dews that he had back then, and you
could clearly see his face. Morin had also left
his personal email address. Uh, in the YouTube
contact details and true that I found his real
name because he had also used it to register
as an individual entrepreneur at the Russian
tax offices, right? So if you want to sell stuff,
um, and pay taxes, then you need to register
and he used that same, uh, email address. Now
I tried to confirm that Maureen was the person
I was seeing in old pictures and videos, right?
So that took me a while because Morin in newer
stuff would also use aliases, nicknames, but
most commonly he would go by Andrei Maskov. So
I had to confirm that his different personas
were really him. I had to connect that also to
him, like his physical appearance, his face.
I was finally able to confirm that Morin was
Moscow's, the admin of hatecore and not just
an associate by finding his parents' social media
profiles, where they were using their real names
and they would also tag Morin. So I was able
to confirm that. And then at that point, I wanted
to connect him to white uncles in Africa, right?
So I already had the hunch that the admin of
or one of the admins of white uncles in Africa
and Maureen, that they were the same people,
the same person. But yeah, I had to prove that
somehow. Luckily Maureen slipped up a couple
of times. So on the white uncles page, they would
share an image of a man with someone called Alexei
Molchakov. Charlie spoke about Alexei Molchakov.
He is the current commander of the neo -Nazi
paramilitary group Rusich. So you might know
Molchakov because he is quite infamous and the
group is infamous as well. And both he and the
group are under international, mostly Western
sanctions for stuff they did. not only in Ukraine,
but they were also in Syria, in the Central African
Republic and Libya, and there they were acting
as part of Wagner. So Ruzic is very controversial,
as I said, and one of their former commanders,
Jan Petrovski, is currently in jail in Finland
for war crimes committed in Ukraine in 2014.
So in that picture, they said that the white
uncle's admin, the guy whose face they had blurred,
was meeting with Molchakov to donate some equipment,
right? And around the same time, Ruzic also promoted
hatecore and white uncles in Africa gear on their
own channel. So they were kind of doing each
other a favor, right? Um, all right. So, uh,
the admin, Spoiler, Maureen, right, appeared
in that picture with Melchikov. I had a hunch
it was him because of some of the clothes he
was wearing and particularly his gray blue New
Balance sneakers that he had worn in several
different pictures. Um, so yeah. Uh, I still
had to prove that, but then around New Year's,
um, they shared another image and video of the
admin, again, Maureen. And Maureen was congratulating
the subscribers, right? Like wishing them a Happy
New Year. And Maureen wore a mask, shades and
a hatecore baseball cap to hide his identity.
Um, but yeah, in the video, they forgot to blur
certain keyframes where you could see his tattoo
on the back of his hand and here on the side
of his left hand between his pinky and his wrist,
where you could figure out what was written there.
It was the VDV. VDV is the Russian Airborne Forces,
like that unit or that part of the of the Russian
military, right? And on that other hand, he had
a hate -core tattoo. So that was really good
for us because both tattoos matched with tattoos
from older pictures where he didn't hide his
face, right? And where you could see also the
same tattoos, the hate -core tattoo and the za
vedeve tattoo. So after finding that, we still
had to confirm that he was a former Wagner fighter.
So for that, We contacted Candice Rondeau and
Ben Dalton from the New America Project Foundation,
I should say. And they have access to a bunch
of internal Wagner documents from, I think, 2021
and before. And then there, they found that someone
with the same full name and birthday appeared
in their records. I had only given his name.
in his date of birth, but then they provided
me with his passport number and some other details.
So I cross -referenced and yeah, I found out
that that was the same guy. So at that stage,
I had enough to contact Moiding himself to ask
him a few questions and to lay out what we found
about him. And that's when he admitted that he
was indeed the hate core admin. First, he didn't
really want to admit that he was also the admin
of white uncles in Africa. But I explained how
I knew it was him. And then he confirmed as well.
And yeah, well, he confirmed almost everything.
He confirmed he served in Libya, but he said
that he couldn't talk about ongoing things, right?
I suspect he might have been active in Mali as
well, but that's one of the things he wouldn't
tell. So he denies being a neo -Nazi, interestingly.
