One of several organisations targeted by the EU’s latest wave of sanctions this week was a hardline anti-Ukrainian motorcycle gang led by a close friend and ardent admirer of Vladmir Putin, albeit the group’s leader dismissed them as having “no meaning.”
With more than 7,000 members, the Hell’s Angels-inspired biker organisation The Night Wolves has organised demonstrations and protests in support of the nation’s military invasion of Ukraine.
Members are also alleged to have participated in attacks on the eastern front of the ongoing battle and fought alongside pro-Russian insurgents.
The club, which has also been referred to as a “proxy” for the Kremlin, has supported and participated in a number of military operations on behalf of its government while maintaining a professional distance from Russian Premier Putin, a close friend of the group’s leader and a vocal supporter of its antics.
The penalties, which were authorised by the bloc this week and were first reported by The Financial Times, included Alexander Zaldostanov, the 51-year-old leader of the organisation who frequently meets with Putin.
They are intended to punish pro-war propagandists, which includes well-known members of the pro-Moscow rebel leadership that is engaged in armed conflict with the country’s military.
Zaldostanov, a gruff, imposing hulk of a man, said he was ‘not surprised’ by the sanctions on Friday and that they ‘have no meaning.’
His movement has grown from a Soviet patriotic club in the late 1980s to one of the country’s largest pro-Russia organisations.
However, the sanctions, which would freeze the assets of 48 pro-Putin people and nine organisations, including the Night Wolves, and forbid them from further assisting the Russian invasion, might stop the group’s propagandising road tours throughout Europe, where they have 44 additional chapters.
Zaldostanov, who in 2019 organised a public ride with Putin after pitching his organisation to the Kremlin as an informal militia, however, claimed that members would simply gather in Russia if they were prohibited from doing so overseas.
Zaldostanov told the newspaper, “If we will no longer be able to make the travels, then our friends, our brothers, will come here instead.”
In 1989, Zaldostanov took over as the group’s leader. Initially made up of motorcycle enthusiasts and rock music fans, the gang has since transformed into a group of patriotic activists.
Zaldostanov quickly won over longtime leader Putin, who came to power in 2000 after a distinguished career in the KGB.
After receiving the Crimea Medal of Freedom from Putin in 2019, Zaldostanov joined the controversial leader on a widely publicised motorbike journey in August to show support for him ahead of the contentious fourth presidential election of that year.
Josef Hambalek, the head of the club’s European division, was one of several other group leaders who were listed in the sanctions.
In the complaint, authorities accused the Slovak national of preparing soldiers for battle in Ukraine at a camp in his home country.
He “had tight contacts with the past Slovakian leadership and can be tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin,” according to the dossier.
Thousands of people across Europe have donated money to the organisation, which is used to help those living in the eastern Ukraine states that Russia occupies.
The gang has also been observed parading across Central Russia during the invasion, with thousands of participants waving Russian and pro-war Z flags.
The team, known as “Putin’s Angels,” frequently organises rides and other activities to remember the Russian forces that fought in World Wars I and II as well as the casualties who perished in those conflicts.
The sanctions, a draught of which identified the people and businesses barred for backing Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, also named the chairman of the largest zinc and copper company in the world, UMMC, and Russia’s largest lender, Sberbank.
Sergei Korolev, the First Deputy Director of the Russian Feder Security Service, was also punished.
According to the leaked paper, he “is mentioned as a potential replacement” for Alexander Bortnikov, the chief of the FSB, who was already subject to sanctions.
One of those sanctioned was Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who was charged with being “one of the most involved participants in the unlawful transportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and their adoption by Russian families.”
The action, which is anticipated to be enacted on Wednesday, would bring the total number of people the EU has blacklisted as a result of the war in Ukraine to 1,229, and it would bring the number of publicly traded enterprises to 110.
Since the crisis began in February, Ukraine has accused Russia of relocating more than 200,000 children there. Moscow disputes this and claims that all it has done is to accept refugees.
Stanislav Chemezov, the son of Rostec’s chairman, and Maya Bolotova, the daughter of Nikolay Tokarev, the director of the Russian State-controlled energy giant Transneft, were two examples of family members of corporate leaders who had previously been subject to sanctions.
Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, was also added to the list of sanctioned individuals, along with Andrey Belousov, the first deputy prime minister of Russia, the actors Sergei Bezrukov and Vladimir Mashkov, and various leaders of the government institutions established by Russia in the occupied territories of Ukraine, including the mayors of Mariupol and Kherson.
Due to its involvement in Russia’s 2014 invasion of the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine, the biker gang was already prohibited from functioning in the US.
The allegations that the organisation had members fight in the ranks of rebel fighters in the nation’s east during the ensuing war also led to those penalties.
As the war enters its eighth month, Kiev claims that Ukrainian forces are gradually retaking the Kherson region as they begin a significant counteroffensive against Putin’s occupying armies.
To aid in Ukraine’s defence, the US and the UK have shipped thousands of Javelin missile launchers there.
Since the Russian president ordered his forces into Ukraine on February 24, the weapons have proven to be incredibly effective in the hands of Kyiv’s soldiers and have been responsible for the destruction of hundreds of Russian military vehicles.