Sergei Arkadievich Korotkikh (), also known as Botsman and Malyuta, is a Russian-born Belarusian-Ukrainian far-right mercenary, former neo-Nazi political activist, and suspected special agent for one or more post-Soviet state intelligence agencies.
A highly experienced combat veteran, Korotkikh has long been known for his association with several neo-Nazi and similar ultranationalist organizations in Eastern Europe through the end of the 1990s and the decade of the 2000s, many of which groups have been tied to racially motivated attacks and killings.
Korotkikh is alleged to have been involved in a number of murders as well as kidnappings, war crimes, and robberies in addition to smuggling and racketeering. In August 2021, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation charged Korotkikh with a series of murders motivated by national hatred and arrested him in absentia. Despite this, he has never been brought to trial or received legal sentencing for any of crimes he is accused of.
Biography Early life and political beginnings Sergei Korotkikh was born on 12 July 1974 in Tolyatti of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic but would end up spending his childhood years in the Republic of Belarus. In 1992, Korotkikh was drafted into the Armed Forces of Belarus and was assigned to a reconnaissance battalion. After finishing up his military service in 1994, Korotkikh went on to attend the Institute of National Security, a KGB academy located in Minsk. Korotkikh was expelled from the school in 1996, which he said was a result of clashes with the police at the Chernobyl Way march organized by the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) opposition party. On the contrary, many BPF participants in the rally question the full extent of Korotkikh's involvement in the protest and claim it was a staged false flag set up by Belarusian law enforcement. Moreover, BPF activists have questioned whether or not Korotkikh was truly present at the 1996 Chernobyl Way protest as he claims.
Sergei got his start within the Eastern European neo-Nazi movement during the 1990s as a member of the Skins' Legion, a white power skinhead clique affiliated with the Russian National Unity led by Aleksandr Barkashev. This organization stood as one of the most prominent ultranationalist movements within the Union State of Russia and Belarus throughout the mid-1990s - reportedly having up to thousands of followers. In 1999, Sergei Korotkikh helped set up a Belarusian chapter of the Russian National Unity (VOPD RNU) in which he would serve a hierarchal role. According to Korotkikh himself, the VOPD RNU raised money by operating protection rackets at local marketplaces, providing security for church-related buildings/events, and smuggling cars. Human rights advocates have reported that the group took part in attacks on Jews, people of the Caucasus, and Romanis.
During his tenure as an RNU member, a particular instance arose where Sergei Korotkikh engaged in a fight with activists Andrei Sannikov, Dzmitry Bandarenka and Aleh Byabenin. In interviews with the Kyiv Post, several right-wing Belarusian opposional activists went on to attest that the Russian National Unity had been compromised by the State Security Committee of Belarus (KGB RB) alongside Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). Korokikh would ultimately end up parting ways with the organization in 2001.
The NSO and Format18 Sergei Korotkikh relocated from Belarus to Russia in the early 2000s. When the year 2004 rolled around, he proceeded to co-found a neo-Nazi organization with the assistance of a few other Russian neo-fascist politicians which became known as the National Socialist Society (NSO). Two notable founders of the organization were Dmitry Rumyantsev and Maxim Gritsai. Rumyantsev had previously been a member of the Slavic Union but abandoned the group due to ideological and strategic disagreements with the group's leadership. Gritsai, on the other hand, funded the National Socialist Society and its activities. Some believe that Gritsai acted as an intermediary between the NSO and the secret service.
The ideology of the National Socialist Society has commonly been described as Hitlerist, pan-Slavic, white supremacist, antisemitic, and xenophobic. The group sought to overthrow the existing Russian government and create a totalitarian White ethnostate in its place which would be based upon the doctrine of National Socialism and the Nazi Party. Despite having an openly radical anti-government rhetoric, the National Socialist Society attempted to present itself as a legitimate political party - possessing a strict hierarchy but with somewhat individual autonomy to each of its subordinate regional factions. To promote the National Socialist ideology, the NSO organized pickets and rallies, distributed propaganda materials, and conducted online propaganda through its official website. Aside from political activities, the group also trained its members in paramilitary combat techniques and guerrilla warfare tactics in preparation for terroristic acts and a supposedly impending "race war". At the height of its popularity, the National Socialist Society had factions in at least thirteen different Russian cities which included Moscow, Ryazan, Voronezh, Saint Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod. According to the Russian newspaper Izvestia, the NSO became one of the nation's the most influential and wealthy neo-Nazi organizations. The group was no stranger to physical brutality, however. During the six-year span of its existence, countless affiliates of the National Socialist Society perpetrated a series of violent hate crimes which included assault and murder. In 2008, a total of 42 victims were killed by National Socialist Society militants belonging to a Moscow-based cell known as NSO-North ().
