Vladimir Putin wants to reclaim Russia’s former glory, and he expects the support of Russians across the globe, wherever they may live.
A Four Corners investigation has uncovered the activities of a cluster of dedicated pro-Russian nationalist groups operating here.
Some are explicit about their mission — to wage a propaganda war to help further the Kremlin’s global agenda — prompting analysts to warn Australia that it should be paying close attention.
Vladimir Putin’s favourite motorcycle club. Their nickname is “Putin’s Angels”.
The Russian arm of the club has been described as a “proxy” for the Kremlin: willing to carry out or support military operations at arms-length from the Russian government.
For the past six years they have been establishing a presence in Australia.
The Australian chapter of the Night Wolves was founded in 2015. The club says it now has about 40 to 50 members in NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia.
According to Mark Galeotti, an associate with London-based security thinktank the Royal United Services Institute, the presence of the Night Wolves in Australia creates a potential opportunity for the Kremlin.
“It’s entirely plausible that for example a new chapter gets opened because you have ethnic Russians who enjoy motorbiking,” said Mr Galeotti.
“Once it’s present … these things become a potential bridgehead. It’s not as if they suddenly become instruments of the Kremlin, it’s that the Kremlin can potentially reach out and use them in some way.”
The Night Wolves have not always been Kremlin supporters. The club formed in the 1980s, as part of a cultural rebellion against Soviet rule.
But under Vladimir Putin, the Russian club and its members have been “co-opted ” by the Kremlin, according to Mr Galeotti.
“[The Kremlin] looked at the kind of nationalist macho values that they espouse and said, ‘Actually, those are now our values and we can do something with it,’” he said.
The Russian club’s president Alexander Zaldostanov is a celebrity in Russia due to his friendship with Vladimir Putin. Mr Zaldostanov is known as “The Surgeon” due to his medical training.
As a result of their involvement in the 2014 conflict in Ukraine, which included fighting with and supporting pro-Russian separatists, the United States Treasury has placed financial sanctions on the Russian Night Wolves and Mr Zaldostanov.
The Australian club is not sanctioned, and they insist their role is benign: that they hold rides to commemorate historical Russian military victories and do charity work with the Russian-Australian community.
When the Australian chapter was established, Mr Simonian was named by Mr Zaldostanov in a congratulatory message posted online.
Mr Duganov has also posted pictures of himself with Mr Zaldostanov on social media, while members of the Russian club have visited Sydney.
NSW Police say they are aware of the Night Wolves motorcycle club and their reputation in Russia, but police do not consider them an outlaw motorcycle gang in NSW.
Police have noted “Night Wolves members travelling to Australia for a number of years”.
“But there is no information or intelligence to suggest their presence relates to criminal activity.”
The Night Wolves are among an international network of patriots determined to remind the world that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a force to be reckoned with.
The Australian Cossacks
The Cossacks are descendants of a group of Russian horsemen who fought with Tsarist forces during the Russian civil war.
They are known for their suppression of popular protests in Russia and were one of the key pro-Russian groups fighting against Ukrainian forces in Crimea in 2014.
Sydney-born Simeon Boikov is the leader of the Australian Cossacks, which styles itself as a military unit.
Mr Boikov has led groups of Australian Cossacks to Russia, where they fired guns and toured a military training facility.
The son of an Orthodox priest, he is unambiguous about the group’s role here.
“The purpose of the Cossacks in Australia is to preserve Cossack traditions, culture, values, and also to promote pro-Russian sentiment,” he told Four Corners.
“So our job as Russian patriots … is to be mobilised and be active in defending Russia.
“We believe that it’s not enough just to be Russian, you must support Russia.”
In 2018, Mr Boikov was referring to Australia when he told a Russian media outlet that “we have a unique opportunity to support Russia from within an enemy state”.
He said Cossacks in Australia could “pursue a pro-Russian position, lobby politicians and members of parliament, oppose anyone who lies about Russia, attacks Russia or imposes sanctions. Basically, they can wage an information war.”
When Four Corners asked why he regarded Australia as an enemy state, he responded: “Australia in this context, a state which is placing sanctions against Russia and behaving in an anti-Russian manner, in that way could be perceived that the activities are not the activities of an ally.”
Mr Boikov talks a relentlessly pro-Russian line, including denying any Russian involvement in the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 in which 283 people died, 38 of them Australians.
