Kremlin boot boys, or plain old football hooligans ... just who are the Russian Ultras?

“Our fans in Marseille are a copy of Russian foreign policy,” Professor Sergei Medvedev from Moscow's Higher School of Economics, wrote on social media after last week’s clashes around the England-Russia game.

Describing the mentality of the Russian hooligans, he said: “We won't win the championship but let's at least put on a brave face, beat some people up, and have the whole world talking about us.”

How accurate an assessment is this? Has the behaviour of Russian hooligans in France really been a reflection of the country’s foreign policy? Even more significantly, is it as some suggest, directly linked to political cadres in Russia and possibly orchestrated and manipulated by even higher forces - all the way to government level?

“I don't see anything terrible about fans fighting,” Igor Lebedev, a nationalist who is a deputy speaker in the lower house of parliament and a member of the Russian Football Union's executive committee, wrote on social media last week. “On the contrary our guys were great. Keep it up.”

Lebedev went on to say: "In nine out of 10 cases football fans go to games to fight, and that’s normal. The lads defended the honour of their country and did not let English fans desecrate our motherland.”

Arrogant and inappropriate, as such remarks are, on one level at least they seemed to have tapped into what some see as a genuine interpretation of the violence as part of Russia's geopolitical stand-off with the West.

“Take my word for it. This is purely our symbolic reply to your sanctions and interference in our internal affairs in Ukraine,” Valentin Polyakov, from the city of Rostov-on-Don, said of the Marseille violence on Komsomolskaya Pravda's website.

Such views of course reflect a certain Russian frustration - fuelled by state media - over Western sanctions on Russia over Moscow's role in Ukraine, where Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists are locked in a low-level conflict.

Most of the Russian fans involved in last week’s violence in France, who refer to themselves as ‘ultras’, belong to an organised tradition of hooliganism, which has its roots mainly around clubs in Moscow and St Petersburg. They belong to “firms” modelled on what they view as the 1970s heyday of English football fans' thuggery.

Saint Petersburg FC Zenit ultras are considered to be the most feared, with more than 5,000 local supporters.

In Russia many of these ultras hooligans are “straight edge,” abstain from alcohol and smoking, and work out regularly to steel their bodies for fighting. They also train together, and practice tactics to be used when travelling to other cities to fight hooligans from other clubs.

According to Manuel Veth, an expert in the history and politics of Russian football, today’s ultra scene is 99 per cent right wing, racist and homophobic. Many of its members also firmly believe that they have a duty to defend traditional Russian values and the motherland, both at home and abroad.

During last week’s violence in France the notorious far-right activist Alexander Shprygin head of the all-Russia Supporters Union was among dozens of fans deported following the violence.

A hardcore supporter of the club side Dynamo Moscow, Shprygin played a key role in the football club's fan movement in the 1990s. He then joined the LDPR, a pro-Kremlin nationalist party, and became an aide to

Igor Lebedev.

Shprygin’s reputation as a far-right activist existed long before the current Euro tournament. Pictures circulating online have shown him performing a Nazi salute at a concert given in 2001 by Korrozia Metalla, a heavy metal band also known for its extreme views. Some of its songs are banned in Russia for “inciting ethnic hatred.”

Shprygin later spent almost a year in detention for assaulting the Korrozia Metalla frontman known as Pauk (“Spider”). He was also given a two-year suspended sentence along with a policeman involved in the attack.

Time and again Shprygin has expressed controversial views such as claiming the Russian squad should be represented by “Slavic faces” at the World Cup due to be hosted by the country in 2018.

For his part Shprygin has denied having any far-right leanings, saying that he was “100 per cent anti-fascist” and that he didn't have “anything against Jews.”

Worryingly for many football officials Shprygin has been involved in Russia’s preparations for the 2018 World Cup, a hosting role many see as potentially problematic following the recent fan trouble in France.

That Shprygin is close to Russian President Vladmir Putin is a given. On a number of occasions he has taken part in meetings chaired by Putin, including one in Moscow in January 2012, attended by then FIFA President Sepp Blatter and then UEFA President Michel Platini.

At the meeting, Putin referred to Shprygin as “Sasha” - a diminutive for Alexander - suggesting a degree of familiarity between the two men.

Shprygin is considered by the Fare network, which provides official observers at matches for UEFA and FIFA, to be a leading light in Russia’s network of extreme-right ultra fan groups.

A 2015 report by Fare - an organisation made up of NGOs, fan groups, ethnic minority groups, LGBT groups and others - found violence and racism was rife in Russian football.

“Cases are reported when fans participated in 'white wagons' - commuter train raids during which people with 'non-Slavic' appearance are beaten and ideological opponents, such as anti-fascists, are attacked,” Fare says.

“The spread of extreme right wing ideas among football fans is facilitated by the evident overlapping of the far-right political community with the ultras.”