Utilizing his combative expertise, Sergei Korotkikh routinely drilled members of the National Socialist Society on wartime fighting techniques whilst overseeing the group's financial operations on the side. A particularly distinct aspect of the NSO was that its members were paid a rather generous salary on account of opulent financial backing from convicted Russian fraudster Maxim Gritsai. This strategy, in turn, made the NSO far more attractive compared to its other far-right paramilitary counterparts. In 2006, notorious neo-Nazi icon Maxim Martsinkevich and a handful of his like-minded Nazi skinhead followers joined up with the National Socialist Society. Sergei Korotkikh and Maxim Martsinkevich would end up becoming close friends and would often collaborative on various extremist activities. The latter has repeatedly referred to Korotkikh as his "senior comrade" and mentor. On the side of the NSO, Sergei Korotkikh was also a moderator on Martsinkevich's Format18 (F18) web forum where racist media promoting white supremacist beliefs would be hosted.
Shamil Odamanov case
In August 2007, a snuff video was uploaded to the web in which masked neo-Nazi militants brutally execute two physically restrained Iranic individuals. It starts off with the beheading of a young Dagestani with a Tajik male subsequently shot in the head at close range. Entitled the Execution of a Tajik and a Dagestani, this graphic three-minute film was posted in racist skinhead internet circles before rapidly spreading throughout various shock sites where it eventually achieved viral status and international attention. Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs had dismissed the authenticity of the snuff footage until one of the murder victims in the filmed recording became successfully identified as Shamil Odamanov.
Following an eventual investigation into the homicides, Russian authorities concluded that the xenophobic execution had been preliminarily arranged by Martsinkevich. Svetlana Petrenko, an official representative spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee of Russia, claims that while Martsinkevich was imprisoned for an unrelated crime in 2020, he ended up confessing to the authorities that he had been the cameraman who filmed the notorious execution video in 2007 and revealed that the accomplice who had managed carry out both murders was Korotkikh. By this account, Martsinkevich then purportedly went on to name the final masked militant neo-Nazi appearing in the footage as Maxim "Dentist" Makienko. On 16 September 2020, Martsinkevich was found dead in his prison cell. His death was officially ruled as a suicide but occurred under mysterious circumstances.
In conjunction with Martsinkevich's testimony, another confession video surfaced on the web during 2021, in which Sergei Korotkikh testifies on the record against prominent members of the National Socialist Society including Maxim Martsinkevich, Alexander "Shultz" Filyushkin (Shitov), Alexey "Ideolog" Akimov and Andrey "Ded" Chuenkov (Dedov). On the recording, he discloses his intention to fully cooperate with the authorities. Although the Korotkikh's taped confession came to light in 2021, it was said to have actually been recorded sometime back in 2007. Incidentally, this was a year after Sergei Korotkikh had been kicked out of the NSO and had formed his own unofficial offshoot.
On 24 August 2021, the Investigative Committee of Russia charged Korotkikh with murder for killing two or more people based on ethnic, religious or political hatred, which was described by the Kyiv Post as likely being for his suspected role in the murders.
Further activities in Russia and Belarus Korotkikh was a suspect in organizing the explosion of a public street lamp on Manezhnaya Square, Moscow, carried out by NSO militants during December 2007.
Sergei Korotkikh became a participant in the anti-LGBT Occupy Pedophilia movement that was started in the early 2010s by Maxim "Tesak" Martsinkevich in which participants would film videos of themselves attacking and humiliating homosexuals - often by pouring urine over victims, shaving their heads and/or forcing them to perform fellatios on rubber sex toys.
Korotkikh would end up being expelled from the National Socialist Society sometime between 2006 and 2007. While the official NSO statement maintained that his expulsion was due to theft and "financial mismanagement", it was also known to have been influenced by a previous incident where he and Tesak uploaded a pornographic video to the internet which depicted them having sex with a female member of the National Socialist Movement "Slavic Union" who went by the nickname "Taina-SS" (). This video was released in order to antagonize Slavic Union leader Dmitry Demushkin who had been an opponent of the NSO ever since his departure from the Russian National Unity in 1999. After being kicked out of the NSO, Korotkikh attempted to establish his own unofficial offshoot, although it was unsuccessful. There were also attempts by him and his allies to discredit the original National Socialist Society through postings on Format18, a multimedia web-based project run by Tesak. Sergei Korotkikh returned to Belarus in early 2008. Not long after, his former group gradually began to fall apart and would eventually fold entirely in 2010.
In February 2013, Korotkikh, Martsinkevich, and a third nationalist were detained by the Belarusian authorities after taking part in a brawl in Minsk, Belarus, against anti-fascists believed to be fans of FC Partizan Minsk. Korotkikh was preliminarily reported to have wounded one of said anti-fascists with a knife. The victim described the attacker as a local supporter of Maxim "Tesak" Martsinkevich. According to the police, the criminal case was closed because supposedly none of the victims had managed to file a complaint against their assailants.