title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In June 2008, a group of Finnish economists wrote that the 2000s had so far been an economic boon for Russia, with GDP rising about 7% a year and by the beginning of 2008 Russia had become one of the ten largest economies in the world.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In Putin's first term, many new economic reforms were implemented along the lines of the "Gref program". The multitude of reforms ranged from a flat income tax to bank reform, from land ownership to improvements in conditions for small businesses.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In 1998, over 60% of industrial turnover in Russia was based on barter and various monetary surrogates. The use of such alternatives to money now today fallen out of favour, which has boosted economic productivity significantly. Besides raising wages and consumption, Putin's government has received broad praise also for eliminating this problem.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In the opinion of the Finnish researchers, the most high-profile change within the national priority project frameworks was probably the 2006 across-the-board increase in wages in healthcare and education as well as the decision to modernise equipment in both sectors in 2006 and 2007.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: The rise in the overall living standards further deepened Russia's social and geographical discrepancies. In July 2008, Edward Lucas of "The Economist" wrote: "The colossal bribe-collecting opportunities created by Putinism have heightened the divide between big cities (particularly Moscow) and the rest of the country".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In November 2008, the retired KGB lieutenant-general Nikolai Leonov, in assessing the overall results of Putin's economic policies for the period of 8 years, said that [w]ithin this period, there has only been one positive thing, if you leave aside the trivia. And that thing is the price of oil and natural gas". In the closing paragraphs of his 2008 book, the retired general said: "Behind the gilded facade of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, there lies a demolished country that, under the current characteristics of those in power, has no chance to restore itself as one of the developed states of the world".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: On 29 November 2008, Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party of Russian Federation (the largest opposition group within Russia with its 13% of seats in the national Parliament), in his speech before the 13th Party Congress lamented that due to "heroic efforts" of the "Yeltsinites" the country has lost 5 out of the 22 million square kilometers of its "historical territory" and that Russia faces de-industrialization, de-population and mental debilitation. The ruling group has in his opinion no notable successes to boast of, no clear plan of action and is only focussed on staying in power at all costs.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: To characterize the kind of state Putin had built in socio-economic terms, in early 2008 professor Marshall I. Goldman coined the term "petrostate" in "Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia", where he "inter alia" argued that while Putin had followed the advice of economic advisers in implementing reforms such as a 13 percent flat tax and creating a stabilization fund to lessen inflationary pressure, his main personal contribution was the idea of creating "national champions" and the renationalization of major energy assets. In his June 2008 interview, Marshall Goldman said that in his opinion Putin had created a new class of oligarchs, whom some called "silogarchs", Russia having come in second in the "Forbes" magazine list of the world's billionaires after only the United States.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In December 2008, Anders Åslund pointed out that Putin's chief project had been "to develop huge, unmanageable state-owned mastodons, considered “national champions”", which had "stalemated large parts of the economy through their inertia and corruption while impeding diversification".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: On 14 November 2016, Elvira Nabiullina, the head of Central Bank of Russia, stated that «the previous model which based upon exporting raw materials and stimulating consumption, including through consumer lending, has been exhausted; this was manifested in «the fading of the rates of economic growth» before the crisis and the drop in oil prices».


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Russian economist Dmitriy Prokofiev believes that new economic model of Putin's Russia is based on the same principles that were used during the Stalin's five-year plans. The essence of this system is to provide investment in large projects under the patronage of the government and guarantee the income of the political and economical elite by direct and indirect uptake of money from the population. As a result of cheap labour and expensive capital policy, economic entities use labour-based and not capital-intensive technologies. At the same time, the impoverishment of the population and the decrease of the domestic consumer demand forces economic entities to seek an objects for investment outside Russia. That is why the profits of large companies and their owners does not affect the income of individuals.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: New economic model was named «People are new oil». This phrase entered the lexicon of Russian bureaucrats believing that citizens are the source of income and benefits, but not an object of concern and care.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: The particular manifestations of new economic model are following: freezing of the funded part of the pension since 2014 until at least the end of 2023, raising the retirement age, value added tax rate hike, income tax on natural persons rate hike, reviving the Stalin's practice of using the prisoner's labour.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In June 2000, Putin's decree was approved by the "Concept of the Russian Federation's foreign policy". According to this document, the main objectives of foreign policy are the following:


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: On 10 February 2007, Vladimir Putin delivered a confrontational speech in Munich where, inter alia, he accused the West of breaking the promise not to expand NATO into new countries in Eastern Europe believing that is a threat to Russia’s national security. According to John Lough, associate fellow of the Chatham House, Putin's statement was based on the myth that the West deceived Russia by reneging on its promises at the end of the Cold War not to enlarge NATO and chose to pass up the opportunity to integrate Russia into a new European security framework and instead encouraged Moscow back on to a path of confrontation with the USA and its allies. In fact, USSR neither asked for nor was given any formal guarantees that there would be no further expansion of NATO beyond the territory of a united Germany and, in addition, the USSR signed the Charter of Paris in November 1990 with the commitment to ‘fully recognize the freedom of States to choose their own security arrangements’. In opinion of Andrey Kolesnikov, senior fellow of the Carnegie Moscow Center, this speech was the “foul of the last hope”: Russian president wanted to scare the West with his frankness believing that, perhaps, “western partners” would take into account his concerns and make several steps forward to meet him. It had a reverse effect but this scenario was also calculated: either you will or you won't, Russia will be transforming from the fragment of the West into the super-sovereign island. Seeing as what happened thereafter, he decided for himself that he is free in his actions: because he had not succeed in becoming a world leader by western rules, he would become a world leader by his own rules.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In a 2010 article in the German newspaper "Süddeutsche Zeitung" dedicated to the participation in the annual economic forum, it was proposed to create a European economic alliance stretching from Vladivostok to Lisbon. As steps towards the creation of the alliance indicates a possible unification of customs tariffs and technical regulations, the abolition of the visa regime with the European Union.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In August 2013, according to experts the Russian-American relations have reached their lowest point since the end of the Cold War era. The September President Barack Obama's visit to Moscow and his talks with Putin were canceled due to temporary asylum in Russia, a former employee of the CIA Edward Snowden, disagreements on the situation in Syria and the problems with human rights in Russia. Russia has a long history of Anti-Americanism, dating back to the early days of the Cold War. In some of the latest Russian population polls, the United States and its allies consistently top the list of greatest enemies. Survey results published by the Levada-Center indicate that, as of August 2018, Russians increasingly viewed the United States positively following the Russia–U.S. summit in Helsinki in July 2018. But only 14% of Russians expressed net approval of Donald Trump's policies in 2019. According to the Pew Research Center, "57% of Russians ages 18 to 29 see the U.S. favorably, compared with only 15% of Russians ages 50 and older."


