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Lying Whore, Lying Whore, Lying Whore, Lying Whores: Amber Heard and Women’s Right to Bear Witness

Why Were People so Ready to Believe that Heard was Lying – About Everything?


13/08/2022

In Autumn 2018, when my youngest son was still a toddler, I walked into the little cubby hole where we kept our washing machine (known in German as a Waschküche!). There I saw him, bent mischievously over a packet of washing powder, eating it out of it with his hand, like a tiny, naughty, but kind of polite kitten. I guess the washing powder itself didn’t taste delicious enough for him to get all hungry puppy about it, lol. I scooped him into my arms, googled the sentence “my toddler just ate washing powder – what should I do?”, phoned the poisons hotline, and, eventually, took him down the A&E, known in Germany as Notaufnahme.

I told the people at A&E that I wasn’t sure how much he had eaten. Had I caught him at the beginning of his washing powder feast, in the middle, or at the end? I told them what type of washing powder it was – Weiße Riese. I had melodramatic ideas about them pumping out his stomach, but in the end, they just gave him an injection – they had to call another nurse in to hold him down so the doctor could inject him, that’s how strong my little boy was, and how much he hates injections. They told me, delightfully, to let him sleep in my bed that night. We got in a taxi and got home at about one in the morning.

It was a long time ago now, and to be quite honest, I am no longer sure about the following details:

(1) Was it Autumn – or was, it possibly, late Summer? I know I didn’t have a coat on, and on the way home, started shivering, and just, like, popped myself into a taxi.

(2) Did I ring the poison hotline? I think I did, but it might have been the Bereitschaftsdienst. Or even, possibly, just 112. I also can’t remember if I spoke to a woman or a man. I think it was a man, but I can’t be sure.

(3) Was the washing powder Weiße Riese? I know it was one of those big boxes and when I think of the moment, I remember – or maybe the truth is, imagine – him over a BIG box? And I know it wasn’t Persil or Ariel. I never buy Ariel, and I only buy Persil in tabs. I am really almost 100% certain it wasn’t Persil or Ariel or anyone super famous like that, but you know what? It may well have been…..Spree? I dunno.

NONE OF THESE DETAILS, WHICH I HAVE RELATED TO YOU, AND MAY BE UNTRUE, ARE LIES. They do not mean I am making it up that my son ate washing powder. This is not what the word “lie” means. The story I have told you is still basically, essentially, ultimately true – but some of the details are now, because much time has passed, slightly hazy. This doesn’t mean I am a “lying whore.” That’s just how the human brain works, how human memory works, when people remember anything. Boring stories, important stories, silly stories. And in fact, sometimes, when you remember a sad, scary, horrific story, you might be more likely to get unimportant details wrong. This is because your brain tries to protect you from the trauma, from the memory, and so suppresses some of your memories.

Another thing the brain might so to protect you from trauma is it might focus on some of the tiny, insignificant details of the event. This coping mechanism is your brain’s attempt to protect you from the trauma lodged in your memory.

Did Amber Heard lie?

“She lied,” my friend says. My friend Katja is a German woman I have known for a few years. We met when our kids – my youngest and her oldest – were born. She is a Spielplatz friend, but also just like me – a feminist and a socialist, a socialist feminist and a feminist socialist. I have seen her at pro-choice rallies and I’ve seen her post angry, angry things about the Mietendeckel. We have a lot in common. I like her a lot. This is the first thing she has ever said to me which I have found to be particularly stupid, or wrong, or evil.

“She lied, and lied, and lied. She lied about everything. She did so much damage to domestic violence victims and rape victims with her continuous lying. It disgusts me, the damage she has done to real victims.”

“What did she lie about?” I ask innocently. I can feel my stomach tensing, my throat closing up, my bile rising. I have felt this a lot in the past few months, since John Depp forced his ex-wife, the young actress Amber Heard, to give testimony about her rape and sexual assault in front of running cameras.

“She lied about everything,” she says.

John Depp’s problem with women

In 2009, when Amber Heard was just 22 years old, she met the actor John Depp, known throughout the world as Johnny Depp, as if he were a toddler, or one of our friends. They met on the film set of the film The Rum Diaries. As one of the producers of the film, he was, strictly speaking, her boss. He was also some twenty-three years older than her. Despite the age gap, or perhaps, considering Depp has never started a relationship with a woman over 25, because of it, they hit it off. However, they were both in relationships and didn’t start dating until, Heard says, some point “around the end of 2011 or 2012.”

Depp and his long-term partner, with whom he had children, Vanessa Paradis, split in 2012. In 2015, Heard and Depp married. Their relationship was obviously volatile and it didn’t last long. On May 23rd, 2016, Heard filed for divorce. Four days later, she obtained a temporary restraining order, because she claimed that Depp had been physically abusing her. To back up her statement, she provided photographic evidence, which was accepted by the legal authorities.

In 2017, Depp and Heard finalized their divorce. They released a statement which read:

“Our relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love. Neither party has made false accusations for financial gain. There was never any intent of physical or emotional harm.”

They agreed to never speak ill of each other, but Depp broke this agreement in October 2018, in a viciously bitter interview which is very open about his contempt for and dislike of Amber Heard. One telling paragraph reads:

“Why didn’t that person speak to the police?” continues Depp. “I mean, they spoke to the police, but the police saw nothing and they offered her an emergency medical technician. She said no. Police see nothing on her. Police see nothing broken in the place, no marks, and then they offer her an EMT to have a look at her and she says no and I don’t know if it was the next day or a couple of days later, but then there was a bruise. There was a red mark and then there was a brown bruise.”