So I asked about the black sun symbol he tattooed
on his elbow, and that was heavily featured in
some of the clothes he sells. But he said that
was just an Asian pagan symbol. So I noticed
that Maureen deleted some images from his Telegram
profile, but he kind of doesn't care anymore.
Sometimes nowadays you see posts by him where,
for example, he is selling a certificate that
he got with a medal from the Russian government.
It was a medal for Odvago, which means like medal
for courage. And the certificate had his complete
name there. So I guess nowadays he doesn't care
too much. But he removed a bunch of other things
from his profile, like stuff where he was kind
of insinuating that he was active in Mali. I
wasn't able to confirm whether he was the one
taking those pictures or if it was someone else.
But yeah, so a few things remain unclear. Months
after I published... The AP came out with the
aforementioned article and also Jeune Afrique
published an article about White Uncle's premium
Telegram channel where they were selling the
more graphic content. And after the latter came
out, Telegram banned the premium channel. So
I guess that's good, but the open channel is
still active and hatecore is still active as
well. Do you mind if I cut in here Yuri, just
because of time and perhaps we can explore the
second article within the questions. I actually
have a question based on what you were just talking
about and thank you so much for going through
your research and Michael also beforehand going
through some of the reasons why these merchandise
exist and what they look like. When it comes
to investigating groups like this, do these financial
offerings, these merchandise structures, are
they a good way in to discover organizational
hierarchies and people who are potentially quite
centrally involved in the organization? So in
Morin's case, you kind of eventually found out
that he was the admin for the White Uncles in
Africa. But in the Rusich case with Romanov,
he denies being anything other than just a salesman.
How often is it that the person who's behind
the merchandise sales is so entrenched within
the organization? Is it often quite a good way
in to these hierarchies of these secretive organizations?
I think it's difficult to tell because I worked
on two articles like that. Like this one in the
Aromanov one that we published a few days ago.
And in those two cases, it appears to be the
case, right? But maybe Michael has more information
about that because he has been doing this for
longer. Right. The short answer to your question,
Charlie, is yes. I really think that when I think
about some of the different brands that I've
personally spent a lot of time researching or
investigating, or that I'm familiar with, even
to the point of going into their shops, or just
being familiar with smaller ones. In a lot of
cases, finding out, and sometimes it's not at
all hard because they literally don't hide it,
but figuring out who's behind one of these brands
can often really be somebody who already has
particular status within a movement or within
a sort of far -right cultural sphere. In other
words, they're not usually a nobody. They usually
have, even if not a formal affiliation. they
will have some connections with some specific
parts of the far right or with other groups within
it. And so in short, yeah, if one wants to figure
out a bit more about a particular country's scene,
even if it's very small, if they've got one of
these kinds of brands, look into that and it
might be able to be a window into understanding
a bit more about the context and the broader
network. You mentioned how the white uncles in
Africa, the main Telegram account could close
down. I've been thinking about consequences.
Very Charlie, just one small correction. The
main Telegram channel is still up, but the premium
one where people had to pay to view the query
content, that one is... That one was taken down.
I wanted to ask about the consequences of reporting
on merchandise that's associated with far right
groups. Has that been any cases that you're aware
of where... you've found products online or other
organizations have found products online reported
about those products and those products have
been taken off for sale. For example, I know
a couple of years ago, we covered some merchandise
being sold on Amazon that was then taken down.
Is there any consequences for these kinds of
sellers? Is there any rules or regulations that
prevent what can be sold on t -shirts, for example,
or on... merchandise in general. Sure. I go first
and then you, Michael. I think you're trying
to speak, but I cannot hear you. Go ahead. Yeah.