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: On 11 September 2013, "The New York Times" published an article by Putin, "Russia calls for caution". It is written in the form of an open letter to the American people, containing an explanation of the Russian political line against the Syrian conflict. It is also the Russian president warns against President Obama's thesis "About the exclusivity of the American nation". The article caused a mixed reaction of the world community.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In 2013, Putin won the first place in the annual ranking of most influential people in the world by "Forbes". In 2014, the result was the same.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: On 18 March 2014, Vladimir Putin gave the Crimean speech. Many Russian and foreign public figures compared this speech to Hitler's speech on Sudetenland from 1939 as using "the same arguments and vision of history". Pro-Kremlin politologist Andranik Migranyan opposed to the position of the historian Andrey Zubov and stated that there was a difference between Hitler before 1939 and Hitler after 1939, and after the annexation of Crimea Putin should be compared with "good Hitler".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: On 24 October 2014, Vladimir Putin made the Valdai speech in which he accused the United States of undermining the world order and predicted that the clash would not be the last to pit Russia and the United States against each other. Putin threatened “sharp increase in the likelihood of a whole set of violent conflicts with either direct or indirect participation by the world's major powers” including those arising from “internal instability in certain countries” “located at the intersections of major states’ geopolitical interests, or on the border of cultural, historical, and economic civilizational continents”, citing the example of Ukraine and warning that this example “will certainly not be the last”.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In September 2015, Putin spoke at the United Nations General Assembly session in New York City for the first time in 10 years. In his speech, he urged the formation of a broad anti-terrorist coalition to combat ISIS and blamed the events in Ukraine on "external forces", warned the West against unilateral sanctions, attempts to push Russia from the world market and export of color revolutions. For the first time, he also held a meeting with President Obama to discuss the situation in Syria and Ukraine, but in the outcome of the negotiations and despite the persistence of deep contradictions the experts saw a faint hope for a compromise and the warming of relations between the two countries.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In September 2015, Vladimir Putin sent Russian troops in Syria supporting Bashar al-Assad in his war against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Al-Nusra Front and also Syrian opposition militant groups opposed to the Syrian government. Wagner Group, affiliated to Putin's close circle and tacitly coordinated by GRU, was also used in the war against Assad's opponents.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Putin supported Nicolás Maduro in Venezuelan presidential crisis and sent Russian troops led by the chief of Staff of the Russian Ground Forces Colonel General to Caracas.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: On 29 August 2020, Vladimir Putin stated that Russia accepts the election result of Belarusian presidential election and recognizes Alexander Lukashenko as legitimate President of Belarus. Earlier, in mid-August 2020, there were reports that several dozen trucks, identical to the ones used by the National Guard of Russia, without registration plates and any marks, were sighted in Smolensk Oblast and Pskov Oblast heading toward Belarusian border. In Conflict Intelligence Team assessment, these trucks could carry no less than 600 soldiers. Kremlin did not confirm the sending Russian troops to Belarus, said that events in Belarus did not yet warrant Russia’s military involvement and condemned alleged foreign interference in Belarus's affairs by Western countries against the backdrop of mass protests in Belarus. Hans van Baalen considered that Russian intervention in Belarus is already a fact.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Shortly after the Beslan terror act in September 2004, Putin enhanced a Kremlin-sponsored program aimed at "improving Russia's image" abroad. According to an unnamed former Duma deputy, there existed a classified article in the RF federal budget that provided for financing measures to this purpose.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: One of the major projects of the program was the creation in 2005 of "Russia Today"—a rolling English-language TV news channel providing 24-hour news coverage, modeled on CNN. Towards its start-up budget, $30 million of public funds were allocated. A CBS News story on the launch of Russia Today quoted Boris Kagarlitsky as saying it was "very much a continuation of the old Soviet propaganda services". In 2007, "Russia Today" employed nearly 100 English-speaking special correspondents worldwide.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Russia's deputy foreign minister Grigory Karasin said in August 2008 in the context of the Russia-Georgia conflict: "Western media is a well-organized machine, which is showing only those pictures that fit in well with their thoughts. We find it very difficult to squeeze our opinion into the pages of their newspapers". Similar views were expressed by some Western commentators.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: William Dunbar, who was reporting then for "Russia Today" from Georgia, said he had not been on air since he mentioned Russian bombing of targets inside Georgia on 9 August 2008 and had to resign over what he claimed was biased coverage by the outlet.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: The public relations efforts notwithstanding, according to an opinion poll released in February 2009 by the BBC World Service, Russia's image around the world had taken a dramatic dive in 2008: forty-two percent of respondents said they had a "mainly negative" view of Russia, according to the poll, which surveyed more than 13,000 people in 21 countries in December and January.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In June 2007, "Vedomosti" reported that the Kremlin had been intensifying its official lobbying activities in the United States since 2003, among other things hiring such companies as Hannaford Enterprises and Ketchum.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In 2012 “Moskovskiye Novosti” magazine article “Russia and changing world”, Putin directly stated that Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation and Russkiy Mir Foundation are Russia’s international lobbying tools.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In accordance with 26 Article of Federal Law of 24 May 1999, No.99-FZ, Worldwide Congress of Compatriots is the highest body that ensures interaction between Russian compatriots and Russia's authorities; in the inter-Congress period, the executive functions in the sphere of interaction between Russian compatriots and Russia's authorities are carried out by .


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In opinion of Dmitry Khmelnitsky, Soviet and German architect and historian, the Russian network of agents of influence abroad is extraordinarily broad and differentiated. It consists of a multitude of organizations created and financed by Moscow and under social groups and simulating social, cultural and scholarly activity. Some of these organizations are directed at the local communities, others at émigrés from the USSR and Russia, although sometimes both these tasks are addressed by one and the same organizations. Their classification by itself is worthy of attention because under this format, the Russian special services work in all the countries of the world. Since Vladimir Putin came to power, Moscow has created several major and many minor organizations to work with Russian and Soviet emigres. Among the most important are the International Council of Russian Compatriots, the Worldwide Coordinating Council of Russian Compatriots Living Abroad, the Worldwide Congress of Russian-Speaking Jewry and the Russkiy Mir Foundation, a pass-through funding group which now operates more than 200 Russian centers around the world. But it is only the tip of the iceberg.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: The Russian network of agents of influence in Western countries included even military-patriotic camps where Russian-speaking youth received military training. The activity of the one of such camps caused a scandal in Serbian society. Some pro-Kremlin Russian diaspora organizations are under the investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Russian Armed Forces underwent various reforms during Putin's rule. The first reform was announced by minister of defence Sergei Ivanov in 2001 and was completed in 2004. As a result of the reform, constant combat readiness military units, staffed with volunteers only, appeared in Russia but draft system had been retained. As of 2008, there were 20% constant combat readiness military units, manned to wartime standards, and 80% cadre military units, manned to peacetime standards, in Russian Armed Forces.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: After Russo-Georgian War, it became clear that Russian military organization needed further reform; as Vladimir Shamanov said, cadre regiments and divisions, intended for receiving mobilization resources and deployment in the period immediately preceding the outbreak of war, have become a costly relic. On 14 October 2008, minister of defence Anatoly Serdyukov announced the beginning of new reform. The main organizational change was the transition from a 4-level operational chain of command (Military District - Army - Division - Regiment) to a 3-level one (Military District - Operational Command (Army) - Brigade). Also Russia fully refused cadre military units, manned to peacetime standards (so-called "paper divisions"), and since that times only constant combat readiness military units, 100% manned up to wartime standards, were part of Russian Armed Forces. On 31 October 2010, Anatoly Serdyukov stated that changes in organizational-regular structure was completed.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: According to Alexander Golts, journalist and military columnist, as a result of aforementioned reforms, Russia gained absolute military dominance in the post-Soviet area and Russian Armed Forces gained the ability that it had never had: ability to quick deployment, which was clearly demonstrated on 26 February 2014.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Some military experts mentioned that since the Annexation of Crimea and the beginning of Russo-Ukrainian War, Russia organized many new military units and formations without significant increase in number of military volunteers and military conscripts, and this fact had suggested to them to consider these military units and formations as a new "paper divisions". However, it must be borne in mind that in 2018, Russia started full-scale formation of military reserve force based on volunteers selected from among those who retired from active duty. Reservists serve in usual military units; so military units, staffed by reservists, are 100% manned up to wartime standards just like military units, staffed by active duty military personnel only. There is no possibility to define by military units designation what we're dealing with - reserve or not reserve military unit. The number of reservists is not presented in open sources and is not among the number of active duty military volunteers which is published by Ministry of Defence. This makes it difficult for establish real troop strength of new Russian military units and formations.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Russia had been in the top 5 military spenders since 2006, except 2018, and Russia’s military expenditure reached $61.7 billion in 2020. In RBK assessment, based on 2017 Federal State Statistics Service data, budget expenditures, classified as state secret, reached 5,3% of gross domestic product. In 2021, the 15% of budget expenditures are classified as state secret.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In Andrey Piontkovsky opinion, Vladimir Putin feels the frustration towards Soviet Union’s defeat in Cold war (which Piontkovsky calls Third world war) and wishes to get a revanche defeating the West in Fourth world war. In fact, Putin has started this war in 2014 with annexation of Crimea, more specifically since 20 February 2014 – this date is specified in the Medal "For the Return of Crimea". Piontkovsky believes that geopolitical thinking of Putin and his close circle was reflected in the 2018 “Zavtra” magazine article by Alexander Khaldey:


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Piontkovsky considers that Putin’s strategical purposes are following: 1) the installation of Russian military and political control under post-Soviet area and, perhaps, Central Europe; 2) the discrediting of NATO as unable to protect its members; 3) the entrenching Russia's sphere of interest in Europe through new "Yalta Agreement" with humiliated USA. These goals should be achieved through 3 elements:


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: The Gerasimov doctrine enunciates wide use of so-called non-linear warfare and reflexive control (propaganda, cyberattacks, diplomatic actions, economic instruments, bribing foreign public officials, etc.); specifically fighting are carried out by special forces and mercenaries under the guise of local partisans. This doctrine declares that non-military tactics are not auxiliary to the use of force but the preferred way to win; that they are, in fact, the actual war. The difference between Gerasimov doctrine and Western views of hybrid conflict is that Russian doctrine combines both low-end, hidden state involvement with high-end, direct, even braggadocio superpower involvement. Russian hybrid warfare conduct aims to create a "hallucinating fog of war" and consistent deception that aims not to paralyze the West's intelligence and anticipatory capabilities, but to alter Western analytical end-results and perceptions of Russia's strategic intentions. The Gerasimov doctrine has been directly applied by Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian War.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: The essence of the Patrushev doctrine boils down to “de-escalation through nuclear escalation”. Russia would cause a direct military conflict against NATO in any region outside Russian territory, for example in the Baltic States, avoiding the use of weapons of mass destruction. At first, Russia would succeed, using an element of surprise, but later a turning point in the war would be achieved to the benefit of NATO. At that time, Russia would threaten to use nuclear weapons, and if the threats do not succeed, Russia would launch a limited nuclear strike on targets in Europe. If the West decide to make a limited nuclear retaliatory strike, then Russia would make a larger nuclear strike on targets in Europe and USA. Kremlin strategists believe that the West would flinch first, giving up to “strong-willed Russia”, and would agree to end the war on Putin’s terms. American response to Russian Patrushev doctrine has been so-called Pompeo doctrine, the major standpoints of which were set out in the 2018 US National Defense Strategy, in which for the first time since the end of the Cold war Russia was designated as a global power and principal opponent of the USA. The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review declared that the key objective of U.S. nuclear policy is to dissuade Russia from its mistaken impression that a first-use of nuclear weapons by Russia in a conflict would de-escalate the conflict with terms favorable to Russia. As in the Cold war times, the Arctic can be the area of potential NATO-Russia conflict.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Political scientist Irina Pavlova said that chekists were not merely a corporation of people united to expropriate financial assets as they had long-standing political objectives of transforming Moscow to the Third Rome and an ideology of "containing" the United States. Columnist George Will emphasized in 2003 the nationalistic nature of Putinism: "Putinism is becoming a toxic brew of nationalism directed against neighboring nations, and populist envy, backed by assaults of state power, directed against private wealth. Putinism is a form of national socialism without the demonic element of its pioneer". According to Illarionov, the ideology of chekists is nashism ("ours-ism"), the selective application of rights.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: According to Dmitri Trenin (2004), Head of the Carnegie Moscow Center, the then Russia was one of the least ideological countries around the world: "Ideas hardly matter, whereas interests reign supreme. It is not surprising then that the worldview of Russian elites is focused on financial interests. Their practical deeds in fact declare In capital we trust". Trenin described Russia's elite involved in the process of policy-making as people who largely owned the country. Most of them were not public politicians, but the majority were bureaucratic capitalists. According to Trenin, "having survived in a ruthless domestic business and political environment, Russian leaders are well adjusted to rough competition and will take that mindset to the world stage". However, Trenin called Russian-Western relations, from Moscow's perspective, "competitive, but not antagonistic". He said that "Russia does not crave world domination, and its leaders do not dream of restoring the Soviet Union. They plan to rebuild Russia as a great power with a global reach, organized as a supercorporation".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: According to Trenin, Russians "no longer recognize U.S. or European moral authority". He said that "from the Russian perspective, there is no absolute freedom anywhere in the world, no perfect democracy, and no government that does not lie to its people. In essence, all are equal by virtue of sharing the same imperfections. Some are more powerful than others, however, and that is what really counts".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In the opinion of Ekaterina Schulmann, Russian political scientist, Putin's Russia is a country of reverse cargo cult. Cargo cult is a belief that a manufacturing straw-manure airplanes will attract real airplanes made of aluminium carrying many useful goods whereas reverso cargo cult is a belief that there are no real airplanes made of aluminium anywhere and the difference between more successful and less successful nations lies in the possibility or impossibility to hide the fact that airplanes made of straw and manure. In political aspect, reverse cargo cult means that Russian political elite realizes that Russia doesn't have real democracy, free and transparent elections, independent court, etc. having imitations of these institutions only, but Russian politicians think there is the same situation in other countries and Western countries just succeeded in "promoting themselves"; and it is noteworthy that Putin's elite believes that Russia's inability to "promote itself" is the proof of Russia's "spirituality, ethical purity and moral integrity", in contrast to "cynical, corrupt and deceitful" West.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Some authors, such as Michael Hirsh, have described Putin as a "messianic" Russian nationalist and Eurasianist.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: It is claimed that Putin models himself on the Tsar Peter the Great, whose reign is reminiscent of a Russian imperial greatness which the Kremlin is keen to promote. A presidential commission asked Putin in 2003 to grant the request of one of Nicholas II's last surviving relatives to rehabilitate the House of Romanov. Willing to regain the imperial grandeur of Russia, Putin invited the Romanov imperial family to return to Russia in July 2015. According to the presidential commission, this move would represent a significant final step in Russia's journey to embrace its imperial history.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: An alliance has been forged between the Church and the Kremlin since Putin became President of the Russian Federation. An adherent of the Russian Orthodox Church, Putin has allowed the regaining by the Orthodox Church of much of the importance that the Church had enjoyed in the Russian Empire and has won the enthusiastic support of its religious leaders.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: American historian Stanley G. Payne argued that Putin's political system is "more a revival of the creed of Tsar Nicholas I in the 19th century that emphasized 'Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality' than one resembling the revolutionary, modernizing regimes of Hitler and Mussolini."


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Some commentators have said that current Putin holds many neo-Soviet views, especially concerning law and order and military strategic defense.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: The first politically controversial step made by Putin, then the FSB Director, was restoring in June 1999 a memorial plaque to Yuri Andropov on the facade of the building, where the KGB had been headquartered.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In late 2000, Putin submitted a bill to the State Duma to use the Soviet anthem as Russia's national anthem. The Duma voted in favor. The music remained identical, but new lyrics were written.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In September 2003, Putin was quoted as saying: "The Soviet Union is a very complicated page in the history of our peoples. It was heroic and constructive, and it was also tragic. But it is a page that has been turned. It's over, the boat has sailed. Now we need to think about the present and the future of our peoples".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In February 2004, Putin said: "It is my deep conviction that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a national tragedy on a massive scale. I think the ordinary citizens of the former Soviet Union and the citizens in the post-Soviet space, the CIS countries, have gained nothing from it. On the contrary, people have been faced with a host of problems." He went on to say, "Incidentally, at that period, too, opinions varied, including among the leaders of the Union republics. For example, Nursultan Nazarbayev was categorically opposed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and he said so openly proposing various formulas for preserving the state within the common borders. But, I repeat, all that is in the past. Today we should look at the situation in which we live. One cannot keep looking back and fretting about it: we should look forward".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In April 2005, during his formal address to Russia's Parliament, President Putin said: "Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In December 2007, Putin said in the interview to the "Time" magazine: "Russia is an ancient country with historical, profound traditions and a very powerful moral foundation. And this foundation is a love for the Motherland and patriotism. Patriotism in the best sense of that word. Incidentally, I think that to a certain extent, to a significant extent, this is also attributable to the American people".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In August 2008, "The Economist" claimed: "Russia today is ruled by the KGB elite, has a Soviet anthem, servile media, corrupt courts and a rubber-stamping parliament. A new history textbook proclaims that the Soviet Union, although not a democracy, was 'an example for millions of people around the world of the best and fairest society'".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: The Kremlin in the Putin era has often sought to maintain as much sway over the portrayal of history as over the governance of the country. In seeking to restore Russia's standing, Putin and other officials have stoked a nationalism that glorifies Soviet triumphs while playing down or even whitewashing the system's horrors. As a result, throughout Russia, many archives detailing killings, persecution and other such acts committed by the Soviet authorities have become increasingly off-limits. The role of the security services seems especially delicate, perhaps because Putin is a former KGB agent who headed the agency's successor, the FSB, in the late 1990s.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Putin has said that Joseph Stalin's legacy cannot be judged in black and white in 2009. Although Putin's policies have been likened to the Soviet era, he has received a lukewarm response by Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF). On the other hand, Roger Boyes considers him more of a latter-day Brezhnev than a clone of Stalin.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: On 30 October 2017, Putin opened the Wall of Grief, an official but controversial recognition of the crimes of the Soviet regime.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In May 2000, "The Guardian" wrote: "When a band of former Soviet dissidents declared in February that Putinism was nothing short of modernised Stalinism, they were widely dismissed as hysterical prophets of doom. 'Authoritarianism is growing harsher, society is being militarised, the military budget is increasing,' they warned, before calling on the West to 're-examine its attitude towards the Kremlin leadership, to cease indulging it in its barbaric actions, its dismantlement of democracy and suppression of human rights.' In the light of Putin's actions during his first days in power, their warnings have gained an uneasy new resonance".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In February 2007, Arnold Beichman, a conservative research fellow at the Hoover Institution, wrote in "The Washington Times" that "Putinism in the 21st century has become as significant a watchword as Stalinism was in the 20th".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Also in 2007, Lionel Beehner, formerly a senior writer for the Council on Foreign Relations, maintained that on Putin's watch nostalgia for Stalin had grown even among young Russians and Russians' neo-Stalinism manifesting itself in several ways.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In February 2007, responding to a listener's assertion that "Putin had steered the country to Stalinism" and "all entrepreneurs" were being jailed in Russia, the Russian opposition radio host Yevgeniya Albats said: "Come on, this is not true; there is no Stalinism, no concentration camps—thankfully". She went on to say that if citizens of the country would not be critical of what was occurring around them, referring to the "orchestrated, or genuine" calls for the "tsar to stay on", that "could blaze the trail for very ugly things and a very tough regime in our country".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: While some might argue that Putin's leadership does not reflect an ideology, Chris Miller has discerned three beliefs which are consistent with Putin's announcements and account for his actions. This three-part ideology must be understood in the context of the history of Russia and of Putin himself. When Putin began his political career, the Soviet Union was unable to effectively collect taxes or provide services in part due to inadequate governmental control of the empire. Putin believed that the government needed to first establish strong centralized control of the empire. To maintain that central control has always been his highest priority. Second, to keep the populace supportive of his government and thus to prevent revolt, Putin believes that the key is rising wages and pensions. In that way, he maintains enough of a popular base that the populace tends to tolerate other problems. Third, economic progress depends heavily on private enterprises but only so long as those enterprises do not interfere with either central government control or rising salaries and pensions. When a private enterprise threatens either belief one or two, then the government takes control of the enterprise so that the enterprise supports beliefs one and two. These three beliefs are not followed without some compromises, but Miller argues that these beliefs help explain the behavior of Putin.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In June 2001, the BBC noted that a year after Putin took office, the Russian media had been reflecting on what some saw as a growing personality cult around him: Russia's TV-6 television had shown a vast choice of portraits of Putin on sale at a shopping mall in an underground passage near Moscow's Park of Culture.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In October 2007, some scenes at the United Russia congress caused Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, who was allied to Russia within the "Union State", to recall the Soviet times, complete with the official adoration towards the Communist Party leader and talking to Russia's regional press representatives he said that in Russia was being created.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In 2008, the Paris-based AFP reported that ahead of the December parliamentary and March presidential elections, in which despite being required by the constitution to leave office, Putin was widely expected to find some way to retain power as his personality cult was gathering pace.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: After Medvedev was elected president in March 2008, United States government-funded Radio Liberty reported that during his eight-year presidency Putin had managed to build a personality cult around himself similar to those created by Soviet leaders. Although there had not been giant statues of Putin put up across the country (like those of Stalin before), he had the honor of being the only Russian leader to have had a pop song written about him: "A man like Putin", which hit the charts in 2002.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: The formation and promotion of the Putin's personality cult have been provoking opposition political figures reactions, pointing out the negative changes in Putin's mentality. For example, in April 2014, in an interview with journalists Boris Nemtsov called Putin a mental patient. This statement was used as the basis for initiation of criminal proceeding against Nemtsov but, eventually, the case was requalified to administrative offence. In 2016, an application, requiring Putin's mental health check-ups and the termination his presidential authority on his mental illness ground under the procedure provided for in the article 92 of the Constitution of Russia, was lodged with Prime Minister of Russia. The negative response to this request was appealed to the court but the administrative claim was dismissed in 2017.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In an interview with Spanish newspaper "El País", Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny said that "It is difficult for me to understand exactly what is going on in [Putin's] mind. ... 20 years of power would spoil anyone and make them crazy. He thinks he can do whatever he wants."