As the journalist who wrote the article so rightly says:

“To suggest that a woman, a man or anyone might have made up such a serious allegation is a tremendously dangerous and damaging thing to do.”

It certainly sounds, to be honest, pretty defamatory – and downright malicious – to me.

Amber Heard’s Opinion Piece

In December 2018, months after Depp had broken the agreement to not disparage the other party, Amber Heard published an opinion piece for the Washington Post. Not only did she not mention John Depp by name, she also did not refer to herself, in the article, as a victim.

Three sentences of the article were considered defamatory. That is to say, the jury in Fairfax Virginia, in June 2022 found that they were untrue, and also written with malicious intent, and ordered Heard to pay $10million in damages.

The first sentence was the headline, which Heard didn’t even write herself:

I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.

It might boggle the mind to wonder how Heard could be found liable for a sentence she didn’t even write herself. The jury in Fairfax decided that her tweeting this article means she was responsible for the words expressed in the headline itself. And at first, you might feel some sympathy for Depp – an article about sexual violence? Where he is referenced? She might as well have tweeted “Johnny raped me!”

However, the really perverse thing is that the sexual violence referred to in the headline is, for anyone who reads the article, referring to a sexual assault Heard experienced at college. Since then Depp has forced her to recount her rape testimony. He has encouraged his lawyer to use misogynist victim-blaming language to shame Heard for talking about the rape. He has encouraged his many fans with their rape mindset memes and rape glorifying TikToks by referring to the misogynist abuse that Heard suffered over the course of the trial as “love” for him. After all this, we hear the words “sexual violence” and we think of Depp. But this is because he sued her and forced the sexual assault allegations to be made public.

The second sentence she was sued over is perfectly reasonable, totally fair, and should really be completely unproblematic for anyone who thinks abuse is a problem in our society. It’s also an objectively true one, something that was public knowledge at the time:

“Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.”

The only untrue thing about this sentence is that Heard, although a passionate feminist, had somewhat underestimated just how full the force of our culture’s wrath could be.

And the third sentence, ironically, was proven to be, by the jury’s decision, truer than ever, lol:

“I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.”

Heard walked into a court building past demonstrators screaming at her that she was a liar and a whore and deserved to be killed and burnt alive. One of them actually dressed herself up as a poo. You can’t help thinking whether this person will ever feel any regret for her despicable behaviour or if she will die thinking that was a humane, dignified way to show solidarity with an actor you admire who has been accused of violence.

Amber Heard walked into a courtroom where the judge allowed her ex-husband to laugh and joke his way through the trial. She sat in the courtroom where the court stenographer openly admitted to being totally enamoured of Depp, she listened as Depp’s lawyer told her that she was lying about the rape because she didn’t take photographs of her bleeding vagina afterwards – and was found guilty by a jury.

This jury contained someone who was not the person who they said they were. Jurors were not protected from the social media hate campaign and openly admit that one of the reasons they found Heard to be unconvincing was because the way she testified made them feel “uncomfortable.” Imagine feeling surprise at finding someone describing being raped and abused by their partner “uncomfortable.” We all had the vantage point of seeing how institutions protect men accused of abuse – but it must be said that in the courthouse in Virginia really went above and beyond.

Malicious defamation?

Intelligent people may find themselves wondering how it can be that objectively true facts are malicious defamation. Three objectively true facts. It is puzzling, to put it mildly.

Amber Heard spoke up against sexual violence – and faced our culture’s wrath. This is, as any internet research or YouTube browsing will show you, objectively true. From the moment she filed for divorce and got her a restraining order, the internet has been full of comments from Depp fans in particular (and, it has to be said, sadly, the general public in general) accusing Heard of being a liar and a whore and a lying whore.

The sentiment that we should improve the way we treat rape and domestic violence victims, is, surely, one that only a sociopath could agree with? I don’t see how anyone can dispute the fact that in 2016, two years before Amber Heard wrote her feminist think-piece, she became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.

I don’t see how this sentence defamed Depp, and I seriously fail to see how the misogynist abuse she has had to endure in 2022 has cleared his name.

It’s ironic that people are obsessed with the idea that Amber Heard is a liar, and yet the three sentences she was found liable for could not be truer than if she had been sued for saying the earth orbits around The Sun. And I don’t know if “ironic” is the right word.

Did Amber Heard lie?

“She lied and lied and lied and lied!” Katja says. “She lied about everything. Even things you think aren’t that important, she lied about them! She claimed she used a make-up palette from Milani which hadn’t been brought out yet. She said she had given money to charity and she hadn’t given them anything! She even said she couldn’t play the guitar – and what turns up? A video of her playing the guitar!”

She lied and lied and lied and lied. The idea that Heard lied about everything is so ingrained in the Heard/Depp narrative, so ingrained, and so unfair. If Heard had, while giving testimony about one of the most traumatic things that had ever happened to her, in front of rolling cameras, in front of a room full of enemies, having just walked past a mob of people holding up signs saying burn the witch and Go Johnny, got the name of the brand of make-up she had used to conceal bruises wrong, that wouldn’t have been a lie. It would have been a mistake, a tiny insignificant detail, the most normal thing in the world, to forget a tiny detail like that so many years after the event. Or, of course, maybe due to the nature of the trauma, her memory surrounding the events was extra hazy and confused – a normal, natural, typical coping mechanism.

