A volunteer of Espanola guards the football stadium in Mariupol. — AFP
AT the main football stadium in Moscow-controlled Mariupol, stickers of the local Ukrainian team are still visible, but armed football ultras from Russia now patrol the stands.
The logo of FC Mariupol – a seagull and an anchor on an orange and blue background, with the name of the city spelled in Ukrainian – has been partly scraped off on one dugout.
The overgrown stadium has a hole in its roof and bullets litter its athletics track.
A year after the port city fell to Moscow following a brutal siege, the stadium has a huge banner that reads “GLORY TO RUSSIA”, with a Russian and Soviet flag flying over it.
It has been covered in symbols of Russian football clubs – from Moscow’s CSKA to Saint Petersburg’s Zenit.
They were mostly brought here by football ultras who formed a fighting unit – the “Espanola” – to join Moscow’s offensive.
Chernika in training on a beach outside Mariupol. (Below) Volunteers of Espanola special force unit firing off rounds into the air. — AFP
Based in Mariupol, they train on the beaches on the Azov Sea outside the vastly destroyed city.
Inspired by British hooliganism, Russia’s ultra scene started in the 1990s and its adherents have a particularly fierce reputation. The members of Espanola say they number around 600.
One of them, Mikhail – codename “Pitbull” – said they had put their rivalries from back home aside to fight for Russia.
“In civilian life, we fought each other,” the Zenit fan said, holding a Kalashnikov and with “Espanola” tattooed on his shaved skull.
“But in the trenches, we are shoulder to shoulder.”
As nationalists that have historically been suspicious of the Kremlin, the fighters insisted they were fighting for the Russian nation, not the authorities.
But not all of Russia’s ultra football fans – known for their far-right views – have joined Moscow’s ranks.
The community was split in 2014 when the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv began – and when some sided with Ukraine.
Driving past rows of destroyed houses as well as estates freshly built by Russia, Andrei, who came from Moscow, said the split was cemented with Russia’s full-scale offensive launched last year.
“In 2022 it became more radical,” the Moscow Spartak fan said.
He said he hopes to face off with the Russian football ultras fighting for Kyiv on the battlefield.
As they train on white sandy beaches, the unit claims it is being used in offensive and defensive operations – as well as sabotage missions – by the Russian army.
Lying on the sand, the fighters – one of them a woman – practise shooting targets in a sniper class. Some of them have insignia with skulls on them, others the black-white-yellow Russian imperial flag.
One fighter, 38-year-old Yevgeny from the east Ukrainian city of Gorlivka, claimed that the Russian defence ministry had recognised the battalion’s efforts.
“The latest weapons come to our detachment from the ministry of defence, because we have proven ourselves very well,” he said during the sniper training.
Until Gorlivka was taken over by pro-Russia rebels in 2014, he supported FC Shakhtar Donetsk, but turned away from the club after it moved to the western city of Lviv.
“The fact that our guys are all sporty and do not use alcohol – this means we are doing good.” — AFP
