MARSEILLE, France (AP) – The Russian soccer hooligans who have fought with rival supporters at the European Championship in France have at various times been both an asset and a liability to the Russian authorities.
While the often-nationalist hardcore fans provide a reserve of support for adventurous foreign policy moves and a bulwark against domestic protests, they can also threaten public order at home and embarrass Russia abroad as it seeks global prestige by hosting the 2018 World Cup.
When Russian hooligans fought with English fans in the city of Marseille on Saturday and then attacked them inside the stadium, the response in Russia was mixed. While Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said Sunday that those involved in disorder had “disgraced the country,” state media pushed the view that they had been provoked into violence, with one broadcaster portraying street battles in Marseille’s Old Port as a heroic Russian victory over English attackers.
“Most people (in Russia) think the Russians were right” in Saturday’s fighting, said Evgeny Dzichkovsky, a columnist for Russia’s Sovetsky Sport newspaper. “A minority thinks they were just fighters who went there to start a conflict.”
The Russian state’s complex relationship with hardcore fans was defined in 2010, when thousands of fans angered by the death of a Spartak Moscow supporter in a fight with migrants from Russia’s North Caucasus occupied Manezh square near the Kremlin in a protest which turned into a race riot, with non-Slavic passers-by beaten and stabbed.