Just eight months after the tragedy, Mr Boikov travelled to Moscow to visit one of the pro-Russian separatist leaders accused of responsibility for the downing of MH17, Igor Girkin, aka “Strelkov”.
Strelkov is currently being tried in the Netherlands, in absentia, on murder charges related to the atrocity.
“Igor Strelkov is a hero of Novorossia,” Mr Boikov told Four Corners.
“He didn’t shoot down MH17, neither did anyone on the Russian side. MH17 was shot down by Ukraine, over Ukrainian territory in Ukrainian airspace. Had nothing to do with Russia. Very simple.”
“They can make whatever kangaroo court they like. If we shot the plane down, I’m sure we would have admitted it.”
Mr Boikov and his fellow Cossacks have also tried to silence the local Ukrainian community, taunting parishioners and their priest outside a Ukrainian church in Sydney over the Russian military incursion into Ukraine.
Also present was Vladimir Simonian, the president of the Night Wolves Australia motorcycle club.
Mr Boikov defends his actions. “If we wanted to, we could have done something much worse, but we wouldn’t do that because we don’t promote breaking the law, we don’t promote radicalism. That’s un-Australian.
“But it’s good to remind other people in our physical presence, just people seeing the fact that Cossacks are there and so forth is enough to discourage anti-Russian activities.”
Last month, when protesters marched in central Sydney over the jailing of Russia’s main opposition leader Alexey Navalny, Mr Boikov led a counter-protest.
“We’re here with our President … Supporting Vladimir Putin against these opposition scum,” he told Four Corners during the march.
Mr Boikov insists that he loves Australia and wants to improve Australian-Russian relations.
He also acknowledges the opportunities presented by Australia’s democratic freedoms.
“Australian laws are very, very relaxed,” he said.
“Australia is a very good place if you want to promote a foreign agenda.”
Early last year, Mr Boikov helped found the newest Russian nationalist organisation in Australia, called the Double Headed Eagle Society, dedicated to spreading pro-Putin propaganda.
The Double Headed Eagle Society
The Double Headed Eagle Society bills itself as a Russian historical organisation, but has also been accused overseas of involvement in espionage activities.
It is chaired by a powerful Russian oligarch, Konstantin Malofeev, who made his fortune in the telecommunications industry.
The society’s founding executive director was Leonid Reshetnikov, a former general in the Russian foreign intelligence service, the SVR.
In 2019 Mr Reshetnikov and Mr Malofeev were banned from Bulgaria for 10 years over allegations they used the Double Headed Eagle Society for espionage operations involving alleged money laundering.
While Mr Reshetnikov was still in charge, Russian national Valeriy Malinovskiy and Australian Cossack Simeon Boikov were appointed heads of the inaugural Australian chapter of the Double Headed Eagle Society.
“The agenda of our branch is to promote Russian culture, to educate people, to [dispel] this misconception about Russia,” Mr Malinovskiy told Four Corners.
Mr Malinovskiy and Mr Boikov run an Australian newspaper, Russian Frontier, printed in English and Russian which publishes a determinedly pro-Putin editorial line.
“With the media here in Australia ... what we hear every day is that Russia is bad, the narrative is negative,” Mr Malinovskiy said.
“I think we’re trying to show the other side of the coin, that people can actually make their own decision.”
Former Australian intelligence analyst Kyle Wilson told Four Corners the Double Headed Eagle Society can be viewed in the context of “hybrid” or “new generation” warfare, whereby misinformation is used as a weapon.
“The present Russian leadership makes no bones about the fact that it sees itself at war with what it calls the West,” he said.
“The prosecution of that information war in Australia [is] clearly designed to try to get the Australian government to change its policies … so that they would be perceived as serving Russia’s interests and not being hostile to Russia.”
Last year, Mr Wilson became a target of Russian Frontier after penning an article about Mr Boikov’s pro-Russian influence activities in Australia, infuriating Mr Boikov.
In the next edition of Russian Frontier Mr Wilson was branded an “enemy of Russia” and “an anti-Russian conspiracy theorist.”
Mr Boikov told Four Corners, “I’m not going to tolerate people like Kyle Wilson bashing our community, writing hysterical articles against Russia. We have a newspaper, and we’ll use that to defend Russian interests.”
Mr Wilson told Four Corners this was a classic tactic used to discredit political opponents in Russia.
“The abuse, the vituperation, the questioning of my motives, the impugning of my integrity by implying that I had been commissioned to write the article and had been paid by someone ... Well, these are familiar tactics.”