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Shortly after becoming Russian Prime Minister, Putin was reported to have joked to a group of his KGB associates: "A group of FSB colleagues dispatched to work undercover in the government has successfully completed its first mission".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: The former Securitate Lieutenant General and defector Ion Mihai Pacepa wrote in National Review Online in 2006 that former KGB officers were running Russia and that FSB had the right to monitor the population electronically, control political process, search private property, cooperate with employees of the federal government, create front enterprises, investigate cases and run its own prisons.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Various 2006 estimates showed that Russia had above 200,000 members of the FSB, or one FSB employee for every 700 citizens of Russia (the exact number of the overall FSB staff is classified). The Russian Armed Forces General Staff as well as its subordinate structures, such as the Russian Strategic Missile Troops headquarters, are not submitted to the Federal Security Service, but the FSB might be interested in monitoring such structures as they intrinsically involve state secrets and various degrees of admittance to them. The Law on Federal Security Service which defines its functions and establishes its structure does not involve such tasks as managing strategic branches of national industry, controlling political groups, or infiltrating the federal government.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In 2006, political scientist Julie Anderson wrote: "Under Russian Federation President and former career foreign intelligence officer Vladimir Putin, an 'FSB State' composed of chekists has been established and is consolidating its hold on the country. Its closest partners are organized criminals. In a world marked by a globalized economy and information infrastructure, and with transnational terrorism groups utilizing all available means to achieve their goals and further their interests, Russian intelligence collaboration with these elements is potentially disastrous".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Russian historian Yuri Felshtinsky compared the takeover of the Russian state by the "siloviki" to an imaginary scenario of the Gestapo coming to power in Germany after World War II. He pointed out a fundamental difference between the secret police and ordinary political parties, even totalitarian ones, such as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, i.e. Russia's secret police organizations are wont to employ the so-called active measures and extrajudicial killings, hence they killed Alexander Litvinenko and directed Russian apartment bombings and other terrorism acts in Russia to frighten the civilian population and achieve their political objectives, according to Felstinsky.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In April 2006, Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Middle East specialist at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), presented a list of those who had "mysteriously" died during Putin's presidency and wrote: "Vladimir Putin's Russia is a new phenomenon in Europe: a state defined and dominated by former and active-duty security and intelligence officers. Not even fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, or the Soviet Union – all undoubtedly much worse creations than Russia – were as top-heavy with intelligence talent. [...] There is no historical precedent for a society so dominated by former and active-duty internal-security and intelligence officials – men who rose up in a professional culture in which murder could be an acceptable, even obligatory, business practice. [...] Those who operated within the Soviet sphere were the most malevolent in their practices. These men mentored and shaped Putin and his closest friends and allies. It is therefore unsurprising that Putin's Russia has become an assassination-happy state where detention, interrogation, and torture – all tried and true methods of the Soviet KGB – are used to silence the voices of untoward journalists and businessmen who annoy or threaten Putin's FSB state".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: One of the leading members of Putin's ruling elite, Nikolai Patrushev, Director of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (August 1999–May 2008) and subsequently Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, was known for his propagation of the idea of "chekists" as "neo-aristocrats" ().


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: A report by Andrew C. Kuchins in November 2007 said: "The predominance of the intelligence services and mentality is a core feature of Putin's Russia that marks a major and critical discontinuity from not only the 1990s but all of Soviet and Russian history. During the Soviet period, the Communist Party provided the glue holding the system together. During the 1990s, there was no central organizing institution or ideology. Now, with Putin, it is "former" KGB professionals who dominate the Russian ruling elite. This is a special kind of brotherhood, a mafia-like culture in which only a few can be trusted. The working culture is secretive and nontransparent".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Russia, under Putin's regime, has often been referred to as a kleptocracy and an oligarchy. In 2000, Russia's political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky called Putinism "the highest and culminating stage of bandit capitalism in Russia". He said that "Russia is not corrupt. Corruption is what happens in all countries when businessmen offer officials large bribes for favors. Today's Russia is unique. The businessmen, the politicians, and the bureaucrats are the same people. They have privatized the country's wealth and taken control of its financial flows". According to scholar Karen Dawisha, 110 of Putin's cronies control 35% of Russia's wealth.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In concluding her book "A Russian Diary" (2007), the Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya said: "Our state authorities today are only interested in making money. That is literally all they are interested in".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Such views were shared by politologist Julie Anderson who said the same person can be a Russian intelligence officer, an organized criminal and a businessman, who quoted the former CIA Director James Woolsey as saying: "I have been particularly concerned for some years, beginning during my tenure, with the interpenetration of Russian organized crime, Russian intelligence and law enforcement, and Russian business. I have often illustrated this point with the following hypothetical: If you should chance to strike up a conversation with an articulate, English-speaking Russian in, say, the restaurant of one of the luxury hotels along Lake Geneva, and he is wearing a $3,000 suit and a pair of Gucci loafers, and he tells you that he is an executive of a Russian trading company and wants to talk to you about a joint venture, then there are four possibilities. He may be what he says he is. He may be a Russian intelligence officer working under commercial cover. He may be part of a Russian organized crime group. But the really interesting possibility is that he may be all three and that none of those three institutions have any problem with the arrangement".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In April 2006, Putin himself expressed extreme irritation about the "de facto" privatization of the customs sphere, where smart officials and entrepreneurs "merged in ecstasy".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: According to the estimates published in "Putin and Gazprom" by Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov, Putin and his friends pilfered assets of $80 billion from Gazprom during his second term as president.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: On 29 January 2009, Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev claimed that Prime Minister Putin's strategy for economic recovery was based on cronyism and was fueling corruption and also said: "We have two Putins. There are lots of words, but the system doesn't work".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: In March 2017, Alexei Navalny and the Anti-Corruption Foundation published another in-depth investigation of properties and residences used by Dmitry Medvedev and his family. A report called "He Is Not Dimon To You" shows how Medvedev allegedly owns and controls large areas of land, villas, palaces, yachts, expensive apartments, wineries and estates through complicated ownership structures involving shell companies and foundations.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: Russians critical of the 2022 Russian mobilization have used social media and other electronic means (e.g. Twitter) to enquire en masse Russia's top officials and deputies, who supported war with Ukraine and mobilization, whether they themselves or their sons would go to the front. Most of them either refused to answer or gave excuses, such as Alexey Mishustin (premier Mikhail Mishustin's son), ignored the citizens' questions (Moscow city council deputy Andrey Zyuganov, the grandson of Gennady Zyuganov) or blocked the person asking (e.g. Dmitry Rogozin's reaction to the BBC question on Twitter, whether he has advised his son Alexey to volunteer) Nikolay Peskov, the son of Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, told pranksters, who pretended to be recruitment officers, that he had no intention of going to war and would resolve the issue "on a different level." It was seen as an example of nepotism in Putin's Russia.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: The Panama Papers revealed a network of secret offshore deals and vast loans worth $2bn (£1.4bn) that seem to lay a trail to Russia's President Vladimir Putin. The transactions include fake share deals; multimillion-dollar charges for vague "consultancy" services; and repeated payments of large sums in "compensation" for allegedly cancelled share deals and a $200m loan for $1. Though his name does not appear in any of the records, the data shows how deals that seemingly could not have been secured without his patronage made members of his close circle fabulously wealthy. Putin's name does not appear in any of the records released to date, but those of his associates do. Construction billionaires Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, musician Sergei Roldugin, business magnate Alisher Usmanov and billionaire Gennady Timchenko are mentioned in the leaked documents.