So just quickly in my case, right, I reached
out to ozone .ru, which is kind of like the Russian
Amazon. They didn't do anything. Telegram. didn't
do anything until Joan Afrique did the other
article about the premium channel. I'm trying
to think, VK, it's still there. Other social
media, I think it was mostly also because they
are in Russia, right? In Russia's, I think most
platforms are kind of closing their eyes for
this kind of stuff. even though it's like, as
far as I understand, against their laws. In my
case, I have seen and I'm familiar with where
some of these brands, they still will sell their
products on a website, but they're prevented
from using particular payment processors. So
kind of related quite a lot to Colina's work
where making it difficult for them to process
payments, even if it's from a small group of
like -minded people, that puts a dent in the
kinds of things that they want to do. Then there
can be some cases where if there's media coverage
about a particular product or set of products
that generates a negative reaction, they sometimes
have stopped selling it or they've been told
you can't sell this anymore. The example I'm
aware of is from Serbia. The example of the shirt
that I, the hoodie that I had in my presentation,
the one that I'm just not saying, saying the
chant, but you know, genocide triumphalist slogan,
two thirds of it. And even in Serbia, even for
the Serbian stays, the whichever departments,
Stepped in and said that violates a law you cannot
sell a shirt and they took it down. So there
can be short -term Maybe not always hugely damaging
consequences for particular kinds of media coverage.
But so when this kind of coverage adds up Yeah,
it makes it it can put a bit of a dent in in
in what they're trying to do Bishop says in the
chat, I think the only rules at least in North
America, as long as the brand is not overtly
spreading hate speech throughout its brand is
okay. Whether or not the community circles the
way it spread hate, that isn't necessarily put
upon the brand itself. So there's a guess based
on my understanding of law in North America.
Interesting to see if any reporting has been
done on social media advertisements. For example,
a lot of these brands have profiles for the brands
as well on social media. It would be interesting
to see if any of them have done any promotions.
uh, and whether those are, uh, taken down by
the likes of X or Instagram, for example, um,
all of those, that's where often merchandise
is advertised. Just pitching, investigating ideas.
This is kind of related, particularly on Instagram.
And I'm not the only person who's observed this
over the past year or more, but a lot more, more
of these kinds of groups operate. It's not like
Telegram, but they can operate. In other words,
what I'm getting at, they can post a lot more
content that I don't remember seeing on Instagram
before 2024, especially before 2025. There's
a lot more far right organizing, broach selling,
propagandizing on Instagram than I think a lot
of people are aware of. Absolutely. And if you're
interested in monitoring some of these things,
we do have a space within here called hashtag
far right monitoring where I know Michael spends
a lot of his time. So please do check that out
channel out. And if you have any questions, by
the way, please get them in. We've got about
15 minutes left. What are some organizations
that are consistently monitoring far right activities,
particularly far right merchandise or fashion
or symbol use that other people within this survey
or listening to this podcast might want to check
out. What are the organizations that you monitor
that you think do great reporting? For me, there's
several. In terms of a resource, one of the probably
the better resources right now in terms of hate
symbols is the Right now, I always mix up their
name. The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism,
GPAHE, they have developed a pretty wide ranging
database of symbols. We are actually, myself,
are actually working on a sort of smaller glossary
or encyclopedia of symbols, almost like a visual
dictionary of some of the symbols that I've talked
about, a lot of which incorporates photos that
I've taken of graffiti and stickers and street
art and fashion over the past decade. So eventually
some more of our work will become reasonable.
But in terms of a lot of the best monitoring
of these kinds of groups, it does differ by country.
I've worked with Expo in Sweden. Expo's first
editor was Stieg Larsson and Expo has long done
great work and has actually been kind of an inspiration
for the kind of work that I've wanted to do,
the kind of journalism that I've wanted to do.
There are individual journalists, journalistic
outlets who maybe focus a bit more on the far
right from time to time. There are organizations
that research, but they also do their own kind
of lobbying or, you know, maybe sometimes you
call more activism, like maybe Hope Not Hate
in the UK is an example of that. There are also,
of course, without getting too much into politics,
there are, I mean, a lot of research, again,
depending on the country, there are anti -fascist
activists who research the far right. And sometimes,
especially in say Germany, they produce their
own magazines. Now, of course, if in those kinds
of communities, uh, there's quote unquote, activist,
a partisan element involved, but very easy to
do as cause I spent my life doing it. And I think
we've, a lot of us spent our lives doing it,
reading sort of, you know, somebody's research
on a fiery group. Maybe for them it comes from
some partisan quote unquote act. activist perspective,
but especially doing it using open sources and
showing your work and being ethical about it.
