Putin‘s childhood friends in Russia are building their own private armies of football hooligans in the vein of Yevgeny Prigozhin‘s Wagner Group, a local investigative site reported.
Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, close allies of the Russian President, were reportedly introduced to a paramilitary group of fans called the Española battalion by its sponsor, Viktor Shendrik, as oligarchs prepare for a power vacuum and civil war if Russia loses in Ukraine.
Football hooligans have already been targeted to enlist in the armed forces, but it would be the first time fans were re-classified as a separate private military company with designs to expand recruitment.
‘Española was created by fans, mostly of [Russian top flight side] Spartak,’ one source told independent Russian publication Important Stories. ‘Then the Rotenbergs came in with the idea of taking a PMC [private military company] under their own control.’
‘A lot of major companies are creating their own private armies right now, and the brothers wanted to create their own private army on the basis of Española.’
Española battalion CSKA supporter Stanislav ‘Spaniard’ Orlov pictured with a Shinnik Yaroslavl FC flag and an RPK light machine gun, reportedly in the occupied Donetsk Oblast
Russian billionaires and businessmen Arkady Rotenberg (R) and Boris Rotenberg (L) seen during the awarding ceremony at the 2017 Formula 1 Russian Grand Prix in Sochi, Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) shakes hands with billionaire and businessman Arkady Rotenberg (R) as his brother, Boris Rotenberg (C) looks on
Russians sporting military uniforms hold Española signs in barracks, undated
The Española battalion – mostly ultra supporters of Russian side Spartak Moscow – was reported to be 550 strong in March 2023.
This included 100 operators of lethal Kamikaze drones, unmanned devices that crash into their targets with devastating effect like a guided missile.
Española commander Stanislav Orlov, call sign ‘Spaniard’, said previously that the group of volunteers joined forces with Russian operators in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, regions of eastern Ukraine inhabited by Russian-backed paramilitary groups since 2014.
‘Recently we managed to get separate status, so now we do not belong to any battalions or divisions.
‘We have been given approval to create a separate battalion, Española.’
The group were last reported to be recruiting ‘stormtroopers’, scount-saboteurs, snipers, drone operators, electronic warfare and air defence operators, portable recon station operators, anti-tank guided missile operators, anti-aircraft specialists, communications specialists, mechanic-drivers and medics to join their rag-tag group of ultras.
Putting aside their club rivalries, supporters of clubs like CSKA, Zenit, Spartak, Torpedo and Lokomotiv are among those already fighting against the Ukrainians.
‘Disputes among fans of different clubs are prohibited,’ Orlov told local media. ‘All this must be left somewhere out there, far away, just like alcohol.’
The apparent acceptance of the groups to fight in Ukraine is a stunning volta face for Putin, who publicly condemned football hooligans ahead of the 2018 World Cup, threatening hefty fines and jail time for repeat offenders.
Española’s alleged new sponsors, the Rotenberg brothers, are the Russian billionaires behind StroyGazMontazh group, the largest construction company for gas pipelines and electrical power supply lines in Russia.
Boris Rotenberg, formerly a Judo teacher, trained alongside Vladimir Putin in his youth before making sudden leaps as an entrepreneur with the collapse of the USSR.
Arkady Rotenberg, also a close confidant and childhood friend of the Russian president, trained with Putin at a sambo club when he was 12.
Like his brother, he became a judo teacher before his club was awarded a state-funded $180mn facility including a yacht club.
The pair were hit with sanctions after the 2014 invasion of Crimea, forcing them to sell their private jets after intervention by their Swiss bank.
‘After the sanctions were imposed, the bank unilaterally stopped accepting payments… and later sold the aircraft without notifying the borrower,’ Boris Rotenberg’s spokesman was quoted as saying.
Were the brothers to lend assistance to Española, it would not be the first time Russian companies and state-affiliated groups have financed paramilitary groups to join the war effort in Ukraine.
Important Stories previously reported that Sergei Kirienko, the First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration, and Yuri Trutnev, the First Deputy Prime Minister and Presidential Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District, had given their backing to a combat unit called Soyuz to support the war effort in Ukriane.
Trutnev said the group was comprised of elite martial artists, ‘masters of international-class sports’, trained for the frontlines of Ukraine.
Between 2021 and 2023, their donations were reported to have surged to 600mn rubles (around £5.23mn).
The main donors included top companies like Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear energy company, previously headed by Kirienko.
Sberbank also contributed 50mn rubles (around £435k), and RusHydro – which owns hydroelectric power stations – around 60mn (£523k).
An Española volunteer in military slacks holds a scarf that reads ‘With you until death / ultra / Brigades / Spain’
Russian President Vladimir Putin looks on during a meeting on the development of agriculture on March 5, 2024, in Solnechnodolsk, Russia
Just six years ago during the 2018 FIFA World Cup finals, Putin publicly condemned the actions of ‘The Football Hooligans’ and vowed to banish the notorious group
A drone operator, pictured with an Española badge on his arm, shows off kit
In June last year, the Financial Times reported that Roscosmos – Russia’s state space agency and a partner of Nasa – was teaming up with the army to ‘raise, fund and equip a militia to fight in Ukraine’.
It was not yet clear whether the Uran volunteer battalion had been deployed in Ukraine.
Gazprom – a state-owned energy corporation – formed the Fakel, Plamya and Potok voluntary military formations in 2023 as a more loyal alternative to the Wagner Group, ahead of its attempted coup in June.
Fakel and Plamya are reportedly subordinate to the Russian Ministry of Defence.
Gazprom – which rebranded in the UK as SEFE Energy following the start of the war – supplied gas to 20 per cent of UK businesses as late as August 2022.