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: On 19 January 2021, the documentary film "Putin's Palace. History of World's Largest Bribe" produced by the Anti-Corruption Foundation was released on YouTube. The film investigates the Residence at Cape Idokopas commonly known as Putin's Palace that it claims was constructed for President Vladimir Putin and details a corruption scheme allegedly headed by Putin involving the construction of the palace. The film estimates that the residence, located near the town of Gelendzhik in Krasnodar Krai, cost over ₽100 billion (approximately $1.35 billion) with what it says was "the largest bribe in history".


title: Russia under Vladimir Putin

text: The film "Putin's Palace. History of World's Largest Bribe" is the best known but neither the first nor last investigation of the corruption scheme in the construction of the Residence at Cape Idokopas.


title: Al Bayt Stadium

text: Al-Bayt Stadium () is a retractable roof football stadium in Al Khor, Qatar, which was opened in time for matches in the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which began on 20 November 2022. The stadium's construction contract was awarded to Qatari contractor Galfar Al Misnad, Webuild S.p.A. and Cimolai in 2015. In January 2020, the stadium received sustainability certificates of green design, construction management and energy efficiency. International observers have criticized the treatment of workers in the construction of the stadium.


title: Al Bayt Stadium

text: Al Bayt Stadium hosted the opening match of the 2022 World Cup, and hosted a semi-final and a quarter-final match. The stadium hosted around 60,000 World Cup fans, including 1,000 seats for press. The architectural design takes its inspiration from the traditional tents of the nomadic peoples of Qatar and the region. It features a retractable roof, providing covered seating for all spectators. It connects to transportation systems and have onsite parking for 6,000 cars, 350 buses and the coming and going of 150 public buses/shuttles, as well as 1,000 taxis and water taxis. The stadium is certified for its sustainability credentials under the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS) for a number of certifications representing sustainable design & build, construction management practices and the efficiency of its energy centre. The stadium also received a five-star GSAS rating.


title: Al Bayt Stadium

text: To mark the National Sports Day, stadium's adjacent park's official opening was announced to be held on Qatar's sports day itself, 11 February 2020.


title: Al Bayt Stadium

text: The Al Bayt Stadium in Qatar is one of eight stadiums being used in the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and is the second largest stadium after Lusail Stadium. The stadium was designed by Dar Al-Handasah. Following the World Cup, it is expected to be reconfigured into a 32,000-seat stadium. Excess seats will be removed from the upper tier and donated to other countries or placed on the infrastructure planned for the 2030 Asian Games. The vacated space will then be converted into a five-star hotel, shopping mall and another sports facilities.


title: Al Bayt Stadium

text: The tent-like structure has four stands, each of whose exterior walls and peaked roofs are covered in polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) woven fibreglass membrane. The exterior part of the PTFE membrane is coloured in traditional black, white and red colours to further reference Qatar's nomadic people's tents. A retractable roof connects the four stands to enclose the stadium.


title: Al Bayt Stadium

text: A 2021 investigation by "The Guardian" revealed that over 6,500 migrant workers from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka died between 2010 and 2020 during construction of World Cup venues in Qatar. The figures used by "The Guardian" did not include occupation or place of work so deaths could not be definitively associated with the World Cup construction programme, but "a very significant proportion of the migrant workers who have died since 2011 were only in the country because Qatar won the right to host the World Cup." Commenting on the investigation, "Construction News" noted, first, a 2014 BBC "Newsnight" investigation that claimed migrant workers employed by Carillion subcontractors in Qatar were forced to work in unsafe conditions and had wages withheld; secondly, it recalled a 2019 report by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre showing construction firms working in Qatar and the UAE were "failing" to protect workers' rights – firms included former Carillion subsidiary Al-Futtaim Carillion, Interserve, Laing O'Rourke, Multiplex and Vinci QDVC.


title: Al Bayt Stadium

text: The inauguration of the stadium took place on 30 November 2021, on the occasion of opening ceremony for the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup, followed by a match between the host Qatar and Bahrain, in which the reigning Asian champion Qatar survived a last-minute scare to fend off the visitor 1–0, courtesy of a header from Abdulaziz Hatem in the 69th minute. Morrocco lost to France on 12/14/22


title: Al Bayt Stadium

text: This event was attended by the Emir (head of state) of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. FIFA President Gianni Infantino, several Heads of State and authorities and Presidents from member associations to enjoy the inauguration ceremony of Al Bayt Stadium and to mark the official opening of the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup. The newly built stadium hosted five matches during FIFA Arab Cup 2021, including the final of the tournament on 18 December 2021.


title: Al Bayt Stadium

text: On 20 November 2022, the stadium hosted the opening game of the FIFA World Cup between Qatar and Ecuador; 67,372 were reported to be in attendance at kick-off, despite the capacity of the stadium being 60,000.


title: Fistful of Vengeance

text: Fistful of Vengeance is a 2022 American supernatural action thriller film directed by Roel Reiné, and written by Cameron Litvack, Jessica Chou and Yalun Tu. The film serves as a follow-up to the first season of the television series "Wu Assassins", and stars Iko Uwais, Lewis Tan, Lawrence Kao, JuJu Chan, Pearl Thusi, Francesca Corney, Jason Tobin, Rhatha Phongam and Simon Kuke. The film was released worldwide on February 17, 2022, on Netflix.


title: Fistful of Vengeance

text: Kai, Lu Xin and Tommy travel to Bangkok to hunt down the killer of Tommy's sister Jenny, having found on her body an ancient talisman that leads them to Thailand. There, biotech billionaire William Pan approaches them, requesting that they bring to him his twin sister, underworld boss Ku An Qi, a jiangshi who has been consuming massive amounts of qi to expand her supernatural powers in order to take over the world. William explains to them that he and Ku are descendants of Pangu, the being who had shaped the universe, whom the first Wu Assassin killed after he went mad with power and whose essence is now contained within two talisman: one in the possession of William and the other Tommy had found on Jenny, which had formerly belonged to Ku. William tells them that Ku had killed Jenny while searching for Kai, the current Wu Assassin, but lost her talisman in a fight with her, and that now he can use both talisman to depower Ku and restore order to the universe. The trio agree to help William.


title: Fistful of Vengeance

text: Joined by Tommy's friend Preeya, the group plan to kidnap Ku from a meeting with the city's Triad bosses. However Ku uses mind control to make everyone in the building attack the group, while Kai is ambushed by long-time foe Zan, who is also working for Ku. They escape with the help of Zama, an Interpol agent also after Ku and Lu Xin's former lover. The group eventually make their way to the safety of Preeya's village, where the village shaman tells them that William is actually secretly working with Ku to attempt to reform Pangu so they can remake the world in their image. To do so, they require both talisman and Kai's qi.


title: Fistful of Vengeance

text: William and Ku persuade Preeya to steal the talisman from Tommy by offering to bring her dead family back to life, and she uses it to absorb some of Kai's qi. The village is attacked by Ku's men but Kai, Lu Xin, Tommy and Zama escape. The group tracks down William and Ku to an archaeological dig site where the first Wu Assassin fought Pangu. A remorseful Preeya helps Tommy and Zama defeat Ku, while Kai fights and kills Zan. However with Kai's qi William manages to reform Pangu, who takes over his body and pits a mind controlled Lu Xin against Kai. Kai is able to snap him out of it and the two defeat Pangu, trapping a dispossessed William underground.


title: Fistful of Vengeance

text: The group celebrates their victory with a day at the beach, but Kai tells them that he has to battle a necromancer next.


title: Fistful of Vengeance

text: On February 26, 2021, Netflix ordered a 90-minute film project titled "Fistful of Vengeance", acting as a follow-up to the first season of "Wu Assassins". Living Films was involved in the production of the film, after serving in the series. Roel Reiné directed the film, whilst Cameron Litvack, Jessica Chou and Yalun Tu helmed the screenplay. After the film announcement, it was confirmed that Iko Uwais, Lewis Tan, Lawrence Kao and JuJu Chan will reprise their respective roles from the series in "Wu Assassins: Fistful of Vengeance". Additionally, it was confirmed that Pearl Thusi, Francesca Corney, Jason Tobin, Rhatha Phongam and Simon Kuke were cast in the film. Filming took place in Thailand in early 2021.