They're resources and they're sources that mainstream
conventional journalists use. So that speaks
to it. Yuri, do you have any that you want to
shout out just for on this subject? No, not really.
I think I've been focused more on just Russia.
angle, right? And I think my interest in this
came from somewhere else and then I kind of rolled
into this. So I don't really have other examples
of groups doing this on a larger scale. Yeah.
So in short, Yuri, what you're saying is unlike
me, you have a life outside of researching the
FARA and good for you. That's good. Well, I'm
I'm going to tell you one thing. I'm really tired
of looking at these kinds of folks, right? I
think I need a break from Bruce Hitch and Wagner
guys, neo -Nazi Wagner guys. I really need a
mental health break in do something else just
for a little while. I can speak to that. I can
understand that where for anybody who may be,
anybody listening who maybe has an interest in
you know, researching or monitoring or writing
about these kinds of groups or wants to start
doing it. One thing that I would stress to always
keep in mind is even if at first you think you're,
you know, you think you're going to be able to
let like, you know, water flow off you like a
duck's back that you can go and look at all these
telegraph channels. constantly all the time.
Maybe you're looking at stuff that even isn't
explicitly violent, but maybe it's full of hateful,
hateful, hateful rhetoric. What I've found over
doing this kind of work for years is that when,
when you spend time, too much time, you get sort
of buried in their world or this world that they've
created. You can just, you just. Yeah, even if
it is not always explicit like if like if I opened
on my telegram right now where I follow all from
different accounts a lot of very not nice stuff
Even after like nowadays even after a few minutes
ten minutes of going through. Oh, here's what
this group posted about recently then there's
you just Like it's just like you feel like in
your head you're looking or you're seeing are
these hateful people think everybody is out to
get them and that they you know And it can be
hard, hard to, hard to deal with. And so it doesn't,
this, the key thing for me, for anybody who wants
to not have their quote unquote beat like me,
but if they even, you know, looking at things
on the side or maybe a specific article or investigation,
be cognizant of the fact that you need to pace
yourself and take mental breaks from it. Even
when you maybe at the time don't think you need
to, don't spend day and night, day and night,
day and night constantly looking at this kind
of stuff because to put it in an informal way,
it's going to fry your brain. And it's not, you
know, even in very small ways, it could be not
fun looking at some of this kind of crap. If
I can just be that blunt, looking at some of
this kind of crap, you know, during a work day
for me, you know, it can, it can, it can ruin
the rest of the day because it's Even like, I'm
not going to say that's on the level of trauma,
but it's, it can, viewing some of this content,
some of the language, just the hateful world
that some of these groups and channels and whatnot
have constructed, it can bring you down too.
And so like I said, pace yourself with it. You
might want to, or feel the need to take a look
at any of that kind of stuff on a particular
day. doesn't mean you're not doing your job or
you're not committed to it, you just got to take
care of yourself doing it, even if it isn't like
the most, quote unquote, extreme kind of content
or particularly kind of extreme visual or violent
content. And as you said at the beginning, Michael,
about some of the reasons behind merchandise
being sold, it's not just a financial reason
for these groups, but also it's a sense that
of brotherhood of we're an army of people. or
wearing the same kind of uniform. It might be
a secret uniform, it might be a secret handshake,
but it does have this, when you manage to flood
yourself with so much content, it does have this
ability to make you think, oh, wow, there's quite
a lot of them. There's quite a lot of people
within this movement that, yeah, it has its persuasive
techniques and that can be quite gut wrenching,
particularly if you've seen some of the more
extreme information that they're sharing and
thoughts and feelings that they're sharing in
these groups. I wanted to ask about safety actually,
if you're infiltrating some of these groups or
if you're looking at looking down the financial
structures of these merchandise sellers, what
are some of the steps you can take to protect
yourself as a researcher? I think especially
with investigating or trying to even just find
out information about some of these brands is
that, you know, it can depend on the country,
but wherever they are, sometimes they will, I
mean, not sometimes, I think for the most part,
they will be incorporated and depending on the
country. That means you can very easily, you
know, get the basic financial information, maybe
not. So in other countries that you can find
out. with a public registry search, you know,
who, who the agent is behind particular like
LLC or, you know, or, or whatever, whatever terminology
who might be behind your brand. So one fortunate
thing is that it, that side of things can be
easy. Uh, on the safety side of things, what
I can say is that this doesn't just relate to
fashion. I found that the invest investigations
that I've done that seem to have got some of
these people the most upset are investigations
where I'm reasonably certain one of the major
impacts was human lose money. And that something
to keep in mind for anybody who might be wanting
to investigate the far right or other kinds of
related actors, whether, you know, anti -vax
type people or any anybody who kind of of that
ilk is despite all the principles or rhetoric
they might like the sound when if you end up
making debts in the money that they're bringing
in even if it's not very much they don't like
it and that's just a safety consideration to
keep in mind you can maybe write other articles
that embarrass them in some way or make them
look look silly. They won't like that either.
