Misogynists and racists, emails from 'Fighters of the male state'

"Your feminist regime will remember this forever." The phrase is in the email signed by the "Fighters of the Male State", which arrived at Italian airports, which announced explosions within sixty minutes. The acronym refers to the Russian ultranationalist and misogynistic movement "Muzhskoye Gosudarstvo", known as the Male State. They would be behind the bomb alerts on the planes.

Misogynists, racists, homophobes, they proclaim an ideology described as "national patriarchy". The movement was born in 2016 on VKontakte, a sort of Russian Facebook, on the initiative of bodybuilder Vladislav Pozdnyakov. In particular, the group targets Russian women who have relationships with foreign men, especially non-white men. For these reasons, in 2021, a Russian court declared the movement an extremist organization, banning its activities on national territory. Despite the ruling, the group remained active on Telegram and private forums. The prominent figure is its founder Pozdnyakov, born in 1991, blogger and personal trainer. An agent of chaos with a bodybuilder's physique constantly displayed on social media. And a conviction behind him, in 2018, for inciting hatred against women.

Two years ago Pozdnyakov spread the news of his killing in Komodo, Indonesia, only to later admit that it was staged to give followers a dopamine rush. “You demand wars, attacks, shocks, and I will give them to you,” he boasted. Male State Fighters also spoke out in favor of the war in Ukraine. An investigation by the Bellingcat website highlighted anti-Semitic posts and calls to execute Ukrainian leaders present in the group's channels. It was Pozdnyakov who first released the video of the beheading of a Ukrainian prisoner. More generally, Male State fits into the galaxy of the "manosphere", a network of influencers and online communities that promote male supremacy and far-right ideologies. Pozdnyakov himself has been nicknamed "Russia's Andrew Tate", after the Anglo-American influencer, convicted of human trafficking, who has amassed billions of views with theses on male dominance and female submission.