Putin's Angels: Inside Russia's Most Infamous Motorcycle Club
The leader's name is the Surgeon, and he is the president of the Night Wolves, the largest motorcycle club in Russia. He is a busy man. Over the past week, he has been composing the script for the Night Wolves' signature event: an annual bike show held here in Sevastopol — a city on the coast of Russia's recently reacquired Crimean Peninsula — combining motorcycle stunts, military maneuvers and strident nationalist pageantry.
Over the past decade, he has transformed a once-underground biker gang into a self-styled vanguard of patriotic holy warriors, reportedly 5,000 strong, with close ties to the Kremlin. In the Russian media, he can regularly be heard trumpeting the country's greatness while warning that its enemies — America, Europe, homosexuals, liberals, traitorous "fifth columnists" — intend to undermine Mother Russia. He and the other Night Wolves often hold motorcycle rallies to promote Russian patriotism and Orthodox Christianity, making rumbling pilgrimages to churches and holy sites.
In late February 2014, at the beginning of Russia's takeover of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, the Surgeon was spotted on a flight to Crimea. On the day of his arrival, the Night Wolves were working alongside pro-Russia militias, setting up roadblocks in Sevastopol. In March, according to the U.S. government, they stormed a naval facility, with the Surgeon personally helping to coordinate "the confiscation of Ukrainian weapons with the Russian forces." On March 18th, Russia formally annexed the peninsula. Whether the Night Wolves' leader acted on his own initiative or on orders from Russian officials remains unknown, but it seems unlikely the Kremlin would not sanction, at least tacitly, an operation of such consequence. (The Surgeon soon received a medal for "the liberation of the Crimea and Sevastopol" in Moscow, Russian media reported.)
The gang's rhetoric echoes both a growing wave of nationalism in Russia and a sharp rightward turn in the country's politics. Under Putin's tenure, the Kremlin has jailed journalists and opposition figures, banned "gay propaganda" and crafted ersatz political parties that provide a veneer of self-governance. It has deployed its vast propaganda apparatus — state-controlled radio and newspapers, but above all, television — to fan patriotic fervor.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/putins-angels-inside-russias-most-infamous-motorcycle-club-20151008
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