Sergey Korotkikh

Sergei Arkadievich Korotkikh , also known as Botsman and Malyuta, is a Russian-born Belarusian-Ukrainian far-right mercenary, former neo-Nazi political activist, and suspected special agent for one or more post-Soviet state intelligence agencies.

A highly experienced combat veteran, Korotkikh has long been known for his association with several neo-Nazi and similar ultranationalist organizations in Eastern Europe through the end of the 1990s and the decade of the 2000s, many of which groups have been tied to racially motivated attacks and killings.

Korotkikh is alleged to have been involved in a number of murders as well as kidnappings, war crimes, and robberies in addition to smuggling and racketeering.

Biography Early life and political beginnings Sergei Korotkikh was born on 12 July 1974 in Tolyatti of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic but would end up spending his childhood years in the Republic of Belarus. Korotkikh was expelled from the school in 1996, which he said was a result of clashes with the police at the Chernobyl Way march organized by the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) opposition party. Korokikh would ultimately end up parting ways with the organization in 2001.

The NSO and Format18 Sergei Korotkikh relocated from Belarus to Russia in the early 2000s. When the year 2004 rolled around, he proceeded to co-found a neo-Nazi organization with the assistance of a few other Russian neo-fascist politicians which became known as the National Socialist Society (NSO). Two notable founders of the organization were Dmitry Rumyantsev and Maxim Gritsai.

The ideology of the National Socialist Society has commonly been described as Hitlerist, pan-Slavic, white supremacist, antisemitic, and xenophobic. The group sought to overthrow the existing Russian government and create a totalitarian White ethnostate in its place which would be based upon the doctrine of National Socialism and the Nazi Party. Despite having an openly radical anti-government rhetoric, the National Socialist Society attempted to present itself as a legitimate political party - possessing a strict hierarchy but with somewhat individual autonomy to each of its subordinate regional factions. To promote the National Socialist ideology, the NSO organized pickets and rallies, distributed propaganda materials, and conducted online propaganda through its official website. Aside from political activities, the group also trained its members in paramilitary combat techniques and guerrilla warfare tactics in preparation for terroristic acts and a supposedly impending "race war". At the height of its popularity, the National Socialist Society had factions in at least thirteen different Russian cities which included Moscow, Ryazan, Voronezh, Saint Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod. According to the Russian newspaper Izvestia, the NSO became one of the nation's the most influential and wealthy neo-Nazi organizations.

Utilizing his combative expertise, Sergei Korotkikh routinely drilled members of the National Socialist Society on wartime fighting techniques whilst overseeing the group's financial operations on the side. A particularly distinct aspect of the NSO was that its members were paid a rather generous salary on account of opulent financial backing from convicted Russian fraudster Maxim Gritsai. In 2006, notorious neo-Nazi icon Maxim Martsinkevich and a handful of his like-minded Nazi skinhead followers joined up with the National Socialist Society.

Shamil Odamanov case

In August 2007, a snuff video was uploaded to the web in which masked neo-Nazi militants brutally execute two physically restrained Iranic individuals. It starts off with the beheading of a young Dagestani with a Tajik male subsequently shot in the head at close range. Entitled the Execution of a Tajik and a Dagestani, this graphic three-minute film was posted in racist skinhead internet circles before rapidly spreading throughout various shock sites where it eventually achieved viral status and international attention. Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs had dismissed the authenticity of the snuff footage until one of the murder victims in the filmed recording became successfully identified as Shamil Odamanov.

Following an eventual investigation into the homicides, Russian authorities concluded that the xenophobic execution had been preliminarily arranged by Martsinkevich. Svetlana Petrenko, an official representative spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee of Russia, claims that while Martsinkevich was imprisoned for an unrelated crime in 2020, he ended up confessing to the authorities that he had been the cameraman who filmed the notorious execution video in 2007 and revealed that the accomplice who had managed carry out both murders was Korotkikh. By this account, Martsinkevich then purportedly went on to name the final masked militant neo-Nazi appearing in the footage as Maxim "Dentist" Makienko. On 16 September 2020, Martsinkevich was found dead in his prison cell. His death was officially ruled as a suicide but occurred under mysterious circumstances.

