Russian Paramilitary and Ultranationalist Activist Groups on VKontakte, 2019-2022 (doi:10.48349/ASU/E3MIE8)

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Russian Paramilitary and Ultranationalist Activist Groups on VKontakte, 2019-2022

doi:10.48349/ASU/E3MIE8

ASU Library Research Data Repository

2024-12-10

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Rondeaux, Candace; Simeone, Michael; Dalton, Ben, 2024, "Russian Paramilitary and Ultranationalist Activist Groups on VKontakte, 2019-2022", https://doi.org/10.48349/ASU/E3MIE8, ASU Library Research Data Repository, V1

Russian Paramilitary and Ultranationalist Activist Groups on VKontakte, 2019-2022

doi:10.48349/ASU/E3MIE8

Rondeaux, Candace (New America Foundation)

Simeone, Michael (Arizona State University)

Dalton, Ben (New America Foundation)

New America Foundation

ASU Library Research Data Repository

Rondeaux, Candace

Simeone, Michael

Dalton, Ben

Simeone, Michael

2024-12-09

Uncovering the Wagner Group Series

Utilizing a mix of investigative reporting, open source research, and large-scale data science, New America's Future Frontlines has been investigating Russia's Wagner Group since 2018. Our work focuses on exposing the web of special forces veterans, military intelligence officers, separatist provocateurs, business interests, and geostrategic calculations amid which the Wagner Group emerged and which it was created to obscure.

https://doi.org/10.48349/ASU/E3MIE8

Social Sciences, Social media, Paramilitary forces

<p>This dataset consists of open source user data collected from the Russian social media platform VKontakte during two periods. The first period of collection was between November 2019 and January 2021, while the second period was between September and October 2022.</p> <p>In the first period, target groups were monitored for slightly over a year, and new users were collected in batches. As a result, there should theoretically be no duplicates, as each subsequent tranche of collection should consist only of new users who joined since the prior collection period.</p> <p>In the second period in 2022, user lists for target groups were identified once in early September, and collection on those groups proceeded for two months due to the time required to fully collect data from the target groups.</p> <p>In both phases of collection, we targeted VKontakte groups of interest associated with communities of Russian paramilitary groups and/or ultranationalist activists, finding considerable overlap in membership among these groups.</p> <p>During the 2019-2021 collection, we targeted the then-principal VKontakte group associated with the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group, called "PMC Wagner-Military Review" (ЧВК Вагнера - военное обозрение), along with associated groups such as the Nordic Resistance Movement (Nordiska motståndsrörelsen), Evil Novorossiya (Злая Новороссия), Rusich (ДШРГ Русич), the Russian Imperial Movement (Русское Имперское Движение), and others. In this period, we collected data from 11,071 users in the Wagner Group, 3,368 from Rusich, and 3,582 from the Russian Imperial Movement.</p> <p>In the 2022 collection, we targeted only three groups: the same "PMC Wagner-Military Review" VKontakte group, the largest existing group for Rusich, and the main group for the Russian Imperial Movement. In this later phase, we were able to collect the complete membership of the Rusich and Russian Imperial Movement groups, consisting of 10,139 and 21,296 users, respectively, but only a subset of the Wagner Group, representing around 10 percent of its then-membership (23,181 users out of a total of approximately 220,000), due to changes in the group's privacy settings. Note that some of these collected users were deleted or banned, resulting in blank data for those accounts. The significant increase in group membership between the two collection periods demonstrates the considerable expansion of these groups in the interim period.</p> <p>These groups were specifically targeted due to their association with Russian paramilitary organizations and ultranationalist activism, which are of significant interest to researchers studying these phenomena. As stated in the related report, "Our initial questions about the motivations and social ties of Wagner fighters had led us to a cadre of individuals who appeared to perform military tasks that were similar to that of Russian special forces field commanders. Moreover, the sheer volume of data they posted and the clues extant in both the content and the metadata of their posts in many cases allowed us to trace their movements in space and time in Ukraine and in some cases hotspots around the world. We decided, therefore, to focus on analyzing user profile information and demographics that might reveal more about the strength of network ties between the Wagner Group, Rusich, and the Russian Imperial Movement."</p> <p>However, it should be noted that the data collection process was limited by the privacy settings of some groups and the availability of data on the platform, particularly in the case of the "PMC Wagner-Military Review" group in the 2022 collection period.</p>

2019-11-01-2021-01-312022-09-01-2022-10-31

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This dataset consists of open source user data collected from the Russian social media platform VKontakte (VK), Russian: ВКонтакте, meaning InContact.

In any place where a VK profile has a listed personal name (FIRSTNAME, LASTNAME), we have redacted those entries. To get access to the crosswalk file containing the redacted information, please contact the dataset Principals.

Dalton, B., & Rondeaux, C. (2023, February 16). Rebranding the Russian Way of War: The Wagner Group’s Viral Social Media Campaign and What It Means for Ukraine. New America.

Dalton, B., & Rondeaux, C. (2023, February 16). Rebranding the Russian Way of War: The Wagner Group’s Viral Social Media Campaign and What It Means for Ukraine. New America.

Rondeaux, C., & Dalton, B. (2023, February 22). Putin’s Stealth Mobilization: Russian Irregulars and the Wagner Group’s Shadow Command Structure. New America.

Rondeaux, C., & Dalton, B. (2023, February 22). Putin’s Stealth Mobilization: Russian Irregulars and the Wagner Group’s Shadow Command Structure. New America.

Dalton, B. (2023, February 14). A Field Guide to Wagner Group Bloggers: Russia’s New Mercenary Media Elite. New America.

Dalton, B. (2023, February 14). A Field Guide to Wagner Group Bloggers: Russia’s New Mercenary Media Elite. New America.

Rondeaux, C. (2023, February 13). Chasing the Wagner Group: Why It’s So Hard to Get a Handle on Putin’s Ghost Army. New America.

Rondeaux, C. (2023, February 13). Chasing the Wagner Group: Why It’s So Hard to Get a Handle on Putin’s Ghost Army. New America.

Rondeaux, C. (2023, February 16). Building the Wagner Group Brand: How Yevgeny Prigozhin Sold a Battlefield Rumor to the World. New America.

Rondeaux, C. (2023, February 16). Building the Wagner Group Brand: How Yevgeny Prigozhin Sold a Battlefield Rumor to the World. New America.

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Atomwaffen Division Russland.zip

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chvk.vaqner.zip

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dshrgrusichofficial.zip

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Evil Novorossiya.zip

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Russian Imperial Movement - Moscow.zip

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Russian Imperial Movement - Nizhny Novgorod.zip

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vkontakte_readme.txt

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