But the thing is, she never even mentioned the make-up company, Milani cosmetics, by name. Her lawyer held up an example concealer kit, to show the jury how Heard hid the bruises and marks she got from being beaten by Depp so much. Milani decided to profit off of the misogynist feeding frenzy and released an upbeat TikTok, comparing Amber Heard’s testimony with images of their intern jauntily walking down the corridor and looking up their back catalogue in a computer database. You can hear a song in the background, merrily singing about how the said intern is an international superspy. It’s a funny, cute, sweet, quirky true crime type short video, designed to go viral and paint Amber Heard as a liar and deliberately untruthful, duplicitous. Even if Heard had got the name wrong, it would not have been a lie. But she didn’t. In fact, her exact words in court, when under cross examination, were:

“This is what I’m talking about, a colour correction kit. This is not, obviously, the exact one I used to carry. But I used to carry it with me all the time.”

Intelligent, reasonable people might find themselves wondering how, exactly, Heard’s legal team were expected to go and buy themselves the exact colour concealer kit Heard used over the course of her volatile relationship with Depp? Do the Depp supporters and truth-seekers and social media PR people at Milani cosmetics seriously think her lawyer should have built a time machine so she could go back in time and buy the exact same make-up kit used during her marriage?

My mother was born in 1955 and always called Tippex “Snopake.” It would never have occurred to me to accuse my mother of lying? But where Heard and Depp are concerned, it seems to me that Heard really cannot be believed – every word she says is twisted and distrusted – whereas Depp himself, well. His words are basically Gospel!

If the Milani “lie” seems ridiculous enough, the other lies Heard is accused of are little better. She promised to donate $7million to charity and pledged to pay it in instalments, a totally normal process when paying large sums to good causes. She has already donated $1.3 million – a huge sum, huger still if you think of how much money she has in comparison to Depp – this would probably be the equivalent of his selling half his properties and giving them to children in need.

But due to the post separation legal abuse she has suffered at the hands of her vindictive vengeful ex-husband, she has been unable to pay it in full. (I wonder how much, if any, of the $8million Depp is going to get from her for the “defamation” he has “suffered” will be given to charity?) If you google the words pledge and donation it becomes quickly clear that many people, including Amber Heard, use the words interchangeably.

And what about the guitar? As proof that she is a hideous liar, a lying whore and an all-round dishonest, untruthful, slippery person, people often claim that she lied about being able to play the guitar. Their evidence? A clip of her pretending to play the guitar in a film. People who love Depp and hate Heard sneer at her for getting the words pledge and donate mixed up, seem, however, to have never heard of the word “acting.” One of the many, many click-baity YouTube videos “exposing” Amber as a liar for this actually had as the first comment on the video the following sentence: “Wow, if she can lie about that what else could she possibly be lying about?”

Did John Depp lie?

Amber’s words, Amber’s testimony is immediately mistrusted. Tiny inconsistencies are seen as deliberate lies, and these deliberate lies are painted as “evidence” that she lied, and, even, abused him. If Depp was judged the way people judge her, they would claim that his defence would be seen as an outright lie. He fantasized about drowning her, burning her, and then raping her burnt corpse to check if she was dead, because he liked Monty Python films,

There are no rape jokes in Monty Python. There are no necrophilia jokes in Monty Python. It was shocking for its time and place – which was the BBC in the 1970s. The sketch Depp is referencing, however, should be seen by some, or preferably all, of his supporters. It has nothing to do with his violent murderous fantasies about his young fiancée, and everything to do with how easy it is for stupid people to gang together and become evil – evilly joining together and murdering an innocent woman because it is easy and enjoyable.

But Depp, as well as having the same inconsistencies in his own testimony as Heard has, has also been caught lying. In the UK trial, he denied ever having headbutted her. When played the audio where he admits to having headbutted her “in the fucking forehead”, he quickly changes his tune and says that he did headbutt her – but it was an accident. Anthony Bridgerton voice: Ah.

Probably one of the most interesting things though, is that Depp’s voice is heard, Depp’s words are believed, almost automatically. Amber Heard is treated with great distrust and bad faith – whereas people project onto Depp a believability a trustworthiness which isn’t even there. Yes, guys, let’s do it. Let’s discuss the dog poo stuff.

One of the main reasons people hate Amber Heard is because Depp says she pooed in his bed. Wait, stop. It wasn’t his bed. It was THEIR bed. It was her bed. One of the main reasons people hate Amber Heard is because Depp says she pooed in her own bed.

Wait, stop. He says he THINKS she pooed in her own bed. He never got the poo checked for DNA. It is literally just an idea HE has in his head. A paranoid idea, to be honest.

Wait, stop. Her dog had had diarrhoea and Depp, upon first finding the shit in their bed, didn’t even blame her for it anyways.

WAIT STOP! There is even SMS evidence that a few years before this event took place (inside Depp’s head), he sent his assistant a message, saying he should leave a human poo outside the bedroom door, so Amber would think it was dog poo and clear it up. Depp thought that would be funny.

“I mean, how can you trust someone who pooed the bed to get revenge on their partner?” Katja asks me.

“But there’s no evidence she did it?” I reply.

“Depp swore it under oath!” Katja says.

I could go on like this all day. Depp’s words, his paranoid fantasies, his bitter, vindictive misogynist delusions become the truth. Amber’s truth – even when backed up by evidence and probability – is twisted into lies and proof that she is an evil person, deliberately evil, particularly calculating.

Did Amber Heard commit perjury?

Two other “lies” of hers, become, when examined properly, merely more examples of woman-hating propaganda. The first one is the “perjury in Australia.” Any amount of time spent on social media trying to debunk DV and rape victim-blaming myths will inevitably end up with you being told that Heard is guilty of “perjury in Australia” and hopefully will go to prison for it. Perjury in Australia is just another example of her conniving, lying ways.

