Andrei Gulutin was an editor-in-chief of a Kremlin media outlets and a current manager of Ridus online newspaper. He is a former neo-Nazi musician.
**Nazi musician career**
Gulutin started his career as a drummer in the neo-Nazi “Band of Moskow“, which formed in early 2000. They played Oi!/R.A.C. with Ska elements. Their first songs were “Street Fight“, “Let the Blood Spill“, “Nazi-ska“, “Aryan Legion“, “White Struggle“, “Live Russia“, they also played covers of famous songs like “Tomorrow Belongs to Me“ and “Rock Against Communism“. The Federal List of Extremist Materials now includes several “Band of Moskow“ songs that have been banned in Russia, including “More and More of Us“, “Three Bright Colours“, “NS Squads“, “Race War“, “Vivat; 1488th After That You Talk About Tolerance“.
Gulutin then moved on to play drums in the neo-Nazi band Right hook (2006-2010), which declared itself the voice of the Russian Image organisation. Despite a flamboyant musical career and a Nazi past, Gulutin achieved success in the corridors of Kremlin.
**Russian Image**
Gulutin came into contact with the organisation of a Russian nationalists Russian Image that published the magazine of the same name. Russian Image was a legal front for underground fighters from a terrorist organisation BORN.
By 2010, the Russian Image came under Kremlin control and had direct supervisors from the Presidential Administration. In 2011, under the pseudonym of Andrei Osipov, Gulutin [became](https://novayagazeta.ru/inquests/55378.html) head of the “United Russia’s Young Guard“ Internet page, which was the ruling party’s youth organization. After the BORN trial, nationalists from the Russian Image tried to disassociate themselves from the murderers, renamed themselves into “right-wing conservatives“ and created a new website, Modus Agendi, over which Gulutin was also put in charge. After the leader of the Young Guard became deputy head of the Domestic Policy Directorate of the Presidential Administration, Gulutin [came](https://theins.ru/politika/8873) to success.
On 1 April 2013, the initially liberal online media outlet Ridus [underwent](https://lenta.ru/news/2013/03/22/ridus/) a leadership change. Andrei Gulutin became deputy editor-in-chief, and in 2015 editor-in-chief, and [began](https://lenta.ru/articles/2013/04/11/ridus/) to pursue an “orthodox-statist editorial policy“. Gulutin is still in charge of Ridus. While his subordinates [talk](https://www.ridus.ru/news/379345) about the Nazis in Ukraine, their leader [writes](https://www.ridus.ru/news/169030) caustic columns about antifa, who are given “license to hate and violence“. Now Ridus has moved off the top of the online aggregators and has lost a lot of popularity. According to open counters, its average day attendance is 150,000 people.
Andrei Gulutin only [admitted](https://zona.media/article/2014/25/09/apologia_sokrata) to participating in neo-Nazi music groups, but claims it means nothing: “Andrei Gulutin is not an ‘adherent of ultra-right views’ – i.e. an ideology of degrading one group of people by others based on race, nationality, or any other grounds. Andrei Gulutin is not a politician to impose any views at all on the public or even his inner circle. Gulutin is, as any philistine is, what they call “for all that is good against all that is bad“… The story of Gulutin’s fights at concerts in his youth is a complete joke, you have either to point out the specific victims or don’t embarrass yourself. The only thing Gulutin is ready to admit is his participation in the Band of Moscow and Right hook when he was young. Participation in these musical groups, however, in no way showed Gulutin’s adherence to any political views“.