In conjunction with Martsinkevich's testimony, another confession video surfaced on the web during 2021, in which Sergei Korotkikh testifies on the record against prominent members of the National Socialist Society including Maxim Martsinkevich, Alexander "Shultz" Filyushkin (Shitov), Alexey "Ideolog" Akimov and Andrey "Ded" Chuenkov (Dedov). On the recording, he discloses his intention to fully cooperate with the authorities. Although the Korotkikh's taped confession came to light in 2021, it was said to have actually been recorded sometime back in 2007. Incidentally, this was a year after Sergei Korotkikh had been kicked out of the NSO and had formed his own unofficial offshoot.

Further activities in Russia and Belarus Korotkikh was a suspect in organizing the explosion of a public street lamp on Manezhnaya Square, Moscow, carried out by NSO militants during December 2007. This video was released in order to antagonize Slavic Union leader Dmitry Demushkin who had been an opponent of the NSO ever since his departure from the Russian National Unity in 1999. After being kicked out of the NSO, Korotkikh attempted to establish his own unofficial offshoot, although it was unsuccessful. There were also attempts by him and his allies to discredit the original National Socialist Society through postings on Format18, a multimedia web-based project run by Tesak. Sergei Korotkikh returned to Belarus in early 2008. Not long after, his former group gradually began to fall apart and would eventually fold entirely in 2010. According to the police, the criminal case was closed because supposedly none of the victims had managed to file a complaint against their assailants.

By his own account, Korotkikh claimed to save up money from 2010 to 2013 by working for an American private military company in Latin America. He also worked briefly in the Middle East around this time - where he would oversee the protection and escort of humanitarian convoys. He began his tenure with the volunteer unit as a combat instructor before later commanding a reconnaissance company.

For his war efforts, he was controversially granted Ukrainian citizenship the same year by the country's then-President Petro Poroshenko despite Korotkikh not renouncing his Belarusian citizenship. In 2017, Korotkikh graduated to the Azov Battalion's political wing, the National Corps.

In spring of 2022, Sergei Korotkikh shared videos with Meduza showing the corpses of slaughtered Ukrainian civilians within occupied Bucha alongside Russian military equipment to provide evidence of Russian war crimes in what was known as the Bucha massacre.

Other possible political killings

Korotkikh has been suspected of having a connection to several murders.

Gleb Samoilov (2000) In 2000, Gleb Samoilov, the leader of the Russian National Unity's Belarusian branch, was found stabbed to death in his Minsk apartment. Sergei became a prime suspect in the murder investigation but the case would end up being dropped in the long run on account that he and his fellow RNU members refused to co-operate with law enforcement. Korotkikh denied having anything to do with the murder, insisting that the two were friends.

Three weeks before his death, Vitaly Shishov informed his close friend Yury Lebedev that he suspected Russo-Belarusian officials had successfully infiltrated the Belarusian House in Ukraine. Around the time of his death, it is also believed that Vitaly Shishov was under surveillance and received threats. The Special Rapid Response Unit of the Internal Troops of Belarus is special police unit with a long history of carrying out questionable enforced disappearances of individuals deemed a threat to the regime of Alexander Lukashenko.

Yaroslav Babych (2021) Yaroslav Babych, the deputy head of legal counsel for the Azov Battalion was found hanged in his Kyiv apartment on the morning of August 3, 2021. Although his death is labelled as a suicide, it occurred under suspicious circumstances and with preceding events that involved Sergei Korotkikh. Such allegations serve as the explanation for why he has consistently managed to evade facing legal penalty from any of the numerous criminal charges brought against him - unlike most of his co-conspirators. In interviews with the Kyiv Post, several Belarusian ultranationalists have expressed their criticism for the Russian National Unity, maintaining that it had been infiltrated with spies from the Belarusian KGB and Russian FSB. His settling in the country is said to have been prompted by a special assignment he received from the FSB which tasked him with infiltrating the Russian neo-Nazi scene. One noteworthy detail is that the brother of NSO-founder Maxim Gritsai is an officer of the Russian Federal Security Service. However, Avakov said that Korotkikh never worked in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Sergei is an associate of Valery Ignatovich, the former head of the Special Purpose Police Detachment of the Belarusian Interior Ministry who received a life sentence on 16 July 2002 for the kidnapping and disappearance of Belarusian cameraman Dmitry Zavadsky. Some sources have stated that Sergei Korotkikh and Valery Ignatovich are cousins while others have said they are nonfamilial friends although either is yet to be confirmed.