The Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) is a small far-right paramilitary group based in St Petersburg and dedicated to the restoration of an ethnic Russian empire. As of this month, it has the distinction of being the first white supremacist group to be named a “specially designated global terrorist” by the U.S. government. The announcement by the State Department on April 6 has been heralded as a major shift for the agency, which until now has overwhelmingly focused its counterterrorism efforts on Islamic extremist groups. This new designation will allow the U.S. to prevent its citizens from providing material or financial support to RIM, and to block the group’s leaders from entering its territory. 

Explaining its decision, the State Department cited a global surge in far-right terrorism since 2015, including last year’s mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and a string of similar attacks on Muslims, Jews and people of immigrant backgrounds within the U.S. itself. Nathan A Sales, the department’s counter-terrorism coordinator, praised Donald Trump’s leadership on the issue — a claim likely to raise eyebrows, given that the U.S. president frequently uses far-right rhetoric and has sought to downplay the severity of white supremacist violence on American soil. 

Like other similar groups elsewhere, the RIM combines real-world violence — it has reportedly recruited volunteers to fight alongside Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine — with heavy use of social media to broaden its reach. According to U.S.-based think tank the Soufan Center, the group distributed propaganda videos in Russian and English via YouTube, Facebook and other platforms, in order to spread racist material about Jews and Ukrainians, promote the use of weapons and encourage followers to see the West as an enemy. Immediately after April 6, the RIM tried to use its new-found notoriety as an online recruiting tool, but most of its social media accounts have since been removed. 

It is questionable how far the group’s reach ever extended. Its page on the popular Russian social network Vkontakte, which was still active as of April 14, lists a relatively low 14,000 followers. Although the RIM does not appear to have gathered a large following, it has apparently made connections with like-minded individuals and groups elsewhere. According to the State Department, two Swedish neo-Nazis who visited RIM’s St Petersburg training camp went on to commit several attacks in their home country, including the bombing of a migrant center in Gothenburg.