Amid mass protests in Moscow, Vladimir Putin showed up at a right-wing nationalist motorcycle festival in Crimea
Putin posed for selfies with members of the Night Wolves, which supported the annexation of Crimea. It's the largest such group in Russia and has close ties to the Kremlin. The Night Wolves hold their annual motorcycle show in Sevastopol.
The Night Wolves, or "Nochniye Volki" in Russian, are a hyper-nationalist group whose leader, Alexander "The Surgeon" Zaldostanov, has said he would die for Putin and that "wherever the Night Wolves are, that should be considered Russia."
Source: Rolling Stone
Putin annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, using Russian special forces. Russia denied the presence of its forces on the peninsula, but a month after unidentified forces took over government buildings there, Putin signed a treaty annexing Crimea.
Source: Business Insider
Putin attended the event as some 60,000 protesters rallied in Moscow on Saturday for fair municipal elections. Over the past month, both official and unofficial protests have taken place in Russia over bans preventing opposition parties from running in municipal elections in September.
Source: BBC
Putin rode with Sergey Askyonov, the head of a small pro-Russia party in Crimea who was appointed the head of Crimea after the Russian takeover. "Crimea will never return to Ukraine, and it's senseless to set any conditions to that end," he told NPR In 2018. The other passenger in Putin's motorcycle is Mikhail Razvozhayev, acting governor of Sevastopol.
Source: NPR
While Crimea has a majority of Russian speakers, there are also sizable minorities of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars.
According to the BBC, Crimea came under the control of a Tatar Khanate in 1443, after centuries of Greek and Roman influence. It eventually came under Ottoman control and remained there until it was annexed by the Russian empire under Catherine the Great in 1783, the same year that part of the Russian fleet was stationed at the port of Sevastopol.
During the Crimean War in the 1850s, Britain and France sent troops to Crimea to combat what they saw as Russian imperialistic ambition. Crimea was occupied by the Nazis during World War II; when it came under Soviet control, Stalin expelled Crimean Tatars, saying they were Nazi collaborators. They were sent to Central Asia and Siberia, where many died. In 1954, Russia handed over control of Crimea to Ukraine.
Sources: BBC, The Wilson Center
Putin's government has a history of engaging with right-wing nationalist groups in Russia. While the nationalism displayed by the Night Wolves isn't new, rights groups say Putin has harnessed it to support his imperialistic tendencies, maintain his grip on power, and oppress minority groups like LGBT Russians, ethnic minorities, and political dissidents.
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