ABSTRACT
There is only a partial overlap between the division of Russian nationalism into pro-Putin and anti-Putin camps as employed in the preceding chapters and the classic and often used differentiation of this nationalism into ethnic and imperial (cultural) types. For example, many Orthodox-monarchist organisations fall into the ethnic-nationalist camp, but, at the same time, differ in important respects from the opposition ethnic nationalists such as Demushkin or Belov. In other words, the internal divisions in various nationalist groups cannot be subsumed under the distinction of their opposition against, or support for, the contemporary Russian authoritarian regime. The divisions that are particularly salient today are concerned with the militant nationalists’ position towards the war in the Donbass and the question of their cooperation with the liberal opposition: almost all ethnic-nationalist opposition groups have assumed a pro-Ukrainian posture and are able to collaborate with the liberal anti-Putin opposition. The Orthodox-monarchists, by contrast, support Russia's imperial ambitions in Ukraine and believe the liberal opposition to be an evil greater than Vladimir Putin's regime. They do, however, mistrust this regime because they see it as a continuation of the 1990s ‘Yeltsin system’, characterised, in their view, by too much capitalism and too many oligarchs, excessive accommodation of the United States of America, a nihilism of values and too little Orthodox religion.