But if you like, for example, when I, when I
wrote about for belly got the, this, uh, a European
fight night in 2023. And it was essentially because
of my article that the venue pulled out the day
before. And so these guys had to run around and
find some place in the, you know, in some small
town, an hour away from Budapest, some little
field. And it means certain that because of that
article and the consequences of it, that lost
their money. And that's why at their actual event,
I can't see what it says on the flyers, but they
put flyers of my face, so I don't think they
were happy. And that's something safety wise
to keep in mind. Sorry, Yuri, did you have anything
to add? No, not really. I think it's too... employ
some of the same techniques that you employ on
them yourself to see what they could potentially
do. I think some of the far -right people aren't
necessarily the brightest, but others, right?
Especially if there is like a state involved,
right? Like state -sponsored far -right groups,
like the case of Rusage. In those cases, you
have to be a bit... more careful, I think. So
try to see if you can talk to yourself and try
to take measures and get advice from people who
know more about online safety, cybersecurity,
but also physical security, if you're really
worried about this. I wanted to ask one question
from the audience just to wrap. I know we're
on time, so I'll make it quick. Argyle's just
asked, I've been noticing local groups here in
the US creating their own bespoke clothing. Are
there some more common clothing manufacturers
these groups might be using instead of, say,
screen printing their own? And just to add, Michael
earlier gave us a really good reading list. I
will be including that reading list in the description
of this podcast so you can read up more on this
topic yourself there. I was typing out a response
to that, but now I don't have to type it out,
especially in the US context, but also literally.
I would say a lot of local dollar groups, they
are getting relatively cheap things wholesale
and finding some sort of friendly provider to
do the pressing or the stitching. I wrote an
article just over a year ago about how the brand
affiliated with the active club movement, which
is based in the United States. Uh, one of the
places where they wholesale, not just wholesale
wholesale, but where they actually get the printing
and stitching done. So far as I can tell is in
Bulgaria. So they were, and even in Bulgaria,
they are probably getting those wholesale shirts
and shorts and whatnot. They're probably getting
even getting them even cheaper from Turkey or
somewhere like that. Cause right on the border.
But yeah, I think on local levels, if they're
trying to, they're probably not taking the time
to screen print all of these things themselves.
I know of smaller brands like very, very small
brands in the, in some European countries or
cities where they, yeah, they, they've got a
sympathetic So who runs a kind of shop or somebody
who doesn't know what they're doing, uh, to,
to do the, to do the work for them, like in even
getting a graphic designer, you know, friendly
graphic design, you're part of the quote unquote
movement, uh, and go from there. And that's an
investigation in itself. Um, I just wanted to
end just by reiterating if you are going to investigate
particularly local groups, groups that are local
to you. Please, please be careful and take into
consideration some of the points that we've just
mentioned in terms of safety. Thank you, Yuri.
Thank you, Michael, for your time today. If you
want to continue these kinds of conversations,
as I mentioned, hashtag far -right monitoring
in this space is the place to be. We also have
hashtag disinfo and propaganda as well, which
often overlaps. In two weeks' time, we'll be
back with another stage talk. But for now, thank
you so much, everybody. Thank you. Bye bye. Thank
you. Thank you for listening to the Stage Talk.
If you'd like to catch a Stage Talk live where
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