"Hundreds of football fans want to join." Putin's hooligan battalion - voila! sport

Tikteknu: clip summarizing today's events in sports, 20.1 (Sport1)

Stories about organizations of football fans that became part of army regiments during wars, are not a new thing and are mainly remembered from the war in Yugoslavia.

And now Vladimir Putin also has his own hooligan soldiers, as part of the brutal invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

In recent months, Russia has recruited dozens of members of the most violent fan organizations in the country and attached them as a sort of annex to the Vostok Battalion (more on that later).

Many of them are known to the police, were arrested in the past and criminal proceedings were opened against them, but in the current situation there are those who benefit from them.

Just as happened last year with dangerous prisoners who were released from the Russian prison and sent to the front in exchange for their "freedom".

The new mini-battalion calls itself "Espaniola" (loosely translated as "Spain") and is led by Stanislav "the Spaniard" Orlov.

Like Željko Rezentović, the infamous "Arkan" - a violent fan of Red Star Belgrade who became a brutal military leader in the Yugoslav war - Orlov also posed with a lion cub stolen from a zoo in Mariupol.

And also really likes the media exposure.

Enjoy the exposure.

The leader of the hooligans, Stanislav "the Spaniard" Orlov (photo: screenshot, RIA/east2west news)

The "Spanish" mini-battalion includes fans from Zenit St. Petersburg, CSKA Moscow, Spartak Moscow, Torpedo Moscow and Lokomotiv Moscow. According to the stories, they fight separately from the Russian hooligan organization Ural Butchers, which became famous at Euro 2016 after bloody brawls with Fans from England and Wales - and some of his friends enlisted in the Russian army.

"We put aside our differences of opinion," Orlov told the media a few weeks ago, while presenting a tough look and stroking the stolen lion cub, "We have a rule that we must not argue about football.

It's something that needs to be left far behind at the moment, like alcohol for example."

The aforementioned organization accompanies the Vostok Battalion that fights in the Donbas region. The Vostok Battalion was founded by Alexander Khodkovsky, a Ukrainian-born and former Ukrainian secret service member, who defected to the Russian side and since 2014 has been the leader of forces in the Donbass as part of The independence demands of the pro-Russian separatists in the region.

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This time it could end in death and not "just" a broken nose or a short hospitalization.

Members of "Espaniola" (Photo: screenshot, EAST2WEST NEWS)

Khodkovsky's commanders in the Vostok Battalion are happy to receive as many personnel as possible, even if they are merely bloodthirsty brawlers rather than trained soldiers.

Meanwhile, the hooligans discover that a violent invasion of a neighboring country may be a little different from setting up an organized brawl in the woods or on a side street in Moscow.

The Russian hooligans who went far from home to satisfy their hunger for violence (something they used to do before and after football games), are met with resistance from the Ukrainians who fight valiantly for their homeland.

And here it doesn't end in a broken nose or a two-day hospital stay, but in death.

In Ukraine, it is reported that they inflicted heavy losses on the hooligan organization, but Orlov meanwhile is enjoying himself and declares: "My goal is to build an organized military organization for all the hooligans and give them combat training. We are equipped, we have support, but not everyone has a place. I have a waiting list of hundreds of fans Football that wants to enlist."

• sport

• world football

Tags

• Russia

• hooligans

• Vladimir Putin

• Ukraine

• The war in Ukraine