Igor Mangushev

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming conventions, the patronymic is Leonidovich and the family name is Mangushev.

Igor Leonidovich Mangushev (Russian: Игорь Леонидович Мангушев; 16 August 1986 – 8 February 2023), also known by his radio call sign Bereg (Russian: Берег), was a Russian militia fighter, mercenary leader, and political advisor.

Igor Mangushev
Игорь Мангушев
Mangushev in Ukraine
Born	(1986-08-16)16 August 1986 Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR
Died	8 February 2023(2023-02-08) (aged 36) Kadiivka, Ukraine
Cause of death	Gunshot
Occupation(s)	Mercenary, militia fighter, political advisor
Years active	2009–2023
Employer	Russian people's militias in Ukraine
Organization(s)	Svetlaya Rus E.N.O.T. Corp.
Call sign	Bereg (Russian: Берег)

Born in Moscow, Russia on 16 August 1986, Mangushev grew up to become a Russian nationalist who founded militant patriotic organization Svetlaya Rus in 2009 and thereafter founded private military corporation E.N.O.T. Corp. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mangushev served as an officer in an anti-drone warfare platoon. In a stand-up speech given by Mangushev in 2022, during which he held a skull that he claimed was from a Ukrainian soldier killed during the siege of Azovstal, he outlined his rationale for the Russo-Ukrainian War; Mangushev sought to destroy Ukrainian national identity and terminate the existence of Ukraine as a sovereign state. In addition to his military actives, he worked as a political operative for various Kremlin agencies and an internet troll for the Internet Research Agency.

On 4 Feburary 2023, Mangushev was shot in the back of the head in while in Luhansk. He succumbed to his injuries on 8 February 2023 while in a hospital. His widow has called for an investigation into his death, describing his killing as an assassination and alleging that medical care was inappropriately withheld from her husband in the days before his death.

Life before the Russo-Ukrainian war

Igor Mangushev was born on 16 August 1986 in Moscow, Russia.^[1][2]

As an adult, Mangushev was a neo-Nazi^[3] and a Russian nationalist,^[4][5] and he founded the nationalist organization Svetlaya Rus (Russian: Светлая Русь) in late 2009.^[6] Membership in the group was initially drawn from the Russian Orthodox Church-aligned Narodny Sobor movement, as well as various Russian patriotic movements.^[6] Mangushev, in his role leading Svetlaya Rus, coordinated with police and conducted raids on illegal migrants living within unlicensed dwellings in the Russian Federation;^[7] several members in the group were former law enforcement officials or had otherwise become connected with Russia's Federal Migration Service.^[8]: 132 Following the raids on immigrant dwellings, Mangushev would contact local Russian police, who would take note of the illegal migrants, fingerprint them, and typically release them.^[7][9] His group was among the first such public-private partnerships in Russia to conduct these sorts of operations following the 2011 arrest of Russian pilots in Tajikistan.^[6]

By 2012, Mangushev's connections with militarizing patriotic groups in Russia had strengthened, and he founded and took the helm of E.N.O.T. (Russian: Енот),^[9][10] which was founded to coordinate Russia's nascent militarized patriotic movement. That year, the group provided military training at a gathering of right-wing militiamen to over 450 individuals, earning 1,500,000₽ ($86449 international dollars in 2012) over the course of the three-day event.^[9]

According to documents leaked by Anonymous, Mangushev had become an employee of the Internet Research Agency by 2013.^[11] Kommersant reported in 2015 that Mangushev had written strategic analyses for various Russian government agencies prior to the 2014 onset of the Russo-Ukrainian War.^[6] He publicly spoke about his work as an internet troll, stating that he had written messages online both in favor and in opposition to 2013 Alexei Navalny mayoral campaign as a part of his work.^[12]

Military career and mercenary work

Mangushev worked as captain in the Luhansk People's Militia,^[13] and as a mercenary.^[4] Through E.N.O.T. Corp., he deployed as a fighter in the Russo-Ukrainian War beginning in 2014,^[10][14] though E.N.O.T. had claimed at the time that it was simply providing humanitarian assistance to individuals living in Donbas.^{[15]: 131–132} Mangushev was an active proponent of the formation and use of private military companies in the war, seeing them as a way to unify the citizens' militias with a more structured organization that could provide documentation of the militia's military activities.^[6]

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mangushev led Russia's anti-drone platoon,^[16] used the call sign Bereg.^[17] The platoon sought out and destroyed Ukrainian drones by identifying and interrupting their WiFi signals with technology developed by Mangushev and his team.^[18]

Mangushev also worked as a political strategist for mercenary company owner Yevgeny Prigozhin.^[4] The strategy work included disinformation efforts,^[16] and the organization of agent provocateurs to work against Lyubov Sobol during the 2019 Moscow City Duma election.^[19] He claimed to be the inventor of the Z (military symbol),^[17][20] and was a vocal proponent of the war, and critic of some Russian military leaders who he perceived as hesitant and making slow progress in the war.^[14][5] He was often photographed posing with a Nazi salute.^[17] He operated the Telegram channel Notes of an Adventurer.^[21]

