“The Last Push from the South?” Explaining the Spread of Russia’s Cossack Movement

Abstract

ABSTRACT Where did the Russian Cossack soldiers fighting in Ukraine come from? How can we explain that there are now 27,000 combatants who identify with this label? This article examines the commandeering of the Cossack legacy by the Russian state. The “authentic” Cossack movement in the early 1990s, has been commandeered by forces within the Russian government. We argue that the model of the new movement was pioneered first in Krasnodar and Rostov before spreading to the whole country. We make this argument through the analysis of an original database, metadata, and proxy of Cossack vigilante patrols.