title: Fistful of Vengeance

text: Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 44 out of 100 based on 6 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group. Formed in 1965, it first emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former British Army soldier from Northern Ireland. The group undertook an armed campaign of almost thirty years during The Troubles. It declared a ceasefire in 1994 and officially ended its campaign in 2007, although some of its members have continued to engage in violence and criminal activities. The group is a proscribed organisation and is on the terrorist organisation list of the United Kingdom.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The UVF's declared goals were to combat Irish republicanism – particularly the Irish Republican Army (IRA) – and to maintain Northern Ireland's status as part of the United Kingdom. It was responsible for more than 500 deaths. The vast majority (more than two-thirds) of its victims were Irish Catholic civilians, who were often killed at random. During the conflict, its deadliest attack in Northern Ireland was the 1971 McGurk's Bar bombing, which killed fifteen civilians. The group also carried out attacks in the Republic of Ireland from 1969 onward. The biggest of these was the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, which killed 34 civilians, making it the deadliest terrorist attack of the conflict. The no-warning car bombings had been carried out by units from the Belfast and Mid-Ulster brigades. The Mid-Ulster Brigade was also responsible for the 1975 Miami Showband killings, in which three members of the popular Irish cabaret band were shot dead at a bogus military checkpoint by gunmen in British Army uniforms. Two UVF men were accidentally blown up in this attack. The UVF's last major attack was the 1994 Loughinisland massacre, in which its members shot dead six Catholic civilians in a rural pub. Until recent years, it was noted for secrecy and a policy of limited, selective membership. The other main loyalist paramilitary group during the conflict was the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), which had a much larger membership.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: Since the ceasefire, the UVF has been involved in rioting, drug dealing, organised crime, loan-sharking and prostitution. Some members have also been found responsible for orchestrating a series of racist attacks.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: Since 1964 and the formation of the Campaign for Social Justice, there had been a growing civil rights campaign in Northern Ireland, seeking to highlight discrimination against Catholics by the unionist government of Northern Ireland. Some unionists feared Irish nationalism and launched an opposing response in Northern Ireland. In April 1966, Ulster loyalists led by Ian Paisley, a Protestant fundamentalist preacher, founded the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee (UCDC). It set up a paramilitary-style wing called the Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV). The 'Paisleyites' set out to stymie the civil rights movement and oust Terence O'Neill, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Although O'Neill was a unionist, they saw him as being too 'soft' on the civil rights movement and too friendly with the Republic of Ireland. There was to be much overlap in membership between the UCDC/UPV and the UVF.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On 7 May 1966, loyalists petrol bombed a Catholic-owned pub in the loyalist Shankill area of Belfast. Fire engulfed the house next door, badly burning the elderly Protestant widow who lived there. She died of her injuries on 27 June. The group called itself the "Ulster Volunteer Force" (UVF), after the Ulster Volunteers of the early 20th century, although in the words of a member of the previous organisation "the present para-military organisation ... has no connection with the U.V.F. of which I have been speaking. Though, for its own purposes, it assumed the same name it has nothing else in common." It was led by Gusty Spence, formerly a soldier in the British Army. Spence claimed that he was approached in 1965 by two men, one of whom was an Ulster Unionist Party MP, who told him that the UVF was to be re-established and that he was to have responsibility for the Shankill. On 21 May, the group issued a statement:From this day, we declare war against the Irish Republican Army and its splinter groups. Known IRA men will be executed mercilessly and without hesitation. Less extreme measures will be taken against anyone sheltering or helping them, but if they persist in giving them aid, then more extreme methods will be adopted. ... we solemnly warn the authorities to make no more speeches of appeasement. We are heavily armed Protestants dedicated to this cause.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On 27 May, Spence sent four UVF members to kill IRA volunteer Leo Martin, who lived in Belfast. Unable to find their target, the men drove around the Falls district in search of a Catholic. They shot John Scullion, a Catholic civilian, as he walked home. He died of his wounds on 11 June. Spence later wrote "At the time, the attitude was that if you couldn't get an IRA man you should shoot a Taig, he's your last resort".


