# Russian Imperial Movement A St. Petersburg-based white-supremacist, Orthodox-monarchist movement founded in 2002 by Stanislav Vorobyev, with a paramilitary wing, the **Imperial Legion**, and a training program, **Partizan**. In April 2020 the first Trump administration made it the **first white-supremacist group ever designated a terrorist entity** by the State Department. It is the clearest case in the vault of Russia serving as a **host and training ground** for the far-right international. ## Timeline | Date | Event | |---|---| | 2002 | Founded in St. Petersburg by Vorobyev; Denis Gariyev later heads the Imperial Legion, Nikolay Trushchalov runs external relations | | 2014– | Partizan camps teach bomb-making, marksmanship and tactical medicine; more than 300 Russians trained for fighting in Ukraine by 2017. The Imperial Legion fights with separatists in the [[Donbas War (2014-2022)]], later in [[Syria]] and [[Libya]] | | Aug 2016 | Two members of the Swedish neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement take about 11 days of Partizan training | | Nov 2016 – Jan 2017 | The same men bomb a left-wing bookshop, a refugee center and a campsite in Gothenburg. Swedish prosecutors call the camp where they "learned to manufacture the bombs" a key step in their radicalization | | Sept 2017 | U.S. white nationalist Matthew Heimbach (Traditionalist Worker Party) meets RIM representatives | | Apr 2020 | State Department designates RIM, Vorobyev, Gariyev and Trushchalov as Specially Designated Global Terrorists — the first white-supremacist designation | | Feb 3, 2021 | Canada lists RIM as a terrorist entity, alongside the [[Proud Boys]], Atomwaffen Division and others | | June 15, 2022 | U.S. designates one of the Gothenburg bombers and other associates | | July 5, 2025 | UK proscription takes effect, in the same order that banned Palestine Action | ## What is and isn't established - **Established:** the Swedish training-to-bombing chain; the U.S., Canadian and UK designations; Imperial Legion fighters in Ukraine. - **Contested:** that members of the U.S. neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division trained with RIM — reported, but described by researchers as unconfirmed. - **Not supported:** that RIM was behind the 2022 letter bombs in Spain. U.S. officials suspected Russian intelligence was directing RIM associates, but Spain later convicted a lone 74-year-old Spaniard and found no far-right or Russian links. ## Why it matters here RIM cuts against two easy stories at once. Against the claim that Putin's Russia is simply a bulwark of "traditional values," it shows the state tolerating a neo-Nazi training pipeline to Western Europe. And against the claim that designating right-wing terrorists is a partisan project, the designation came from Trump's own State Department. See [[White Nationalism]] and [[Domestic Terrorism]]. ## See Also - [[White Nationalism]] · [[Domestic Terrorism]] · [[Proud Boys]] - [[Russo-Ukrainian War]] · [[Donbas War (2014-2022)]] - [[Putinism]] · [[Ivan Ilyin]] · [[Alexander Dugin]]