130 mostly American Antifa activists have been arrested in Moscow, Russia after violent rioting, provoked by “violent foreign black-clad thugs” broke out in a popular commercial district in the city centre.
Russian state media reports that Antifa activists organized the street protest and “violently assaulted ordinary civilians” on their way to work. Antifa members have admitted they organized the protest to protest “Russian hacking” and attacked civilians “because they were Russian” and therefore “responsible for helping elect Trump.”
Police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. After being told to disperse, the Antifa activists refused to do so, and made preparations for war with law enforcement. Russian state media reported Antifa were then met with tear gas and “non-lethal ammunition,” also known as rubber bullets.
Antifa rioters clearly bore the trademark black and red flags, face masks, black attire, and downward spear emblems popular with the violent Antifa movement. Mondays’s riot in Moscow was the first time Antifa have exported their protest against Trump’s presidency outside the United States.
Now the activists, many of whom hail from the movement’s Californian chapter, are being held in some Russia’s harshest jails, awaiting a military trial (as their acts are considered “terroristic” under Russian law), and facing up to 56 years in prison.
“Read my lips,” Putin said, “Nobody comes to Russia and attacks my people, normal working people on their way to work, in the street like savages.”
“These people say we have no right to keep them here, even though they came to our land and committed an act of terror. They are saying George Soros will make us release them. Maybe we will release them in Syria where they can join up with their spiritual allies,” Putin said, hinting at the commonly held Russian belief that Antifa are no better than Islamic terrorists, and working for the same cause.
However the news is unlikely to make a splash in the United States. Mainstream news outlets, including CNN and MSNBC, have been fawning over Antifa since their emergence in the public eye in 2017. Last month, following the deadly Charlottesville riot, CNN put out a piece with a chilling Orwellian headline claiming Antifa seeks “peace through violence.”