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On 26 June, the group shot dead a Catholic civilian and wounded two others as they left a pub on Malvern Street, Belfast. Two days later, the Government of Northern Ireland declared the UVF illegal. The shootings led to Spence's being sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended minimum sentence of twenty years. Spence appointed Samuel McClelland as UVF Chief of Staff in his stead.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: By 1969, the Catholic civil rights movement had escalated its protest campaign, and O'Neill had promised them some concessions. In March and April that year, UVF and UPV members bombed water and electricity installations in Northern Ireland, blaming them on the dormant IRA and elements of the civil rights movement. Some of them left much of Belfast without power and water. The loyalists "intended to force a crisis which would so undermine confidence in O'Neill's ability to maintain law and order that he would be obliged to resign". There were bombings on 30 March, 4 April, 20 April, 24 April and 26 April. All were widely blamed on the IRA, and British soldiers were sent to guard installations. Unionist support for O'Neill waned, and on 28 April he resigned as Prime Minister.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On 12 August 1969, the "Battle of the Bogside" began in Derry. This was a large, three-day riot between Irish nationalists and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). In response to events in Derry, nationalists held protests throughout Northern Ireland, some of which became violent. In Belfast, loyalists responded by attacking nationalist districts. Eight people were shot dead and hundreds were injured. Scores of houses and businesses were burnt out, most of them owned by Catholics. The British Army were deployed on the streets of Northern Ireland. The Irish Army set up field hospitals near the border. Thousands of families, mostly Catholics, were forced to flee their homes and refugee camps were set up in the Republic of Ireland.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On 12 October, a loyalist protest in the Shankill became violent. During the riot, UVF members shot dead RUC officer Victor Arbuckle. He was the first RUC officer to be killed during the Troubles.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The UVF had launched its first attack in the Republic of Ireland on 5 August 1969, when it bombed the RTÉ Television Centre in Dublin. There were further attacks in the Republic between October and December 1969. In October, UVF and UPV member Thomas McDowell was killed by the bomb he was planting at Ballyshannon power station. The UVF stated that the attempted attack was a protest against the Irish Army units "still massed on the border in County Donegal". In December, the UVF detonated a car bomb near the Garda central detective bureau and telephone exchange headquarters in Dublin.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In January 1970, the UVF began bombing Catholic-owned businesses in Protestant areas of Belfast. It issued a statement vowing to "remove republican elements from loyalist areas" and stop them "reaping financial benefit therefrom". During 1970, 42 Catholic-owned licensed premises in Protestant areas were bombed. Catholic churches were also attacked. In February, it began to target critics of militant loyalism – the homes of MPs Austin Currie, Sheelagh Murnaghan, Richard Ferguson and Anne Dickson were attacked with improvised bombs. It also continued its attacks in the Republic of Ireland, bombing the Dublin-Belfast railway line, an electricity substation, a radio mast, and Irish nationalist monuments.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The IRA had split into the Provisional IRA and Official IRA in December 1969. In 1971, these ramped up their activity against the British Army and RUC. The first British soldier to be killed by the Provisional IRA died in February 1971. That year, a string of tit-for-tat pub bombings began in Belfast. This came to a climax on 4 December, when the UVF bombed McGurk's Bar, a Catholic-owned pub in Belfast. Fifteen Catholic civilians were killed and seventeen wounded. It was the UVF's deadliest attack in Northern Ireland, and the deadliest attack in Belfast during the Troubles.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The following year, 1972, was the most violent of the Troubles. Along with the newly formed Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the UVF started an armed campaign against the Catholic population of Northern Ireland. It began carrying out gun attacks to kill random Catholic civilians and using car bombs to attack Catholic-owned pubs. It would continue these tactics for the rest of its campaign. On 23 October 1972, the UVF carried out an armed raid against King's Park camp, a UDR/Territorial Army depot in Lurgan. They managed to procure a large cache of weapons and ammunition including L1A1 Self-Loading Rifles, Browning pistols, and Sterling submachine guns. Twenty tons of ammonium nitrate was also stolen from the Belfast docks.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The UVF launched further attacks in the Republic of Ireland during December 1972 and January 1973, when it detonated three car bombs in Dublin and one in Belturbet, County Cavan, killing a total of five civilians. It would attack the Republic again in May 1974, during the two-week Ulster Workers' Council strike. This was a general strike in protest against the Sunningdale Agreement, which meant sharing political power with Irish nationalists and the Republic having more involvement in Northern Ireland. Along with the UDA, it helped to enforce the strike by blocking roads, intimidating workers, and shutting any businesses that opened. On 17 May, two UVF units from the Belfast and Mid-Ulster brigades detonated four car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan. Thirty-three people were killed and almost 300 injured. It was the deadliest attack of the Troubles. There are various credible allegations that elements of the British security forces colluded with the UVF in the bombings. The Irish parliament's Joint Committee on Justice called the bombings an act of "international terrorism" involving the British security forces. Both the UVF and the British Government have denied the claims.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade was founded in 1972 in Lurgan by Billy Hanna, a sergeant in the UDR and a member of the Brigade Staff, who served as the brigade's commander, until he was shot dead in July 1975. From that time until the early 1990s the Mid-Ulster Brigade was led by Robin "the Jackal" Jackson, who then passed the leadership to Billy Wright. Hanna and Jackson have both been implicated by journalist Joe Tiernan and RUC Special Patrol Group (SPG) officer John Weir as having led one of the units that bombed Dublin. Jackson was allegedly the hitman who shot Hanna dead outside his home in Lurgan.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The brigade formed part of the Glenanne gang, a loose alliance of loyalist assassins which the Pat Finucane Centre has linked to 87 killings in the 1970s. The gang comprised, in addition to the UVF, rogue elements of the UDR, RUC, SPG, and the regular Army, all acting allegedly under the direction of the British Intelligence Corps and/or RUC Special Branch.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In 1974, hardliners staged a coup and took over the Brigade Staff. This resulted in a sharp increase in sectarian killings and internecine feuding, both with the UDA and within the UVF itself. Some of the new Brigade Staff members bore nicknames such as "Big Dog" and "Smudger". Beginning in 1975, recruitment to the UVF, which until then had been solely by invitation, was now left to the discretion of local units.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade carried out further attacks during this same period. These included the Miami Showband killings of 31 July 1975 – when three members of the popular showband were killed, having been stopped at a fake British Army checkpoint outside Newry in County Down. Two members of the group survived the attack and later testified against those responsible. Two UVF members, Harris Boyle and Wesley Somerville, were accidentally killed by their own bomb while carrying out this attack. Two of those later convicted (James McDowell and Thomas Crozier) were also serving members of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), a part-time, locally recruited regiment of the British Army.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: From late 1975 to mid-1977, a unit of the UVF dubbed the Shankill Butchers (a group of UVF men based on Belfast's Shankill Road) carried out a series of sectarian murders of Catholic civilians. Six of the victims were abducted at random, then beaten and tortured before having their throats slashed. This gang was led by Lenny Murphy. He was shot dead by the IRA in November 1982, four months after his release from the Maze Prison.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The group had been proscribed in July 1966, but this ban was lifted on 4 April 1974 by Merlyn Rees, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in an effort to bring the UVF into the democratic process. A political wing was formed in June 1974, the Volunteer Political Party led by UVF Chief of Staff Ken Gibson, which contested West Belfast in the October 1974 general election, polling 2,690 votes (6%). However, the UVF spurned the government efforts and continued killing. Colin Wallace, part of the intelligence apparatus of the British Army, asserted in an internal memo in 1975 that MI6 and RUC Special Branch formed a pseudo-gang within the UVF, designed to engage in violence and to subvert the tentative moves of some in the UVF towards the political process. Captain Robert Nairac of 14 Intelligence Company was alleged to have been involved in many acts of UVF violence. The UVF was banned again on 3 October 1975 and two days later twenty-six suspected UVF members were arrested in a series of raids. The men were tried, and in March 1977 were sentenced to an average of twenty-five years each.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In October 1975, after staging a counter-coup, the Brigade Staff acquired a new leadership of moderates with Tommy West serving as the Chief of Staff. These men had overthrown the "hawkish" officers, who had called for a "big push", which meant an increase in violent attacks, earlier in the same month. The UVF was behind the deaths of seven civilians in a series of attacks on 2 October. The hawks had been ousted by those in the UVF who were unhappy with their political and military strategy. The new Brigade Staff's aim was to carry out attacks against known republicans rather than Catholic civilians. This was endorsed by Gusty Spence, who issued a statement asking all UVF volunteers to support the new regime. The UVF's activities in the last years of the decade were increasingly being curtailed by the number of UVF members who were sent to prison. The number of killings in Northern Ireland had decreased from around 300 per year between 1973 and 1976 to just under 100 in the years 1977–1981. In 1976, Tommy West was replaced with "Mr. F" who is alleged to be John "Bunter" Graham, who remains the incumbent Chief of Staff to date. West died in 1980.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On 17 February 1979, the UVF carried out its only major attack in Scotland, when its members bombed two pubs in Glasgow frequented by Irish-Scots Catholics. Both pubs were wrecked and a number of people were wounded. It claimed the pubs were used for republican fundraising. In June, nine UVF members were convicted of the attacks.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In the 1980s, the UVF was greatly reduced by a series of police informers. The damage from security service informers started in 1983 with "supergrass" Joseph Bennett's information, which led to the arrest of fourteen senior figures. In 1984, the UVF attempted to kill the northern editor of the "Sunday World", Jim Campbell after he had exposed the paramilitary activities of Mid-Ulster brigadier Robin Jackson. Another loyalist paramilitary organisation called Ulster Resistance was formed on 10 November 1986. The initial aim of Ulster Resistance was to bring an end to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Loyalists were successful in importing arms into Northern Ireland. The weapons were Palestine Liberation Organisation arms captured by the Israelis and sold to Armscor, the South African state-owned company which, in defiance of a 1977 United Nations arms embargo, set about making South Africa self-sufficient in military hardware. The arms were divided between the UVF, the UDA (the largest loyalist group) and Ulster Resistance.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The UVF used this new infusion of arms to escalate their campaign of sectarian assassinations. This era also saw a more widespread targeting on the UVF's part of IRA and Sinn Féin members, beginning with the killing of senior IRA member Larry Marley and a failed attempt on the life of a leading republican which left three Catholic civilians dead.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The UVF also attacked republican paramilitaries and political activists. These attacks were stepped up in the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly in the east Tyrone and north Armagh areas. The largest death toll in a single attack was in the 3 March 1991 Cappagh killings, when the UVF killed IRA members John Quinn, Dwayne O'Donnell and Malcolm Nugent, and civilian Thomas Armstrong in the small village of Cappagh. Republicans responded to the attacks by assassinating senior UVF members John Bingham, William "Frenchie" Marchant and Trevor King as well as Leslie Dallas, whose purported UVF membership was disputed both by his family and the UVF. The UVF also killed senior IRA paramilitary members Liam Ryan, John 'Skipper' Burns and Larry Marley. According to Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), the UVF killed 17 active and four former republican paramilitaries. CAIN also states that republicans killed 15 UVF members, some of whom are suspected to have been set up for assassination by their colleagues.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: According to journalist and author Ed Moloney, the UVF campaign in Mid-Ulster in this period "indisputably shattered Republican morale", and put the leadership of the republican movement under intense pressure to "do something", although this has been disputed by others.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In 1990, the UVF joined the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) and indicated its acceptance of moves towards peace. However, the year leading up to the loyalist ceasefire, which took place shortly after the Provisional IRA ceasefire, saw some of the worst sectarian killings carried out by loyalists during the Troubles. On 18 June 1994, UVF members machine-gunned a pub in the Loughinisland massacre in County Down, on the basis that its customers were watching the Republic of Ireland national football team playing in the World Cup on television and were therefore assumed to be Catholics. The gunmen shot dead six people and injured five.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: More militant members of the UVF who disagreed with the ceasefire, broke away to form the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), led by Billy Wright. This development came soon after the UVF's Brigade Staff in Belfast had stood down Wright and the Portadown unit of the Mid-Ulster Brigade, on 2 August 1996, for the killing of a Catholic taxi driver near Lurgan during Drumcree disturbances.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: There followed years of violence between the two organisations. In January 2000 UVF Mid-Ulster brigadier Richard Jameson was shot dead by a LVF gunman which led to an escalation of the UVF/LVF feud. The UVF was also clashing with the UDA in the summer of 2000. The feud with the UDA ended in December following seven deaths. Veteran anti-UVF campaigner Raymond McCord, whose son, Raymond Jr., a Protestant, was beaten to death by UVF men in 1997, estimates the UVF has killed more than thirty people since its 1994 ceasefire, most of them Protestants. The feud between the UVF and the LVF erupted again in the summer of 2005. The UVF killed four men in Belfast and trouble ended only when the LVF announced that it was disbanding in October of that year.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On 14 September 2005, following serious loyalist rioting during which dozens of shots were fired at riot police and the British Army the Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain announced that the British government no longer recognised the UVF ceasefire.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On 12 February 2006, "The Observer" reported that the UVF was to disband by the end of 2006. The newspaper also reported that the group refused to decommission its weapons.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On 2 September 2006, BBC News reported the UVF might be intending to re-enter dialogue with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, with a view to decommissioning of their weapons. This move came as the organisation held high-level discussions about its future.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On 3 May 2007, following recent negotiations between the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and with Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde, the UVF made a statement that they would transform to a "non-military, civilianised" organisation. This was to take effect from midnight. They also stated that they would retain their weaponry but put them beyond reach of normal volunteers. Their weapons stock-piles are to be retained under the watch of the UVF leadership.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In January 2008, the UVF was accused of involvement in vigilante action against alleged criminals in Belfast.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In 2008, a loyalist splinter group calling itself the "Real UVF" emerged briefly to make threats against Sinn Féin in County Fermanagh.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In the twentieth IMC report, the group was said to be continuing to put its weapons "beyond reach", (in the group's own words) to downsize, and reduce the criminality of the group. The report added that individuals, some current and some former members, in the group have, without the orders from above, continued to "localised recruitment", and although some continued to try and acquire weapons, including a senior member, most forms of crime had fallen, including shootings and assaults. The group concluded a general acceptance of the need to decommission, though there was no conclusive proof of moves towards this end.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In June 2009 the UVF formally decommissioned their weapons in front of independent witnesses as a formal statement of decommissioning was read by Dawn Purvis and Billy Hutchinson. The IICD confirmed that "substantial quantities of firearms, ammunition, explosives and explosive devices" had been decommissioned and that for the UVF and RHC, decommissioning had been completed.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The UVF was blamed for the shotgun killing of expelled RHC member Bobby Moffett on the Shankill Road on the afternoon of 28 May 2010, in front of passers-by including children. The Independent Monitoring Commission stated Moffett was killed by UVF members acting with the sanction of the leadership. The Progressive Unionist Party's condemnation, and Dawn Purvis and other leaders' resignations as a response to the Moffett shooting, were also noted. Eleven months later, a man was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of the UVF's alleged second-in-command Harry Stockman, described by the "Belfast Telegraph" as a "senior Loyalist figure". Fifty-year-old Stockman was stabbed more than 10 times in a supermarket in Belfast; the attack was believed to have been linked to the Moffett killing.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On 25–26 October 2010, the UVF was involved in rioting and disturbances in the Rathcoole area of Newtownabbey with UVF gunmen seen on the streets at the time.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On the night of 20 June 2011, riots involving 500 people erupted in the Short Strand area of East Belfast. They were blamed by the PSNI on members of the UVF, who also said UVF guns had been used to try to kill police officers. The UVF leader in East Belfast, who is popularly known as the "Beast of the East" and "Ugly Doris" also known as by real name Stephen Matthews, ordered the attack on Catholic homes and a church in the Catholic enclave of the Short Strand. This was in retaliation for attacks on Loyalist homes the previous weekend and after a young girl was hit in the face with a brick by Republicans. A dissident Republican was arrested for "the attempted murder of police officers in east Belfast" after shots were fired upon the police.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In July 2011, a UVF flag flying in Limavady was deemed legal by the PSNI after the police had received complaints about the flag from nationalist politicians.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: During the Belfast City Hall flag protests of 2012–13, senior UVF members were confirmed to have actively been involved in orchestrating violence and rioting against the PSNI and the Alliance Party throughout Northern Ireland during the weeks of disorder. Much of the UVF's orchestration was carried out by its senior members in East Belfast, where many attacks on the PSNI and on residents of the Short Strand enclave took place. There were also reports that UVF members fired shots at police lines during a protest. The high levels of orchestration by the leadership of the East Belfast UVF, and the alleged ignored orders from the main leaders of the UVF to stop the violence has led to fears that the East Belfast UVF has now become a separate loyalist paramilitary grouping which doesn't abide by the UVF ceasefire or the Northern Ireland Peace Process.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In October 2013, the policing board announced that the UVF was still heavily involved in gangsterism despite its ceasefire. Assistant chief constable Drew Harris in a statement said "The UVF are subject to an organised crime investigation as an organised crime group. The UVF very clearly have involvement in drug dealing, all forms of gangsterism, serious assaults, intimidation of the community."


