In a first, US declares white supremacist group as terrorist organisation

In the first-ever time in its history, the United States on Monday declared a white supremacist group of Russia as a foreign terrorist organisation. 

The State Department said that the Russian Imperial Movement runs paramilitary training camps in St. Petersburg and has attracted neo-Nazis from across the globe. 

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This is the first time the US has declared a white supremacist group as a terror organisation, a tool that is traditionally used against Islamist radicals.

“These designations are unprecedented,” Nathan Sales, US Counter-Terrorism, envoy, in a statement, said.

This decision came after the State Department in its last annual terrorism report last November said ethnically and racially driven terrorism had jumped alarmingly in 2018 both worldwide and in the US. 

Russian Imperial Movement’s (RIM) recognize themselves as Russian Orthodox nationalists who support restoring the monarchy and privileging the interests of ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarussians.

With such designations, the US typically freezes assets of the blacklisted group in the country and bars any countrymen to financially transact with such a group. 

Sales cited a series of attacks from late 2016 in the Swedish city of Gothenburg carried out by two people from RIM, adding that the individuals were trained in Russia.