But the truth is that both Heard and Depp owned those dogs, and mistakenly took them into Australia without filling in the customs forms properly. It is an arrogant, vandalistic act, and it is naughty as fuck. But it isn’t evil, and it doesn’t mean she is more likely to lie about rape or abuse. It’s the kind of selfish, thoughtless, reckless behaviour Hollywood celebrities are always getting in trouble for – and Depp is as much to blame as she is.

We should condemn them for it – if Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber or Paris Hilton behaved this way, we would condemn them for it. What we wouldn’t do is think it means anything about whether or not Depp raped and beat Amber. It’s completely and utterly irrelevant to the case at hand.

Depp, however, after he allowed his fifteen-year-old daughter to “date” a 23-year-old man, lied to the police to protect his daughter’s partner. I can’t help thinking that lying to the police about the statutory rape of your own daughter has more relevance to the story than ticking the wrong box on a dog visa form. It shows he is prepared to lie to the authorities to protect men who may get in trouble for sexual crimes. If he is prepared to do this for his daughter’s partner, wouldn’t it stand to reason that he would expect his friends and employees to do the same for him?

But Depp’s lies are unimportant.

Did Amber Heard steal a story about sexual assault?

And what about the ex-assistant’s sexual assault story? “She lied about the rape; she stole her assistant’s sexual assault story!” Katja says viciously.

Amber Heard’s ex-assistant, Katie James, was also once, like many women the world over, the victim of rape. However, she was raped at knifepoint, and by a stranger. Heard in contrast was raped by her own partner, in her own home. It’s not clear what made James so certain her rape by a stranger at knifepoint was the inspiration needed for Amber to make up a story about being raped with a bottle as a weapon by her life partner. Especially since James had not even read Amber’s sexual assault testimony when she came out with her paranoid delusion conspiracy theory.

It says something about how much we hate women, distrust their stories, and despise victims, that even fairly intelligent people like Katja think it is more probable that a woman would need to steal details about a rape from an ex-employee than that admit that rape and sexual assaults are commonplace ordeals which affect many women, some of whom will know each other.

“Believe Women” has been ever so subtly twisted into “Believe all Women” – and then misrepresented by victim-blaming misogynists to mean “Women never lie”. But it does not mean that every time a woman says she has been raped or attacked by someone, that person should be thrown in jail. What it means is that we should believe women – like we do men. We should listen to what they are saying. We should give their words weight, let their version of events exist. We should stop hating them, and stop fantasizing about them being liars and whores.

According to Roman law, women were not allowed to give evidence in court., This was because although women were considered Roman citizens, they obtained their position only through their husbands. They were not allowed to be judges, lawyers, politicians – or witnesses. “The woman is incapable of being a witness in any form of jurisprudence where witnesses are required. “

In first century Judea, women were not even considered reliable witnesses. The Jewish historian Josephus said:

“Let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex.”

How much has changed? Google “Are women liars?”, and what do you get? An article in The Scotsman claiming that “96% of women are liars, honest!” Or Vanguard News explaining: “Why women re such good liars!” Go on YouTube, and you find a stand-up set from the comedian Chris Rock, who, by the way, is 100% convinced that Heard shat the bed, where he says men lie the most, but women tell the biggest lies:

“Who’s the biggest liars, men or women? Men lie the most, women tell the biggest lie. Men lie all the time…. (…)….Man, we lie all the time! We lie all the time! You know what a man’s lie is like? A man’s lie is like I was at Tony’s house…(..)….THAT’S a man’s lie! A woman’s lie is like: it’s your baby!”

Isn’t it ironic?

She lied and lied and lied and lied, people say, intelligent people, even, sometimes. Even feminist socialists and socialist feminists believe that Amber Heard is a liar. They say she’s lying about the make-up, so what else would she lie about? They say she’s lying about the dog poo. Camille Vasquez said in court: If she lied about being raped, what else would she lie about? It’s a gut-wrenching moment, and I don’t understand how anyone can watch it and not cry.

Meanwhile, people think everything Depp says is true. If Depp speaks, his words become truth, he is almost like God in that way. They think John Depp is telling the truth when he says that Amber Heard, like some kind of supernaturally skilled ninja assassin, threw a liquor bottle across the room, spinning through the air, to land on his hand, perfectly severing part of his finger. His word becomes truth, he owns his own story.

Amber Heard, meanwhile, is guilty of malicious defamation, because of three objectively true sentences, one of which she never even wrote herself. Her words are twisted, her tongue is inherently evil. The hatred you feel for Amber is the same hatred you felt for Eve, when she got Adam to eat the apple, or all the witches you burnt. It’s an old hatred. Your distrust of her is a distrust of all women. Of all whores, all lying whores. You think she is lying because you think women shouldn’t be allowed to speak the truth in public.

#NeverFearTruth is the hashtag that Incels, liberal feminists, Johnny Depp and Kevin Federline are all using to tear women apart and to paint all women, all victims, as liars. The misogynist backlash towards #metoo, Amber Heard and all victims, male or female, is as duplicitous as it is evil.

The irony is, the world calls her a liar, but in fact, she is being punished and humiliated for speaking truth to power. One day, one day soon, Alanis Morrisette is going to have to bring out an updated version of that song.

 

 

Putinisher Beobachter – Documenting How Nazis and far-right journalists in Russia Engage in War Propaganda

New Research from Russia shows the extent of Nazi Influence on State Media


06/08/2022

President of Russia Vladimir Putin declared denazification was the aim of the war in Ukraine – or, the liberation of Ukraine “from Nazi-minded people and Nazi ideology“. Many Nazis and far-right media work for state propaganda to promote Russian “antifascism“, which was just a pretext for the invasion of Ukraine. ‘Antifascist Europe’ reported five such Russian far-right journalists and two media outlets.

