The New Zealand Herald: Russia's far-right on rise

Driven by crushing poverty, a lingering sense of humiliation after the collapse of the Soviet Union and outrage over Chechen separatist terror attacks, Russia's skinheads are becoming increasingly organised, violent and numerous. A report claims Russia's youth is embracing the ideology their grandparents fought against so implacably, and that Russian skinheads, or britogolovy, now account for almost half the world's "skins". Adhering to a blend of neo-Nazi ideology and rabid Russian nationalism, Russian skinheads are among the most violent, and have staged a wave of savage attacks on non-Russians and children as young as 5 in the past year, leaving many of their bleeding victims to die slowly. Forty-four people were killed in racially motivated murders last year, more than double the previous year, human rights activists say. Many perpetrators were young, white skinheads shouting neo-Nazi or nationalist slogans. They rarely shoot their victims, preferring to stab them repeatedly or beat them to death with chains or knuckle-dusters. The odds are always stacked in their favour because they hunt in packs of at least three and pick vulnerable targets. Their ranks seem only to swell, from about a dozen in the early 1990s to up to 60,000 today.