In August 2022, a video circulated showing him appearing on a stage in a Russian nightclub,^[14] holding the skull that he claimed was from a Ukrainian soldier who died in the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol.^[4][22] While on stage with the skull, he performed a stand-up comedy routine, during which he stated that he sought the destruction of Ukraine as a nation-state and that Russia's goal in the invasion of Ukraine was to destroy the Ukrainian national identity.^[20]

Shooting, death, and aftermath

On the night of 4 February 2023, at a checkpoint in Kadiivka, Mangushev was shot in the back of the head.^[13] At the time, he had been stationed in Kadiivka as a soldier in the Russo-Ukrainian War.^[4] He was struck by a 9mm bullet at close range,^[4] and afterwards was taken to a hospital in Kadiivka.^[17] He died in the hospital on 8 February 2023, at the age of 36.^[16]

His wife described his death as an execution,^[4] and his friends have called for an official investigation into his death.^[16] British political scientist Mark Galeotti described the shooting as a "hit",^[17] while Mangushev's widow alleged that medical care was being intentionally withheld from her husband in the days between the shooting and his death.^[23]

See also

• Wagner Group

References

1. "MANGUSHEV Igor Leonidovich". War and Sanctions. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption. 2022. from the original on 9 February 2023. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
2. "Мангушев Игорь Леонидович / Мангушев Ігор Леонідович / Mangushev Igor Leonidovich". Center for Research of Signs of Crimes against the National Security of Ukraine, Peace, Humanity, and the International Law. 8 February 2023. from the original on 4 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
3. "Wife of neo-Nazi Russian army captain calls husband's wound "failed execution attempt"". The Insider (website) (in Russian). 6 February 2023. from the original on 9 February 2023. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
4. "Notorious Russian nationalist Igor Mangushev shot dead in Ukraine". BBC News. 8 February 2023. from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
5. Seddon, Max; Ivanova, Polina (18 March 2022). "Propaganda war rages as Russians face huge pressure to back invasion". Financial Times. from the original on 12 May 2022. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
6. Туманов, Григорий (23 March 2015). "Послевоенные действия". Kommersant (in Russian). from the original on 21 August 2022. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
7. "The Man in Orange". The New Times. 2014. from the original on 9 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023 – via European Press Prize.
8. Zakharov, Nikolay (2015). "Rioting for Whiteness: Doing Race on the Squares of Moscow". In Law, Ian (ed.). Race and Racism in Russia (Softcover 1st ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781137481207. ISBN 978-1-349-50281-3.
9. Полухина, Юлия (22 February 2019). "«Еноты» в клетке: Как участники событий в Крыму и на Донбассе потеряли кураторов, деньги и свободу". Novaya Gazeta (in Russian). from the original on 30 August 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
10. Goble, Paul. "Russian Nationalist Group, Acting as a Private Military Company, Worries Kremlin". Jamestown Foundation. from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
11. Коротков, Денис (15 December 2019). "Выездное обслуживание: кто и как срывал выборы в Мосгордуму". Novaya Gazeta. from the original on 10 February 2020. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
12. Gorham, Michael S. (2017). "Humpty Dumpty and the Troll Factory: Varieties of Verbal Subversion on the Russian-Language Internet". Zeitschrift für Slavische Philologie. 73 (1): 79–103 – via JSTOR.
13. "Умер командир подразделения Народной милиции ЛНР Мангушев" (in Russian). RIA Novosti. 8 February 2023. from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
14. Motyčková, Kateřina; Klapal, Ondřej (8 February 2023). "Kritik ruské armády a Prigožinův spojenec průstřel hlavy nepřežil". Seznam Zprávy. from the original on 9 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
15. Mareš, Miroslav; Laryš, Martin; Holzer, Jan (2019). Militant Right-Wing Extremism in Putin’s Russia: Legacies, Forms, and Threats. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780429490019. ISBN 9780429953620.
16. "Pro-War Russian Nationalist 'Executed' in Eastern Ukraine". The Moscow Times. 8 February 2023. from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
17. Vasilyeva, Nataliya (5 February 2023). "Wagner-linked mercenary who claimed to have originated 'Z' war symbol shot in 'warning hit'". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
18. Григорьев, Дмитрий (20 January 2023). "Война «Сурикатов» с «птицами». Как отряд антидронов охотится на БПЛА ВСУ". Argumenty i Fakty (in Russian). Retrieved 10 February 2023.
19. "Nationalist Igor Mangushev dies after being shot in back of head. His wife says he was deliberately murdered". The Insider (website) (in Russian). 8 February 2023. from the original on 9 February 2023. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
20. "Создатель ЧВК «ЕНОТ» с черепом в руках заявил, что все украинцы должны быть убиты. По его словам, это череп защитника «Азовстали»". The Insider. 28 August 2022. from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
21. Russia Unleashes World War Z – Transitions. Transitions Online, [s. l.], p. N.PAG, 2022. Disponível em: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=155953009&site=eds-live&scope=site. Acesso em: 10 fev. 2023.
22. "Russian mercenary plays with Ukrainian soldier's skull – watch". The Jerusalem Post. from the original on 5 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
23. Davis, Barney (8 February 2023). "Igor Mangushev: Russian who waved Ukrainian skull on stage dies days after being shot". Evening Standard. from the original on 9 February 2023. Retrieved 9 February 2023.