The term “denazification“ has practically disappeared from Russian TV channels. Russian media outlet Proekt says that this is because, surveys showed that Russian citizens do not understand the meaning of the word “denazification“. However, Russian authorities and officials continue to use the term “Ukrainian Nazis“, and Russian official media and pro-government Telegram channels call Russian soldiers “antifascists“. This term is promoted even by those who even recently openly embraced National Socialism.

Gleb Ervier – A neo-Nazi journalist with a fascist tattoo on a head

In May, Ukrainian journalists discovered among war correspondents of the Russian news agency RIA Novosti this outspoken neo-Nazi. Examining his photos they concluded that he has at least three neo-Nazi tattoos on his body: the fascist fascia (bundles) on the back of his head, the rune Algiz on his arm and the inscription “Jedem das Seine“ on his chest.

Gleb Ervier is a far-right tattooist from Tomsk, the NEWS.ru investigation alleges. There, he was noted for participating in the ‘Occupy Pedophilia’ project of the ‘Restruct’ movement, created by Russia’s most notorious white power skinhead Maxim “Tesak“ Martsinkevich. A video of Ervier’s involvement in catching a “pedophile“ was published online.

Gleb Ervier moved to Moscow in 2016 and, together with Andrei Dedov (nicknamed Ded, of the Tesak gang), opened ‘Studio 18’, a tattoo parlour at the hipster ‘Flacon art factory. Ervier also propagandised far-right views through his ‘Citadel project’, which produced three documentaries under the general title “The European View“ with himself as a host. The title is from a book of the same name by the odious SS officer Leon Degrelle. Gleb Ervier has removed his film from the Citadel channel, but it is easily found on YouTube.

In 2020, a big investigation into the Tesak gang murders came out, suggesting that Ded might have been involved in three murders including beheading of a Russian prostitute. Tesak testified against him and his associates and died in prison. Ded sold his share of the tattoo parlour and fled to Ukraine to avoid life imprisonment. In 2021, a public campaign was launched to shut down the Studio 18 tattoo parlour of Gleb Ervier and Ded. A TV report was published about the Nazis’ activities at Flakon, and a petition reached municipal deputies and was sent to the prosecutor’s office. However, Russian authorities have not responded to the demand to close the neo-Nazi tattoo parlour in the centre of Moscow bearing Adolf Hitler’s name in the title. The studio still exists today, but under a different name.

In February 2022, Gleb Ervier suddenly changed his profession from far-right tattooist to war correspondent, becoming a propagandist for the Kremlin. The ‘RIA Novosti’ (current name ‘Russia Today’) is one of the largest state-run news agencies in Russia. The website RIA.RU is one of the leaders of the ‘Runet’ among online information resources, and the most quoted Russian media on social networks since April 2022. Although Gleb Ervier had not previously engaged in professional journalism or collaborated with the media,,four days after the war began, his first report on the shelling of Donetsk came out on 28 February.

Ervier stressed on radio RT: “This is not the first time the scandal surrounding my tattoos has come up and each time it fades quickly because there is no substance to it. It’s clear to everyone that I come from a certain subculture. Yes, indeed, I was far-right, I was a near-football fan – with all that entails. That was for a long time, while I had my adolescent maximalism. Then it all ended. The whole story is on the internet, I came out of it publicly, “levelled up“, changed my views. Do I repent of that story? No. Simply because it was an experience – a very unusual one. We don’t have many correspondents who have that experience. This experience helps to find interesting details, stories.“

Ross Marsov – A leading Russian Identitarian

One of Gleb Ervier’s closest comrades is the young far-right activist and former white power skinhead Ross Marsow. In November 2020, Ervier interviewed him for his Citadel project. One month later they visited Armenia together to cover the mass protests, where they gained their first experience as correspondents.

Ross Marsow founded ‘Identitarians of Russia’ in 2017, after the example of the European ‘Generation Identity’ movement. In its’ four years of existence, the movement has firmly established itself as a new right-wing movement of Russia with dozens of direct actions, rallies, lectures, trainings and debates. It published its book ‘Generation Identity’ and organised a public lecture by the British far-right politician, co-founder and former leader of the ‘English Defence League’, Tommy Robinson in 2020. Identitarian of Russia was dissolved in 2021 due to an internal crisis.

Ross Marsow stresses that he has supported ‘Novorossiya’ (Russian expansionism) since 2014. Therefore, he had no question in principle whose side to take in the war. In April 2022 he went to the Donbass as a “military correspondent”. However, unlike Gleb Ervier, who received his journalist credentials from a state agency, Ross Marsov works for the small projects Ledorub, Urgent Now and Your News, which are in fact Telegram channels. Already in early May Ross Marsov reported from Mariupol, where he covered the siege of the Azovstal plant, he then went to the front line in the town of Popasna. In July he returned to Russia, where he began to speak about “The New Right in War”.

Dmitriy Steshin – The BORN identity

One of the most prominent far-right Russian journalists working for state propaganda is Dmitry Steshin, a war correspondent of the yellow newspaper ‘Komsomolskaya Pravda’. This newspaper is part of the publishing house of the same name, one of the largest in the country, and KP.RU has a monthly traffic of about 100 million people.

