ABSTRACT
The first international contacts on the part of Russia were established by Russian ultranationalists who were opposed to Yeltsin. This chapter explores the nature, scope and development of the relations with Western far-right activists, authors and organisations forged by three Russian far-right politicians, namely Aleksandr Dugin, Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Sergey Glazyev, during the Yeltsin era. It then discusses the first initiatives to connect the interests of the Russian state to the developments in the European far-right milieu during Vladimir Putin's first presidential term. The chapter looks at how the contacts with the European far right were instrumentalised by Russian ultranationalist politician Sergey Baburin for his own political ends. Particular representatives of the more radical strands of the Western New Right cooperated with a group of Russian racists outside Dugin's circles and even the 'red-brown' opposition. In September 2003, Baburin's Narodnaya Volya, together with two other Russian 'patriotic' parties, formed the electoral bloc 'Rodina' led by Dmitry Rogozin and Glazyev.
