Foreign fighters from the far right and extreme left in the Russia–Ukraine conflict

Abstract

ABSTARCT This study analyzes the phenomenon of Italian foreign fighters of different ideological backgrounds on the Ukrainian front. Right-wing extremists on opposite sides of the front and right-wing extremists fighting alongside left-wing extremists. An ideologically intricate situation that needs to be understood in the light of the political and geopolitical dynamics of the present but also of the history of right-wing movements since the Second World War. On the one hand, the foreign fighters from CasaPound Italia (CPI) aligned with Ukraine and NATO and on the other those of Forza Nuova (FN) and other movements aligned with pro-Russian militias and united in combat with far-left fighters. This study reconstructs the reasons for the fracture taking place on the right and those at the base of a rapprochement between a part of the far right and the extreme left, the so-called Red-Brown cocktail.