Dmitry Steshin has covered the war in Ukraine since 2013. When Putin announced a “special military operation“, Steshin was already in Donetsk and warmly welcomed the president’s decision. Steshin is well acquainted with the militias of the unrecognised Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, as he has travelled with them to the front lines on more than one occasion. Steshin also published a series of reports from Mariupol during the siege of the Azovstal plant, where one of Ukraine’s most notorious far-right units, Azov, was entrenched. “The Nazis are going to Valhalla first class,“ Steshin mockingly wrote in his text, which sounds extremely ambiguous in the context of his biography.

Steshin openly calls himself a nationalist: “Liberals have usurped journalism, decided that light comes only from their ideas and they are right by birth. According to them, a person with nationalist views should be a dumb jew-eater with a snaggletoothed handwriting. I don’t fit that standard, I’m tearing up the template“. But in addition Steshin has befriended Russian Nazis from one of the most dangerous groups ‘BORN’ (2008-2011), and wrote texts for the far-right magazine ‘Russian Image’ – a front for underground terrorists.

Steshin was a witness in the BORN case, but miraculously escaped prosecution, although there were direct indications that he helped the killers to obtain firearms and then to escape. BORN conducted a dozen particularly serious crimes, including killing Eduard Chuvashov, (judge of the Moscow City Court), Stanislav Markelov (lawyer), Anastasia Baburova (journalist), and the antifascists Alexander Ryukhin, Fedor Filatov, Ilya Dzhaparidze and Ivan Khutorskoy.

Dmitry Steshin was an old friend of BORN leader Nikita Tikhonov. Steshin testified during interrogations, he met the neo-Nazi Tikhonov at the editorial board meeting of the ‘Russian Image’. Started by Nikita Tikhonov, the magazine grew into the political organization of the same name. Nikita Tikhonov said he had been hiding in Steshin’s flat when he was put on the wanted list for the murder of antifascist Aleksandr Ryukhin in 2006 and went on the run. “With Dmitry Steshin we had a common interest in trekking. As an enthusiastic military archaeologist, he suggested that I travel to World War II battlefields for research and outdoor recreation. We became friends,“ Tikhonov said in his testimony.

It was Steshin, according to Tikhonov, who introduced him to arms dealers. “Using Steshin’s friendly feelings, I begged him to help me get something to shoot,“ the BORN leader recalled. Steshin introduced him to a trader, from whom Tikhonov purchased a Suomi submachine gun, a rifle Mosin round and ammunition. Thus the neo-Nazi gang got an arsenal of weapons. Through these acquaintances of Steshin, Nikita Tikhonov also purchased the Browning revolver with which Markelov and Baburova were shot. During the search of Steshin’s house some of Tikhonov’s things were found, including Tikhonov’s real passport – as the neo-Nazi himself lived with forged documents.

Nikita Tikhonov was convicted of murder and weapons possession in April 2011 and sentenced to life imprisonment in May 2011. Steshin was not the only journalist among the friends of BORN to get away with it.

Andrei Gulutin – a neo-Nazi drummer and a head of the Kremlin media

Andrei Gulutin, nicknamed “Most“, is another journalist implicated in the BORN case. Andrei Gulutin is mentioned in the materials of the murder case of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova, as a friend of Nikita Tikhonov. In particular, he was mentioned in testimony by the leader of the neo-Nazi group Right Hook.

Gulutin started as a drummer in the neo-Nazi ‘Band of Moskow’, in early 2000. They played Oi!/R.A.C. with Ska elements. Their first song titles were “Street Fight“, “Let the Blood Spill“, “Nazi-ska“, “Aryan Legion“, “White Struggle“. The ‘Federal List of Extremist Materials’ includes several Band of Moscow songs banned in Russia, including “More and More of Us“, “Three Bright Colours“, “NS Squads“, “Race War“, “Vivat; 1488th After That You Talk About Tolerance“.

Gulutin moved on to play drums in the neo-Nazi band Right hook (2006-2010), which declared itself the voice of the ‘Russian Image’ organisation. Despite a flamboyant musical career and a Nazi past, Gulutin achieved success in the corridors of Kremlin.

By 2010, the ‘Russian Image’ came under Kremlin control, having direct supervisors from the Presidential Administration. In 2011, under the pseudonym of Andrei Osipov, Gulutin became head of the “United Russia’s Young Guard“ Internet page, for the ruling party’s youth organization. After the BORN trial, nationalists from the Russian Image tried to disassociate themselves from the murderers, renamed themselves into “right-wing conservatives“ and created a new website ‘Modus Agendi’, which Gulutin also led. Then former neo-Nazi musician came to success.

On 1 April 2013, the initially liberal on-line media outlet Ridus underwent an ownership change. Andrei Gulutin became deputy editor-in-chief, in 2015 editor-in-chief. He began to pursue an “orthodox-statist editorial policy“. Gulutin still leads Ridus. While his subordinates talk about the Nazis in Ukraine, their leader writes caustic columns about antifa, who are given “license to hate and violence“. Now Ridus has dropped off the top of the online statistics having lost popularity. According to open counters, its average day attendance is 150,000 people.

Gulutin admitted to participating in neo-Nazi music groups, but claims it means nothing: “Andrei Gulutin is not an ‘adherent of ultra-right views’ – i.e. an ideology of degrading one group of people by others based on race, nationality, or any other grounds. Andrei Gulutin is not a politician to impose any views at all on the public or even his inner circle. Gulutin is, as any philistine is, what they call “for all that is good against all that is bad“… The story of Gulutin’s fights at concerts in his youth is a complete joke, you have either to point out the specific victims or don’t embarrass yourself. The only thing Gulutin is ready to admit is his participation in the Band of Moscow and Right hook when he was young. Participation in these musical groups, however, in no way showed Gulutin’s adherence to any political views“.

