The giant This is Russia banner at Euro 2012 depicting Dmitry Pozharsky, a 17th century Russian military commander fighting the Polish

Most of the 20,000 Russian fans who traveled to Brazil to follow the national team in the recent World Cup were relatively well behaved. Their enthusiasm well dampened by the tedious and enervated display of Fabio Capello’s side as they exited the group stage, in keeping with the Italian’s English outing in the previous World Cup. Capello was denounced as a money grubbing, mountebank by some of Russia’s far right firebrands for delivering so little despite his multi-million dollar salary.

This chastened mindset was a 180 from the chest beating, ultranationalism engaged by Russian fans two years ago at Euro 2014 hosted jointly by Poland and Ukraine. Both countries have had a long and adversarial relationship with Russia over a series of wars, territorial annexations, and atrocities arising from them. The historical antagonism found a flashpoint just before the Russia Poland match on Nune 12th, when Russian ultras provocatively celebrated Russia Day by marching from Warsaw’s city centre to the stadium, inflaming tensions throngs of Polish hooligans, lying in wait to ambush them. Pitched battles broke out as 6,000 police force in riot gear struggled to control the two groups using water cannons, rubber bullets, and tear gas. 183 were arrested and dozens injured. A few days earlier at Wroclaw, Russian supporters beat up four stadium stewards after their team won against the Czech Republic, 4-1.

Such virulent outbursts of ultra qationalism are what alarm fans who may make the journey to the 2018 World Cup. Now, even more so with the ever deepening freeze in relations between the West and Russia, as fault lines expose themselves over Crimea and more pointedly over the Eastern Ukraine crisis where armed pro Russian separatists have reversed recent losses by increasingly overt infusions of Russian troops and weapons, into their conflict. Putin’s activism vis a vis imperiled ethnic Russians fighting for independence has Poland and the Baltic States worried with large ethnic Russians minorities of their own with Putin’s immoderate, “Kiev can be taken in two weeks if so ordered” leaving the region acutely conscious of their military shortcomings.

Putin’s views are supported overwhelmingly by a Russian public with very little daylight between each on issues, in a carefully nurtured sovereign democracy strategy. The winning ticket, an atavism for a muscular Russian identity, crystallized by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and conspiracies of being shackled by Western imperialism. The poster child, a bare chested Putin riding a horse. How much of this is carefully orchestrated playing chicken or untrammeled alternate reality behaviour may not be the point. The point is most of the Russian public loves it, the Crimea Invasion and Putin T shirts flying off the shelf.

In contrast to this emboldening, Western counterparts flounder mired by weak approval and dissent. NATO is drifting along, a directionless and disregarded force. Russian ultranationalism could rejuvenate and refresh those numbers and give NATO purpose. Adding potency to tightening financial and trade sanctions. Such developments could accelerate the disturbing and contradictory phenomena of a growing Neo Nazi indoctrination in Russia, protean in its targets. Initially, violently anti-immigrant, especially those from the Caucasus and ethnic minorities. The face of this movement, Aleksandr Belov, heading the DPNI or Movement Against Illegal Immigration. A classic bromide, “If we allow a big immigration flow into Russia we risk becoming like the American Indians, who let slip the arrival of illegal immigrants and then ended up in reservations.” Lest we forget, Stalin had his gulags, forced labour camps which imprisoned hundreds of thousands of ethnic minorities. The more modern US revisionism, those who use illegal immigrants, usually live in mansions and jet around.

With improving employment rates and government protection towards immigrants and minorities, the movement lurched up against the state, but then found common cause in their malignancy towards gays and a growing anti-Semitism. The last one is particularly problematic. Although Putin has been studiedly neutral towards Jews, the same cannot be said of a vociferous section within his own government. Even as Putin facetiously accuses the Euromaidan Ukrainians of being Nazis while on state run TV, an anchor agrees with Alexander Prokhanov, an author and former editor of the ultranationalistic Zavtra, accusing the Jews “of ushering in a second Holocaust with their own hands … just as they ushered in the first one.” For all the finger pointing at Ukraine, 30% of Russians harbour anti-Semitic views, hardly a small number. Prokhanov’s views should hardly raise eyebrows. The neo-Nazi element is alive and well.

We are not talking Sochi here with clean cut, wealthy, genteel Russians taking in expensive winter sports. We are talking of the Spartak Moscow ultras who go on a rampage against a 4th division side. Or Neo-Nazi symbols and insignia becoming de-rigeur in football matches with fascist symbols and insignia proudly displayed in their midst as ultranationalists, militantly proclaim themselves as guardians of a pure Russkiye (ethnic Russian) identity unsullied from those who are of inferior Rossiyane (Russian citizens) stature in a throwback to Hitler’s Aryan fixation. How important a distinction? When Russian forces razed Grozny, one of the first acts in reconciliation was to rebuild the stadium and resurrect Terek Grozny. To the northern “Russkiye” ultras, this was no pax romana. Over the years, that fragile peace has been tested by riots after a fan was killed allegedly by a person of “Caucasian origin”, organizing a successful boycott thereafter, and burning the flags and singing derogatory songs which put the Dagestanis and Chechens in their place.

Unsurprisingly, the obsession with “Russkiye” purity has found a number of right wing groups throw their lot in as irregulars within the East Ukraine separatist movement to save ethnic Russians. Belkov’s Moscow organizer of the DPNI, Sergei Vorotsev, was recently killed defending the Donetsk airport. Never mind that both Ukrainians and Russians are Slavs. In Hitler’s caste system, Slavs were inferior to turtle dropping. What started as a rationalization is now a full blown delusion. Putin might, on the slim chance, accede to a Western led Ukraine solution forced upon him by sanctions taking toll, but for those less concerned with such matters, this would surely be regarded as a sell out of the “Russkiye” identity to a pantomime villain. Four years later, unsuspecting British fans travel with a bulls eye painted on their back. All it takes is a wrong turn and an elephantine memory regurgitating racial grudges, for a tragedy to occur.

Boycotting the World Cup as a political statement is not new. Ronald Reagan enjoyed record approval as the Cold War warrior for ending detente and setting of a chain of events leading to the fall of Communism after the US boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics in response to the Soviet Union’s Afghanistan invasion. Such a political calculus seem to be fueling David Cameron and other western leaders calls to FIFA for rewarding a different host with the 2018 World Cup. For Russia, the danger is Putin unwittingly setting off a nationalistic vein in the West that could prove addictive. In context, South Africa and Brazil, with neo-liberal governments essentially prioritizing badly needed billions for the WC over the public’s demand for badly needed infrastructure, health spending, and education, sparking a series of protests and demonstrations. Less politically motivated fans were warned off by the crime rate, gangs who kill, touts who steal, to get ahead in these impoverished countries. In Russia, the govt has the cash for its shiny new toys. Putin paid $51 billion for Sochi, the most expensive Olympics, Winter or Summer of all times. The crime rate is low. But Russia is still a scarier place than either SA or Brazil because its not impoverishment that could kill, its hate.