Propaganda journalist Yana Amelina joined the anti-cult leader in denouncing bloodthirsty Ukraine-controlled Satanists operating in Russian territory.
by Massimo Introvigne
Interfax reported on November 2 that Roman Silantyev, now speaking in his capacity of “head of the Human Rights Center of the World Russian People’s Council” (whose President is Patriarch Krill), insisted in a speech of the same day that the war in Ukraine has “a religious character.”
Silantyev is one of Russia’s most active propagandists against “cults” and, as late as July 2022, has been invited to events organized in the West by affiliates of the European anti-cult federation FECRIS. He is famous for his accusations against Satanists, Neo-Pagans, and other “cultists” allegedly inspiring the resistance in Ukraine and infiltrating Russia (where they kill with the same enthusiasm Russian children, cats, and pigeons) on behalf of American and Ukrainian intelligence services.
On November 2 he said that he “can confirm that the statements of [Chechnya leader] Ramzan Kadyrov that Russia is at war with Satanists are true. Since 2014, Ukraine has been purposefully killing our citizens, mainly children, through information and psychological operations. This is the spread of ‘games of death’ in social networks, propaganda of neo-Nazism, the Columbine cultic terrorist movement, and telephone terrorism… Because of this, we lost some 500 children who were persuaded to commit suicide or died in ‘school shootings.’ [I uncovered the] pseudo-religious, and to put it bluntly, Satanic motivations of criminals, who are being pushed to this by foreign extremist organizations. One of them was created in the Dnepropetrovsk region of Ukraine.” Secretly directed by Ukrainian intelligence, these “cults” recruit adepts in Russia who engage in “black magic, terrorist attacks, and the human sacrifice of children.”
“Columbine Satanism” is a non-existing “cult” invented by Silantyev, who borrowed its name from the high school massacre in Columbine, Colorado, in 1999. Silantyev falsely claims that it was the result of a CIA experiment carried out in cooperation with Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, aimed at creating an international “cult” of armed terrorists entering schools and randomly shooting at students and teachers. More recently, Silantyev named the Ukrainian intelligence as a co-conspirator, and claimed that “Columbine Satanism” was mostly created to organize school shootings in Russia.
The same American and Ukrainian intelligence services, Silantyev insists, also propagate games openly or covertly promoting suicide in Russia through social networks, and “telephone terrorism,” which consists in calling Russian schools with bomb threats to destabilize the mental health of the students.
Silantyev relies on the books by Yana Amelina. She is a controversial journalist embedded with Russian troops in several wars, and a staunch propagandist of the regime. She became famous, and received awards, for claiming that divine intervention had protected Russian troops during the war against Georgia in 2009 in South Ossetia. The then President of the pseudo-republic of South Ossetia, Leonid Tibilov, awarded her with the State Order of Friendship in 2013.
In fact, Amelina and Silantyev continuously quote and legitimize each other. Amelina also claims that “Columbine Satanism” exists and “is almost completely organized and controlled from Ukrainian territory.’ Silantyev also invented another non-existing “cult” called MKU (Maniacs: Killer Cult), which he believes is also controlled by the Ukrainian intelligence—this is the “cult headquartered in the Dnepropetrovsk region” he often refers to.
Amelina does not deny that MKU exists, but adds yet another Satanist “cult” that allegedly operates under “the control of the Security Service of Ukraine,” called RAMP (Russian Amoral Murder Portrait). There is a division of labour between MKU and RAMP, Amelina explains. RAMP tries to “distract Russian authorities and security officials” through Internet propaganda and “telephone terrorism” while MKU prepares “terrorist attacks” and sabotage of Russian infrastructures “in the interest of the Ukrainian state.” Unnecessary to say, there is no evidence that RAMP exists either.
Amelina’ s theories have been promoted by the website (owned by the Russian Orthodox Church) operated by Archpriest Alexander Novopashin, the Vice President of Russian umbrella anti-cult organization RATsIRS, which Novopashin still claims is affiliated with FECRIS.
In an article republished by Novopashin’s website, Amelina argues that she knew about the different Satanist cults operated by the Ukrainian intelligence “long before the special operation,” but was “told that this would be considered Russian propaganda” internationally, and it was better to keep quiet about these organizations. However, when the “special military operation” started “on February 24, 2022, everything became clear, the masks were dropped,” and Amelina was allowed to write that Ukraine was behind RAMP, MKU, and Columbine Satanism.
Silantyev and Amelina’s theories are not just the ramblings of isolated psychopaths. The FSB has arrested hundreds of Russian citizens accused of being part of the fictional MKU and Columbine Satanist organizations, including supporters of Alexei Navalny and other opponents of the Putin regime (characterizing Putin’s government as a regime and spreading criticism of the “special military operation” in Russia is also a main task of the Ukrainian Satanists, according to Amelina).
In the article republished by Novopashin, Amelina argues nostalgically that the problem of Satanist “maniacs” had been solved by the Soviet Union. “Why in Soviet times we did not have armed attacks, and the number of maniacs was small? There was a harsh and just law. For such crimes, people were sentenced to capital punishment and executed. Several maniacs of the Soviet era, which everyone knows about, were found and punished strictly according to the law. They were gone. No society managed to completely eradicate crime, the USSR was no exception either, but they tried, and quite successfully, to keep it under control… In the USSR there was a strong ideology that outlawed such things and offered an image of the future that suited everyone, with rare exceptions. There was no need to become a maniac: study, work, create a family, give birth to children, live happily for the sake of your well-being and your country,” Amelina said.