Vladislav Maltsev – a white patriot with a two-bedroom flat

Vladislav Maltsev (real surname Noskov) describes himself as an expert on the far-right at Ukraina.ru, one of the main Russian state-owned online media outlets about Ukraine, created in 2014 by the news agency Russia Today. Yet Maltsev glosses over the fact that he himself was recently a far-right – and a very prominent one at that.

In the 2000s Maltsev became known as the author of the Nazi blogs white_patriot and nebo_ slavyan. He joined the ‘National Socialist Society’ (NSO), established in 2004, and promoted it among the far-right on livejournal.com, which was then the main social network in Russia. The NSO attracted radical Nazis who tried to come to power through street terror, but things did not go according to plan.

The NSO split and the NSO-North terrorist group was formed. In 2008, thirteen gang members were arrested on charges of 28 murders – mostly of migrants, as well as the antifascist Alexei Krylov and the gang member Nikolai Melnik. Melnik was suspected of treason and beheaded on a video. In addition, the gang was accused of robbery, illegal arms and explosives trafficking, explosions, arson, and preparation for a terrorist attack on a power station. NSO-North leader Maksim Bazylev killed himself during interrogation. In 2011, five members of the gang received life sentences, while others were sentenced to long terms of 10 to 23 years. One of the NSO leaders, Sergey Korotkikh, nicknamed Botsman, fled to Ukraine, where he made a career in the ranks of Azov and bought a plane.

In January 2008, Vladislav Maltsev was beaten in Kiev by antifascists, and already in October by former comrades. Maltsev moved away from radical Nazis, shut down his blogs and became a journalist. In 2009, he began to publish in the Religion section of ‘Nezavisimaya Gazeta’. As a professional Islamophobe he made headlines around the construction of mosques in the Russian hinterland and the establishment of Sharia courts in Moscow. In 2014, he became a contributor to Svobodnaya Pressa and switched to the topic of Ukrainian nationalism. In 2017 Maltsev moved to the government-affiliated scandalous on-line outlet ‘Life’, where he continued to write about the persecution of Orthodoxy in Ukraine and Ukrainian nazis.

In a conflict with an antifascist journalist on Facebook, Maltsev boasted that he had bought a “two-bedroom flat in Moscow with Italian tiles, German appliances and porcelain“ using the royalties for his articles. This message became a popular meme, after which the owner of the Life mocked him on its’ main page and fired Maltsev. Maltsev started publishing his texts about Ukrainian Nazis in the state-owned publication Ukraina.ru, as well as in the government-affiliated publication Lenta.ru and in the openly ultra-right-wing outlets Zavtra and Tsargrad. These are large Russian media outlets with a combined readership of millions daily.

Tsargrad – First Russian Fox News owned by Konstantin Malofeev

Speaking of far-right journalists in Russia, it is impossible to ignore the ultra-conservative media outlet Tsargrad, owned by Orthodox businessman Konstantin Malofeev (check Аntifascist Europe database for details). Tsargrad launched in 2015 as a cable TV channel backed by American conservative Fox News channel director Jack Hanik. “We want to create a network on Orthodox principles, similar to the way Fox News channel was created,“ Malofeev said. The editor-in-chief of Tsargrad TV was the far-right philosopher Alexander Dugin. The channel was named Tsargrad, referring to the Old Slavic name of Constantinople, the capital of the former Byzantine Empire and Orthodoxy. Its slogan is “First Russian“.

The launch was unsuccessful and by the end of 2017, Tsargrad TV switched to a broadcast on YouTube. However, on 28 July 2020, YouTube, a video service owned by Google, blocked Tsargrad’s account due to the sanctions law. The US Department of Justice identified Malofeev as one of the main sources of funding for separatists in Crimea and the Donetsk people’s republic, imposed sanctions against him and confiscated millions of dollars in his accounts.

In April 2021, the Moscow Arbitration Court ordered Google to reinstate the TV channel on YouTube under threat of fines, thus applying for the first time the priority of Russian law over international law. A year later, Tsargrad announced that it had received 1 billion rubles from Google – the money in the company’s accounts was seized by Russian authorities and then seized in favour of the TV channel. Tsargrad donated the funds to support the “special military operation“ in Ukraine.

Konstantin Malofeev is an unusual businessman. He lost all his assets in a dispute with VTB bank, after which he switched to public activities. In the West, Malofeev is described as a key link in Russia’s control of Donbass. Since the beginning of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Malofeev has been suspected of the coordination and financing of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in Donbass, in particular the allocation of money for the purchase of weapons for the militia. The Ukrainian media referred to him as a sponsor of the “Russian Spring“. The orthodox businessman himself repeatedly denied such accusations, calling the multi-million dollar assistance of his foundation to Crimea and Donbass solely a humanitarian activity. At the same time, Malofeev’s former PR consultant Alexander Boroday became the first head of the self-proclaimed Donestk Peoples Republic (DNR) in 2014. Another acquaintance, Igor Girkin (Strelkov) – described as the businessman’s former security chief – became defense minister of the self-proclaimed republic. For these two appointments, the nickname “separatist sponsor“ stuck to Malofeyev.

Malofeev maintains contacts with European far-right politicians. At the end of May 2014, he organized and moderated a meeting of Russian and European far-right politicians in Vienna. In April 2014, he assisted Jean-Marie Le Pen to obtain a 2 million euro loan from a Russian-owned company. In March 2019, the orthodox businessman joined the party “A Just Russia—For Truth“ to create a conceptually new social-patriotic party “with elements of monarchist ideology“ on the basis of the party “Rodina“.

