Teenagers claim that they have nothing to do with military companies.
On February 27, the police announced the detention of teenagers who were planning to stage mass fights in Kharkiv and Kyiv. The media also reported that similar fights were planned in Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Zhytomyr. The planned mass riots are associated with representatives of the Redan PVC subculture. It originated in Russia, but in recent days it has also reached our country.
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From what started it all
On February 24-26, several teenagers were arrested in Russia for mass fights in shopping centers. As “Meduza” reports, 350 people were detained in Moscow alone, 319 of them minors.
According to rosZMI, about 20 teenagers beat up a peer because of his appearance and sprayed him in the face with pepper spray. The incident took place on February 23, when four people were detained, including one of the leaders of Redan.
Detentions also took place in St. Petersburg, Kursk, Novosibirsk and Kazan. Mass fights do not seem to have happened here, but according to Russian law enforcement officers, they were planned.
“Redans” against “ofniks”
The name of the PVC subculture “Redan” is related to the Japanese comics Hunter x Hunter, one of the main characters of which is called Genei Redan. He is the leader of the Spider gang. It seems that their symbolism is copied by teenagers who wear jackets and other clothes with the image of a spider.
The basis of culture are “anime fans” – connoisseurs of Japanese cartoons. The representatives of “Redan” themselves say that their movement has been brewing for a long time, the reason for its appearance was the attacks of “offniks” on “Redans”. . One of these reasons can be someone's appearance, especially if he is informal.
That is, according to the teenagers, the current riots are due to the fact that informals began to organize due to constant attacks by gopniks, and decided to surrender.
What is PMC for here
In our minds, this abbreviation does not evoke any good associations, as it is associated with private military companies. One of them, PMK “Vagner” of “Putin's cook” Yevgeny Prigozhin, is participating in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, recruiting prisoners and trying to occupy parts of our country.
But representatives of PMK “Redan” say that are in no way related to private military companies, and the abbreviation is used for outrage.
Why “Redan” gained popularity in Ukraine.
It is worth noting that there have been no recorded mass fights in our country so far. Law enforcement officers were able to detain those who intended to participate in them before the fights. Although videos are circulating on social networks, in which teenagers catch up or run away from the crowd during a mass fight. However, the subculture has become popular in Ukraine as well.
Attention! the video contains profanity
Frankivsk impresses again…
Today there was a “wall to wall” between the so-called PMC Redan (this subculture has gone from the dew, which is even worse to spread in the cities of Ukraine) and by some other subculture
It's also bad that others cling to everyone on the street (my subscriber's boxes) pic.twitter.com/AOwAsYZxjh— Zhdanya talk (@zhdanya_anya) February 26, 2023
Japanese language teacher and video blogger Borys Moroz considers this natural. He notes that the members of “Redan” created a revolutionary ideology in Russia, the basis of which is that “informals who received lyuls from gopniks and ultras can prescribe lyuls to anyone.” Ukrainian teenagers also liked this idea.
“This is natural, because the Ukrainian anime community has not yet created its own ideology, which would also foresee something cool in the eyes of teenagers. The Ukrainian anime community has been concentrating only on war for a year. Here the Russian group “Redan” appears and offers an idea that helps to plunge into romantic pre-war life with showdowns of “ofniks” and “nefors” in the aesthetics of anime. The choice of a 14-year-old person from Frankivsk or Poltava is clear,” Moroz believes.
Russian IPSO
The police believe that the spread of ” Redaniv” in Ukraine is an operation of the Russian special services. Thus, on February 27, the police detained 257 people in Kharkiv, of which only 30 were adults.
After that, Volodymyr Tymoshko, the Head of the National Police Department of the Kharkiv Region, wrote: “According to the plan of the FSB of the understate, which through manipulation and deception, “gathered” all these people into a group, they were supposed to organize a mass fight in the city center so that the understate's TV could enjoy it. Gas canisters, knives, brass knuckles were confiscated from many! And this is in our long-suffering, indomitable city!”.
As reported by “Radio Freedom”, the police blocked 18 channels and groups of the “new youth movement”, which provokes teenagers to mass fights. They also added that another 700 people were invited to the police.
Law enforcement officers called it “an attempt by Russian propagandists to conduct another information and psychological operation and involve teenagers in illegal activities.” The police report does not mention the name of the movement, but apparently it refers to the so-called “Redan Communist Party”.
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The members of the movement themselves deny such accusations. They claim that “no one purposefully offered anything to anyone”, and they also insist that the Russian authorities are also fighting the “Redans”.
