Russian neo-Nazi beheading video appears to be genuine

According to Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Investigation Committee of the Russian federal prosecution office, a video showing the murder of two men by Russian neo-Nazis is not fake, as was previously claimed (Газета.ru).

The video, which first appeared on a blog run by a neo-Nazi called Viktor Mil'kov on 12 August 2007, showed a Tajik and a Dagestani being executed by neo-Nazis in a forest. Prior to the execution, one of the victims is heard saying "We were arrested by Russian national socialists." Two men in camouflage then give Nazi salutes, and murder the victims, one by decapitation and the other by shooting.

The family of a Dagestani man named Shamil Udamanov, who has been missing since August 2007, is claiming that the Dagestani shown being executed in the video is none other than Udamanov. The Russian prosecution started examining the case in earnest after Shamil's father Artur Udamanov wrote a letter to ex-President Vladimir Putin asking him to intervene.

The case is currently under investigation by the Russian Interior Ministry and German police.

Meanwhile, Mil'kov is serving a one-year prison sentence for initiating the distribution of the video on the Internet.

A previously unknown group which calls itself the Combat Brigade of the National-Socialist Party of Rus took responsibility for the execution in August 2007. In a statement sent to a Chechen separatist website, the group declared "armed war against black colonists" and "bureaucrats of the Russian Federation" who help non-ethnic-Russian immigrants. The terrorist group promised to "deport all Caucasians and Asians from the territory of Rus" (Rus being a medieval state whose successors today are Belarus, Russia and Ukraine).

The whole thing is thoroughly sickening. I wonder what the German connection is.

US Evangelical magazine predicts European invasion of America

The Philadelphia Trumpet, a magazine published by the Philadelphia Church of God, based in Edmond, Oklahoma, is claiming that increased German investment in Latin America places the US in greater danger than "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Osama bin Laden and Vladimir Putin combined". The magazine argues that the recent spate of investment builds on groundwork laid by Nazis who took refuge in Latin America, and that "Germany’s takeover of Latin America would put European forces directly on the southern border of the U.S. and present an ideal scenario for a full-scale invasion of America".

Now being grumpy at "Old Europe" is one thing, but this is really out there. I know one shouldn't draw conclusions based on what one Evangelical church is saying, but the question is: to what extent will this sort of extreme nativism catch on?

Putin visits saint's grave

Vladimir Putin has visited a church containing the remains of St. Nicholas of Bari in Italy (Газета.ru).

Earlier, he met both Pope Benedict XVI and Prime Minister Romano Prodi. What's he driving at? One, his visiting the Pope while Patriarch Alexiy of Moscow refuses to meet Benedict makes Putin look like an enlightened man internationally. Secondly, it turns out that the church in Bari that holds the body of St. Nicholas used to belong to the Russian Orthodox Church, so the visit might make some of his domestic constituency happy.