Tsargrad now represents the far-right pole on the Russian media scene. Before the war, it published texts about the dominance of migrants, the harm of vaccinations, abortions and LGBTQ+, attacks on the Orthodox faith and the advantages of monarchy. After the invasion of Ukraine, Tsargrad turned the propaganda knob to maximum and switched to total support for Putin’s actions and the army. Even publishing absurdly patriotic pieces, such as the display of the face of the Virgin Mary on glass in the hospital where Russian soldiers are treated.

Tsargrad is part of the Tsargrad group of companies, which included more than a dozen online media outlets like OkoloKremlia, Segodnya, Chechnya.ru, as well as Russkaya Narodnaya Liniya, RIA Katyusha, Russia Forever and SM-News. These sites are engaged in mutual promotion, with a combined audience of several tens of millions of readers.

Readovka. A tiny urban forum became a mouthpiece of xenophobia

The online media outlet Readovka was founded in 2011 in Smolensk as a typical urban public forum in Russia’s main social network VKontakte. In 2014, its owner Alexey Kostylev created the Readovka website, specialising on regional news. In 2017, a federal website appeared, covering events in Russia and the world. The name Readovka comes from Readovka Park in Smolensk and from the English word “read“. In November 2020, the head office of the holding company was moved to Moscow.

Readovka’s main platform is its’ Telegram channel, founded in 2018. In April 2022, it reached the one-million-subscriber mark and is one of the five most quoted media outlets in the country. In March 2022, the team created a new Telegram channel, Readovka Explains, where its’ experts briefly answer questions about current events, including in Ukraine and world responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

At the end of 2021, the liberal outlets Novaya Gazeta and Important Stories analyzed what pro-government media write about migrants. It came to the conclusion that Readovka purposefully creates a negative image of migrants by reporting on “ethnic crime“.

Alexey Kostylev insists that he receives no money from the Kremlin or other authorities, has no outside funding, and has built his own infrastructure for the past seven years. Kostylev justifies the abundance of overtly xenophobic publications by saying that there has been a huge response to the news about “the rampages of non-Russians… We must be expressing the unconscious, you know, of a typical Russian. A Russkiy, I would even say,“ Kostylev noted.

In February Readovka unequivocally supported Putin and the military invasion of Ukraine. However, two days after the war began, the site was blocked by the state censor Roskomnadzor. The agency added the site to the register of banned sites because of a week-old post about the crimes of migrants in Kaluga Oblast.

The publication’s staff expressed their indignation at the censor’s decision because they did not oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: “After spending two days on uninterrupted on-line, probably remaining the only major media outlet that does not flirt with anti-war rhetoric, we were thanked for such support. Roskomnadzor has blocked our site, and it is now inaccessible in Russia“.

Access to the site was restored, and the publication continued to whip up patriotic hysteria, joining the war party. In April, Readovka even declared a boycott of Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov after his positive remarks about TV host Ivan Urgant. The latter had left Russia after Russia invaded Ukraine. Readovka urged other patriotic media outlets against publishing Peskov’s comments.

Conclusion – Soldiers of a different war

The presence of the far-right in the Russian media field is noticeable. The war will only increase their influence on the audience, as the demand for nationalism in society will naturally grow. The greatest concern is not the editors sitting in the office – like Gulutin and Maltsev. Rather it is the war correspondents – journalists who work directly on the front lines, like Gleb Ervier, Ross Marsov and Dmitriy Steshin. They see the war with their own eyes and report first-hand experience of the military conflict. They quickly find common ground with the soldiers in the trenches, because they are also soldiers, but of a different war – an information one. Like soldiers, journalists suffer bombings and explosions and the loss of comrades, and war cripples them just as much and toughens their views on the other side.

Communities of like-minded people have already been built around war correspondents, to raise money for humanitarian needs for the population of Donbass and equipment for military units; and also share a common ideology. War correspondents are new points of attraction and opinion leaders for a society at war. Audiences trust war correspondents, so far-right journalists can easily use the situation to promote their own narratives.

Meanwhile, far-right journalists are not ashamed of their views in Russia, and often openly declare them, emphasising themselves as “experts on the far-right“. As Gleb Ervier writes in his Telegram channel “And since someone has taken to rewarding me with expertise on Nazism, here is my expert opinion – in Ukraine we are not dealing with innocent nationalism and the struggle for independence. Europe, both directly and indirectly, spiced up with regional features, is breeding a new Reich for itself and the world. And it must be fought.“

In the 1990s and 2000s with the Chechen campaigns, the Russian media promoted hatred towards “persons of Caucasian nationality“. In the USA, the root term ‘Caucasian’ is a synonym for white, but in Russia it is derogatory term, but became the most characteristic newspaper cliché of the time. We should now expect an increase in hostility towards Ukrainians.

These trends are most pronounced on Telegram – the most politicised segment of Runet. Russians who consume information through traditional media (television and print) are more amorphous and passive and do not share radical views. This is best illustrated by the failed launch of Tsargrad on television networks, which degenerated into a niche Internet product. Meanwhile the successful launch of Readovka on Telegram, earned an audience on a clickbait about “migrant rampages“.

Admittedly, Russia has developed a community of ultra-conservative journalists and publicists who serve the interests of the authorities and influence public opinion by shifting it to the right. However, on the whole, nationalism in Russia is weak and the authorities are not yet mobilising the population for a full-fledged people’s war, as demanded by Igor Strelkov, the far-right leader of the social movement Novorossiya – the man who launched the flywheel of war in 2014.