Their two countries may be at war, but Russian and Ukrainian police have a common and apparently formidable enemy. That is, judging by their efforts to infiltrate groups of 13- to 17-year-old kids sporting long black hair and hoodies emblazoned with a picture of a spider on the back.
The so-called PMC Ryodan – a fan club dedicated to the Japanese anime series Hunter x Hunter, featuring a criminal gang – may be many things, but a private military company it is not. On 22 February these fans gathered at a Moscow mall and were confronted by a rival group who picked a fight with them, offended by their weird clothes.
There are conflicting reports about what sparked the fight: according to one account, one of the fans was assaulted by a skinhead who told him it was time to kill all the ‘nefory’ – or ‘neformaly’, nonconformists. According to another, two groups got into a skirmish over mall chairs. The
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