Russia’s interest in Australia is not just political.
Australia is also seen as a valuable destination for investment, especially in the mining industry. One of Russia’s notorious oligarchs, Oleg Deripaska, has a significant investment in Queensland.
The billionaire tycoon
Oleg Deripaska is a billionaire tycoon who made his fortune during the violent power struggle to take over Russia’s lucrative aluminium industry in the 1990s.
In making his fortune, he’s been accused of organising the murder of a rival, bribing an official and having Russian mafia links.
The US Treasury accuses Mr Deripaska of laundering money and holding assets for Vladimir Putin.
A company that Mr Deripaska has a large shareholding in, Rusal, has a 20 per cent stake in Australian company Queensland Alumina Limited. Mining giant Rio Tinto owns the remaining 80 per cent.
The US Senate Intelligence Committee has found “Deripaska’s companies, including Rusal, are proxies for the Kremlin, including for Russian government influence efforts, economic measures and diplomatic relations”.
Mr Deripaska, like other Russian oligarchs, owes his ongoing wealth and position in Russia to the Kremlin, said author and former Moscow correspondent Catherine Belton.
“Putin essentially created a system, in which he has compromising information on every Russian billionaire,” she said.
“So it became a system … that they own their assets through remaining in the good books of the Kremlin, so that they had to carry out strategic tasks for the Kremlin.”
In 2018, the US government imposed sanctions on Rusal and Oleg Deripaska over his ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Deripaska’s company attempted to lobby Joe Hockey over sanctions
Mr Deripaska, via Rusal’s parent company EN+, hired a top-tier Washington lobby firm to run the campaign to overturn the sanctions. The campaign sought to enlist the support of countries where Rusal had a significant investment, including Australia.
The lobbyists targeted the then-Australian ambassador to Washington Joe Hockey to pressure him to support the lifting of sanctions.
They sent him a briefing note that warned: “Rusal owns 20 per cent of Queensland Alumina. Therefore, the jobs and critical economic activity of this company are at risk.”
The lobbyists also prepared a draft letter they wanted Mr Hockey to sign and deliver to key decision-makers.
It began: “On behalf of the Commonwealth of Australia, I would like to express strong support for the ... plan to restructure the EN+ Group and Rusal in order to lift the threat of sanctions against the companies.”
Mr Hockey told Four Corners he could not remember the letter and would not have acted on it.
Documents obtained under Freedom of Information show that at the height of the lobbying campaign, senior Australian embassy staff sent more than a dozen emails to key US officials overseeing the sanctions regime.
The Australian diplomats met with US State Department and Treasury representatives and raised “the importance of an early consideration by the US of an Australian company’s proposal to meet the terms of the sanctions”.
The lobbying campaign worked.
The US lifted the sanctions on Rusal and EN+ after Mr Deripaska agreed to reduce his shareholding to below a controlling level.
However, Mr Deripaska remains personally sanctioned.
Late last year questions were raised about Mr Deripaska’s ongoing influence over Rusal and EN+, with reports that European officials have concluded that Mr Deripaska continues to control the companies in violation of the US sanctions deal.
In a statement, EN+ strongly denied the allegations.
Mr Deripaska is not sanctioned by Australia and remains free to conduct business here.
Serena Lillywhite, CEO of Transparency International Australia, said the case highlighted a weakness in Australia’s corporate governance.
“No individual or company that is sanctioned, as is the case with Mr Deripaska — there are personal sanctions against him — should be allowed to do business in Australia,” she told Four Corners.
″ Equally no individual or company that is accused of serious crime, corruption, money laundering and misconduct should be able to conduct business in Australia.”
A pariah in the West
From the annexation of Crimea and the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 by pro-Russian separatists to the poisoning of political opponents, Russian president Vladimir Putin has become a pariah in the West.
In the past month he has launched a brutal crackdown to crush pro-democracy protests, and jailed political opponents.
But Mr Putin’s loyal supporters in Australia are determined to defend their President and to bend Australians to the Kremlin’s world view.
Alexey Muraviev, an associate professor of national security at Curtin University, says Australia needs to recognise that Russia does not see Australia as a friendly country.
“Russia looks at Australia through the prism of our security and defence alliance with the United States,” he said.
“By ignoring Russia’s weight, Russia’s influence and Russia’s international status, we allow ourselves to be caught off guard every time Russia can pull the card out of its sleeve and wants to play a game against Australia.”
Source ABC | Four Corners
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