Fare noted that while not all football hooligans are racist, an increase in xenophobic attitudes among fan groups correlated with high levels of ethnic xenophobia in Russian society.

Piara Powar, the network’s executive director, said that the presence of Shprygin within the official football supporter’s party in France raised wider concerns about “the apparent nexus of high-level politicians, far-right leaders and extreme nationalism” in Russian football.

Many of these individuals represent a strand of nationalism which has become more strident since Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and state media ratcheted up its narrative that the West is Public Enemy Number One.

But tracing a direct link between the violence by some Russian fans in France and the Kremlin is problematic to say the least, even if French officials alluded to something beyond usual football hooliganism.

“Extremely well trained … prepared for ultra-rapid, ultra-violent action,” was how they summed up the actions of those Russian fans engaged in the violence.

What many commentators do point to however is that something about the behaviour of such fans provides an insight into the general political climate of Russia and the way ultra nationalism has been harnessed by the state.

According to Eliot Rothwell, a European football writer specialising in Eastern Europe, “an enduring feature of Vladimir Putin’s time in office has been the Kremlin’s attempts to co-opt nationalist groups, setting the boundaries for what is and what is not the acceptable face of Russian ultra nationalism.”

In 2005 he points out there was the creation of Nashi, a state-funded nationalist youth group that received recruits from CSKA Moscow ultras group the Gallant Steeds, as well as Spartak Moscow group the Gladiators.

But the level of ‘managed nationalism’ coming from political authority, says Rothwell, was increased in 2010, as 6,000 protestors converged on Manezh Square in Moscow. The protest, organised by groups such as the Movement Against Illegal Migration and Slavic Force, unleashed a wave of anger at economic stagnation, official corruption and an influx of migrants. This was sparked off by the murder of Egor Sviridov who was, alongside other Spartak Moscow fans, involved in a fight with an ethnic Caucasian gang. Vladimir Putin would later appear at Sviridov’s grave to pay his respects.

These 2010 protests, Rothwell says, prompted the Kremlin to forge closer bonds with ultra-led nationalist groups, solidifying the link between nationalism, football supporters and the political authorities.

At the sharp political end, some security analysts go so far as to suggest that some of the far right football fan groups are coordinated directly through the FSB (Federal Security Service), the Kremlin’s successor to the KGB. But hard evidence to support this is difficult to come by. There are other parallels however.

The biker gang the “Night Wolves” which President Putin has ridden with, which proposed to ride to Berlin to mark the 70th VE Day last year is known to be stated subsidised. It is also known to operate side-by-side at a grass roots level with armed pro-Kremlin separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Not everyone however is convinced that Russia’s football hooliganism is shaped to such an extent by direct political links to the Kremlin or far right. Some commentators point out that most ordinary fans who catch the average weekend game have little to do with the men whose brutal acts have put Russia at risk of expulsion from the European Championships.

James Appell, a British journalist who has spent the last few years in Moscow is a close follower of Russian football. He says that Russia is a country “whose modern domestic football culture recalls the mostly white, mostly male, working-class nature of the sport in Western Europe two-plus decades ago, before safety regulations, stadium policies, and commercialisation attracted a wealthier, more ethnically diverse, and more family-oriented clientele.” This he says is the culture that includes, “maybe even breeds,” those Russian men that have been wreaking havoc across France.

“Every country has its radicals, its hooligans, its violent youth, and the forces that drive them are often far larger than what can fit inside a soccer stadium,” says Appell.

“But the difference is that most countries have also taken a proactive approach toward ensuring a pleasant experience for the majority of fans who just want to watch a game. In Russia, football still appears to cater to the preferences of a small - and violent - minority.”

Whatever and whoever is responsible for the recent violence in France, Russia may well pay a price with its hosting of the 2018 World Cup.

With that in mind many in Russia have also been very critical of its hooligans in France. Back home in Russia the authorities have actually cracked down pretty hard on fan violence at the club level, greatly reducing its visibility in the last several years.

There was a time when different hooligan gangs, or “firms,” representing different Russian football clubs, would ambush each other in the middle of cities, leading to mass brawls, much like what was seen in Marseille. But police action has largely forced hooligan gangs to prearrange fights outside of towns - in forests or other remote areas far from the public.

Should the World Cup go ahead in Russia then this heavy security will be even more apparent - regardless of Kremlin alleged links with far right hooligans or not.

For some time President Putin has put his country on something of a stand-off with the west and Europe.

Just as in the Cold War days when Putin worked for the country’s security service the KGB, sport has become a crucial arena where geopolitical struggles are fought out. To that end the official Russian narrative is either one of ideological victory or of victimhood as a result of external plots.

As long as such a climate exists so too will Russian football hooligans and their right wing allegiances.