Far-right Russian group disrupts ceremony honoring victims of Stalinist purges, which included Ukrainians
Masked men wearing the insignia of the far-right nationalist group Russian Community attempted to disrupt a ceremony honoring victims of Stalinist purges in Russia's northwestern Karelia region, the Sova Research Center reported on Aug. 7.
Members of the Russian Community arrived at the cemetery before the ceremony on Aug. 5 and began to douse participants with water while singing the patriotic Soviet song "Katyusha," according to Sova.
The masked men also reportedly hung signs with the names of four foreign nationals who were killed fighting for Ukraine, which was apparently an act meant to dishonor them alongside the victims of the Stalinist purges.
When local observers of the ceremony tried to stop them, the masked men threatened to get them imprisoned. Law enforcement officers present at the scene did not intervene.
The Russian Community did not comment publicly on the incident, according to Sova.
Participating in the annual memorial event, during which locals read aloud the names of victims of Stalinist purges executed at Sandarmokh forest, has become an increasingly brave act amid a political climate where discussing Russia’s past or present crimes can be viewed by authorities as a criminal act.
During Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's purges of the 1930s, more than 9,000 people were executed in the Sandarmokh forest in Russia's Karelia region, located near the Finnish border. Local activists and historians have identified victims of over 60 nationalities, including 493 Ukrainians.
Among the Ukrainian victims executed at Sandarmokh were theater director Les Kurbas, modernist author Valerian Pidmohylny, and poet and translator Mykola Zerov. They belonged to a generation known in Ukraine as the "Executed Renaissance" — a term that reflects the fate of hundreds of Ukrainian intellectuals who were targeted by the Soviet secret police, imprisoned, and killed.
Local historian Yuri Dmitriev led many of the efforts to identify the thousands of people executed in Karelia during Stalin's purges. In 2016, he was arrested on charges widely believed to be politically motivated amid Russia's growing authoritarian climate. Although acquitted in 2018, he was retried twice more in 2020 and 2021, and the 69-year-old now faces a 15-year prison sentence.
