cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10514053
Russia has built a network linking socialist and anti-globalist groups abroad under the banner of support for left-wing causes. The effort often starts with seemingly benign events such as community cleanups and discussion clubs before developing into street protests, disinformation campaigns, sabotage operations in Western countries, and even recruitment for Russia’s war in Ukraine. The Insider has identified several British and U.S. citizens who were recruited to fight for Russia with the help of “communists” and far-left activists.
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In the name of the left
In late April 2026, the founding forum of an international socialist network called the Sovintern was held at Moscow’s House of Unions. The event was organized by the party Spravedlivaya Rossiya (lit. “A Just Russia”). The name Sovintern echoes the Comintern, the Soviet-era Communist International that Moscow used in order to coordinate foreign communist parties and advance Soviet influence abroad.
The Kremlin did not hide its warm attitude toward this kind of international activity: the event opened with a welcoming address from Vladimir Putin himself. Sovintern’s stated public task was to create as much information content as possible. Each participant was expected to spread common narratives back home, thereby motivating potential future participants to join in the efforts to discredit their own national governments.
Like the Comintern once did for the Soviet Union, the new organization also appears to function as a cover for Russian special operations abroad. In fact, several of its participants are directly involved in recruiting foreign soldiers for the war in Ukraine.
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One example is the American Communist Party (ACP). The party was founded only recently — on July 21, 2024 — by two Russophile Marxist-Leninist streamers: Adam Tahir, who uses the public name Haz Al-Din (and is also known as Infrared), and Jackson Hinkle. Their left-wing identity does not prevent them from being ardent admirers of the fascist ideologue Alexander Dugin and Nazi sympathizer Martin Heidegger.
Historically, communists in the United States have been represented by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), whose leadership once actively cooperated with Soviet intelligence. The founders of the new ACP previously belonged to the shrinking CPUSA and have so far set up small chapters across the United States, as well as a branch in Canada. The party’s official activities are limited to community cleanup days, aid to the poor, and peaceful protests glorifying Stalinism and Chinese socialism. Party supporters also back Hamas and Hezbollah. Several members are even fighting against Ukraine on Russia’s side.
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In the UK, similar activity is handled by the Workers Party of Britain and its affiliated movement, no2nato. The party is headed by George Galloway, 71, a frequent guest on Russian propaganda shows. Aside from the direct disinformation work of its leader, the party’s members are also on the lookout for potential mercenaries.
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Until the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia used a network of state-controlled cultural centers and associated agents abroad to recruit agitators and, at times, fighters for proxy military structures. The Insider previously described how this worked using the example of Alexander Ionov, president of Russia’s Anti-Globalization Movement.
After the full-scale war began, most such organizations were expelled or shut down across the Western world. As a result, semi-legal and often highly marginal socialist and far-left cells became disproportionately useful.
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Recruitment [of foreign soldiers for Russia’s military] continues to this day. In late April 2026, Canadian Ryan Gallant — a member of his country’s branch of the American Communist Party — arrived in Irkutsk via China. Stimson said on his blog that the recruit was a professional helicopter pilot.
Sometimes the path is more complicated. One example is Kalen Pavan, a 17-year-old Canadian cadet who was recruited through socialist chapters and arrived at the Interbrigades headquarters in the Donbas in 2024 … When it turned out that Pavan was under 18 and had lied slightly about his age, he was recruited by the FSB, Russia’s domestic security service, and sent to the European Union — first to Denmark and then to Poland — for intelligence work. But he failed the assignment and was detained and convicted.
That example, however, appears to be more the exception than the rule. Those who leave for the war usually do not return home, either because they are killed in “meat grinder assaults” or because they risk criminal prosecution. If a recruit survives, after a while he may become a colleague of recruiters … and begin looking for new recruits himself.
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It is factually correct that people like Adrian Zenz have characterized programs in Xinjiang as genocide. It is also factually correct that Wikipedia does not take a hard stance affirming these views and categorization, instead it says there are “human rights abuses,” same as the UN. Wikipedia dropped the affirmation of genocide as the correct categorization due to lack of evidence, and the fact that many countries have visited Xinjiang and found no evidence amounting to genocide. That being said, outlets like the BBC do regularly allege genocide, so the idea that these allegations do not exist is false, just like the fact that your own allegations exist means allegations do in fact exist.
What’s critical here is that neither your views nor the BBCs are scholarly consensus. You both have allegations, so to deny that these allegations exist would be wrong. However, there does not exist affirmative consensus that these allegations are correct, so Wikipedia did the correct thing and dropped it.
No such language exists for the case of the Gaza Genocide, as is described by Wikipedia.
I’ve never denied the Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and I think it’s horrible that Russia and China are committing genocides too.
I’m against all genocides.
I’m against all real genocides. I don’t hold the same opinion that’s to the right of western-dominated bodies like the UN and Wikipedia regarding supposed genocides that have no hard evidence and consensus as such, as this trivializes actual, documented genocide like in Palestine and the Holocaust.
Just because you agree with the states that commit genocides doesn’t mean you should support their atrocities.
Denying those genocides is just straight up genocide denialism.
You’re also a genocide denier, for genocide in South Africa. That’s presumably a genocide we both deny. I simply agree with the UN and Wikipedia, that there doesn’t exist sufficient evidence of genocide in Ukraine or Xinjiang to categorize them as such. I believe those who take a position to the right of the UN and Wikipedia on these stances are doing more to undermine actual genocide right now, like Palestine, especially considering China has been pro-Palestine and Ukraine has been overwhelmingly pro-Israel.
Again, the fact that both of us deny white genocide in South Africa de fact makes both of us “straight up genocide deniers,” as you say, though I’d argue this is a good thing as this was used against anti-Apartheid activists for political gain, much like the other allegations of genocide we are discussing now.
I’m not sure what you parroting far-right talking points proves besides why you would deny Russia’s genocide of Ukraine because they do that too.
How am I parroting far-right views by rejecting allegations of genocide that lack evidence supporting those allegations, to the point that even western-dominated firms that at least pretend to have some semblence of factual basis don’t commit? Do you think the US committed genocide against Nazi Germany? Or China against imperial Japan? The Statesian North against the Statesian South in the Civil War? This is the logic of “war = genocide,” not all war is genocidal.
You have no actual hard evidence confirming genocide. You go over and above the peak of western allegations with some level of supporting evidence into territory that lacks hard evidence.
You’re bringing up far-right and white supremacist talking points to ‘prove’ that you denying genocide isn’t genocide denialism and that because I’m against genocides I’m actually ‘trivializing’ genocides which is absurd and the only way it even works as an argument is if you believe the far-right and white supremacist talking points.
In what way is it white supremacist to deny allegations made largely by white supremacists? The far-right is the group most commonly pushing the claims of genocide in Xinjiang and Ukraine, and conveniently are also the side most supportive of Israel. The more common liberal consensus is that there is genocide in Palestine, and perhaps human rights abuses in Xinjiang, with the horrors of war in the Russo-Ukrainian war. The liberal-dominated Wikipedia and UN both support these positions.
For example, Adrian Zenz is the biggest proponent of genocide in Xinjiang, and he is a Christian Nationalist and a supporter of Israel. He does not care about the lives of muslims, he predominantly cares about pushing a political agenda, which is affirmed by his membership in the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. He’s who BBC cites the most when they claim China is committing genocide, same with the NYT, and we both know how those outlets cape for Israel.
It trivializes genocide to compare actual genocide to war or really just other things that are far less.
This is not a difficult concept.