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In November 2013, after a series of shootings and acts of intimidation by the UVF, Police Federation Chairman Terry Spence declared that the UVF ceasefire was no longer active. Spence told Radio Ulster that the UVF had been "engaged in murder, attempted murder of civilians, attempted murder of police officers. They have been engaged in orchestrating violence on our streets, and it's very clear to me that they are engaged in an array of mafia-style activities. "They are holding local communities to ransom. On the basis of that, we as a federation have called for the respecification of the UVF [stating that its ceasefire is over]."


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In June 2017, Gary Haggarty, former UVF commander for north Belfast and south-east Antrim, pleaded guilty to 200 charges, including five murders.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On 23 March 2019, eleven alleged UVF members were arrested during a total of 14 searches conducted in Belfast, Newtownards and Comber and the suspects, aged between 22 and 48, were taken into police custody for questioning. Officers from the PSNI's Paramilitary Crime Task Force also seized drugs, cash and expensive cars and jewellery in an operation carried out against the criminal activities of the UVF crime gang.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On 4 March 2021, the UVF, Red Hand Commando and UDA renounced their current participation in the Good Friday Agreement.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In April 2021, riots erupted across Loyalist communities in Northern Ireland. On 11 April, the UVF reportedly ordered the removal of Catholic families from a housing estate in Carrickfergus.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: On 25 March 2022, the UVF was blamed for a proxy bomb attack targeting a "peace-building" event in Belfast where Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney was speaking. Armed men hijacked a van on the nearby Shankill Road and forced the driver to take a device to a church on the Crumlin Road. The community centre hosting the event and 25 nearby homes were evacuated and a funeral was disrupted. A controlled explosion was carried out and the bomb was later declared a hoax.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The UVF's leadership is based in Belfast and known as the Brigade Staff. It comprises high-ranking officers under a Chief of Staff or Brigadier-General. With a few exceptions, such as Mid-Ulster brigadier Billy Hanna (a native of Lurgan), the Brigade Staff members have been from the Shankill Road or the neighbouring Woodvale area to the west. The Brigade Staff's former headquarters were situated in rooms above "The Eagle" chip shop located on the Shankill Road at its junction with Spier's Place. The chip shop has since been closed down.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In 1972, the UVF's imprisoned leader Gusty Spence was at liberty for four months following a staged kidnapping by UVF volunteers. During this time he restructured the organisation into brigades, battalions, companies, platoons and sections. These were all subordinate to the Brigade Staff. The incumbent Chief of Staff, is alleged to be John "Bunter" Graham, referred to by Martin Dillon as "Mr. F". Graham has held the position since he assumed office in 1976.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The UVF's nickname is "Blacknecks", derived from their uniform of black polo neck jumper, black trousers, black leather jacket, black forage cap, along with the UVF badge and belt. This uniform, based on those of the original UVF, was introduced in the early 1970s.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The UVF's stated goal was to combat Irish republicanism – particularly the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) – and maintain Northern Ireland's status as part of the United Kingdom. The vast majority of its victims were Irish Catholic civilians, who were often killed at random. Whenever it claimed responsibility for its attacks, the UVF usually claimed that those targeted were IRA members or were giving help to the IRA. At other times, attacks on Catholic civilians were claimed as "retaliation" for IRA actions, since the IRA drew almost all of its support from the Catholic community. Such retaliation was seen as both collective punishment and an attempt to weaken the IRA's support; it was thought that terrorising the Catholic community and inflicting such a death toll on it would force the IRA to end its campaign. Many retaliatory attacks on Catholics were claimed using the covername "Protestant Action Force" (PAF), which first appeared in autumn 1974. They always signed their statements with the fictitious name "Captain William Johnston".


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: Like the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the UVF's "modus operandi" involved assassinations, mass shootings, bombings and kidnappings. It used submachine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, pistols, grenades (including homemade grenades), incendiary bombs, booby trap bombs and car bombs. Referring to its activity in the early and mid-1970s, journalist Ed Moloney described no-warning pub bombings as the UVF's "forte". Members were trained in bomb-making, and the organisation developed home-made explosives. In the late summer and autumn of 1973, the UVF detonated more bombs than the UDA and IRA combined, and by the time of the group's temporary ceasefire in late November it had been responsible for over 200 explosions that year. However, from 1977 bombs largely disappeared from the UVF's arsenal owing to a lack of explosives and bomb-makers, plus a conscious decision to abandon their use in favour of more contained methods. The UVF did not return to regular bombings until the early 1990s when it obtained a quantity of the mining explosive Powergel.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The strength of the UVF is uncertain. The first Independent Monitoring Commission report in April 2004 described the UVF/RHC as "relatively small" with "a few hundred" active members "based mainly in the Belfast and immediately adjacent areas". Historically, the number of active UVF members in July 1971 was stated by one source to be no more than 20. Later, in September 1972, Gusty Spence said in an interview that the organisation had a strength of 1,500. A British Army report released in 2006 estimated a peak membership of 1,000. Information regarding the role of women in the UVF is limited. One study focusing in part on female members of the UVF and Red Hand Commando noted that it "seem[ed] to have been reasonably unusual" for women to be officially asked to join the UVF. Another estimates that over a 30-year period women accounted for, at most, just 2% of UVF membership.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: Prior to and after the onset of the Troubles the UVF carried out armed robberies. This activity has been described as its preferred source of funds in the early 1970s, and it continued into the 2000s, with the UVF in County Londonderry being active. Members were disciplined after they carried out an unsanctioned theft of £8 million of paintings from an estate in Co Wicklow in April 1974. Like the IRA, the UVF also operated black taxi services, a scheme believed to have generated £100,000 annually for the organisation. The UVF has also been involved in the extortion of legitimate businesses, although to a lesser extent than the UDA, and was described in the fifth IMC report as being involved in organised crime. In 2002 the House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee estimated the UVF's annual running costs at £1–2 million per year, against an annual fundraising capability of £1.5 million.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: In contrast to the IRA, overseas support for loyalist paramilitaries including the UVF has been limited. Its main benefactors have been in central Scotland, Liverpool, Preston and the Toronto area of Canada. Supporters in Scotland have helped supply explosives and guns. It is estimated that the UVF nevertheless received hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations to its Loyalist Prisoners Welfare Association.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: The UVF have been implicated in drug dealing in areas from where they draw their support. Recently it has emerged from the Police Ombudsman that senior North Belfast UVF member and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Special Branch informant Mark Haddock has been involved in drug dealing. According to the "Belfast Telegraph", "70 separate police intelligence reports implicating the north Belfast UVF man in dealing cannabis, Ecstasy, amphetamines and cocaine."


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: According to Alan McQuillan, the assistant director of the Assets Recovery Agency in 2005, "In the loyalist community, drug dealing is run by the paramilitaries and it is generally run for personal gain by a large number of people." When the Assets Recovery Agency won a High Court order to seize luxury homes belonging to ex-policeman Colin Robert Armstrong and his partner Geraldine Mallon in 2005, Alan McQuillan said "We have further alleged Armstrong has had links with the UVF and then the LVF following the split between those organisations." It was alleged that Colin Armstrong had links to both drugs and loyalist terrorists.


title: Ulster Volunteer Force

text: Billy Wright, the commander of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade, is believed to have started dealing drugs in 1991 as a lucrative sideline to paramilitary murder. Wright is believed to have dealt mainly in Ecstasy tablets in the early 90s. It was around this time that Sunday World journalists Martin O'Hagan and Jim Campbell coined the term "rat pack" for the UVF's murderous mid-Ulster unit and, unable to identify Wright by name for legal reasons, they christened him "King Rat." An article published by the newspaper fingered Wright as a drug lord and sectarian murderer. Wright was apparently enraged by the nickname and made numerous threats to O'Hagan and Campbell. The Sunday World's offices were also firebombed. Mark Davenport from the BBC has stated that he spoke to a drug dealer who told him that he paid Billy Wright protection money. Loyalists in Portadown such as Bobby Jameson have stated that the LVF (the Mid-Ulster Brigade that broke away from the main UVF - and led by Billy Wright) was not a 'loyalist organisation but a drugs organisation causing misery in Portadown.'