Russian Imperial Movement

In 2008, RIM visited Sweden in order to attend Karl XII's Memorial Day in Stockholm together with the neo-Nazi Party of the Swedes. In the fall of 2015, it was noted that RIM had provided support to the Swedish Resistance Movement (SMR), and that RIM's leader Vorobyev had visited SMR in Sweden.[7]

On 26 January 2020, a Russian man named Anatoly Udodov was arrested at the Arlanda airport after the police had discovered a cache of weapons belonging to him. The Swedish police had confiscated numerous firearms from him the previous summer due to his connections to SMR. Udodov was described as the representative of RIM in Sweden by Vorobyev and investigators believe he is the local recruiter for the RIM training camps. According to Swedish police Udodov is friends with a convicted terrorists, 23-year-old Viktor Melin. Melin was part of a group of Swedish neo-Nazis who went to Russia for military training, and upon returning was responsible for a string of bombings against minorities and political enemies.[12] RIM has also provided paramilitary training to German, Polish and Finnish neo-Nazis.[13]

Outside Scandinavia, RIM is affiliated with the Black-Yellow Alliance of Austria. Thus, on November 9, 2019 Vorobyev was invited and took part in the organization's congress, which was held in Parkhotel Schönbrunn, a guest house for the palace of Emperor Franz Joseph I.[14] The same month, a representative of RIM held a speech in an international conference in Madrid that was organized by the far-right Spanish political party "National Democracy" and attended by the members of Alliance for Peace and Freedom.[15] Both groups have been characterized as neo-nazi. In May 2018, German Junge Nationaldemokraten held a gathering in Riesa, Germany, where representatives of RIM took part in together with related organizations such as the neo-Nazi Serbian Action and Bulgarian National Union.[16]

On 29 April 2020, the Spanish Ministry of the Interior received an intelligence report which stated that RIM was inciting its right-wing extremist contacts in Spain to commit acts of terror, such as attacking the infrastructure, transportation system and using chemical weapons against the public.[17]

On 5 June 2020, the German magazine Focus reported that the German security services were aware of the training of German neo-Nazis in Russia. However, they could not prohibit the Germans from traveling to Saint Petersburg for legal reasons. The authorities assume that Russian President Vladimir Putin is aware of the camps and "at least tolerates them".[18][19] The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism described the RIM's relationship with the Russian government as “an adversarial symbiosis”; as long as they don't commit terrorism domestically, they're free to operate and offer training to militants and to send troops to conflicts abroad where Russia has a stake in.[20]

According to an investigation which was conducted by Infobae, a new Atomwaffen Division cell which is operating in Russia receives training from the group, and United States citizens who are affiliated with the group are also believed to have taken part in it.[21] Later, the National Counterterrorism Center Director Christopher Miller confirmed that American neo-Nazis have had contacts with the RIM; specifically, on previous occasions, they have traveled to Russia to train with the group.[22] According to the Center for International Security and Cooperation;

While RIM has aggressively built ties with European white supremacist groups, its outreach to U.S. organizations has historically occurred on a personal – rather than a formal or an institutional – basis. As of 2020, this pattern may be changing, given RIM’s alleged relationship with the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division’s Russian affiliate.[1]