At the forefront of facilitating a military offensive in Ukraine, Russian nationalists are taking advantage of the Kremlin’s tacit approval to impose themselves on a political scene crushed by years of repression, writes AFP.

The death of the daughter of the ultra-nationalist ideologue Oleksandr Dugin in a car explosion at the end of August, attributed to the Ukrainian services, became a sign of their new weight on the political scene, which caused a wave of emotion and sympathy, in particular from Vladimir Putin.

Once limited to social media, bloggers, journalists and other nationalist intellectuals now have access to mainstream television channels.

“The Kremlin relies on nationalists to popularize its offensive in Ukraine,” Lev Gudkov, a sociologist and director of the Levada independent research center, told AFP.

In the context of the conflict, the sense of Western hostility towards them, shared by many Russians and fueled by television, is the perfect springboard for their messages.

For almost four out of five Russians (78%), “Russia is a big country surrounded by enemies,” Gudkov said, referring to a survey by his center.

In his weekly column on the national radio station “Russia”, Antonovsky defends “the great Russian Empire, the last bastion of traditional values”, attacks the liberal West and proposes to cleanse Russian culture of “Russophobes” and simply nationalize the mass media.

“Thanks to the Russophobia of the West, it united us,” he quips.