Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia



The Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (Антиглобалистское движение России, AGMR) is a Russian government-funded anti-globalization astroturf organization, consisting of a single member, Alexander Viktorovich Ionov (Александр Ионов) and two "Honorable" Members, Bashar Hafez Al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Calexit
A Calexit ballot initiative, sponsored by Yes California ("CalExit"), has received financial aid from and partnered with AIGM. AIGM has a Calexit "embassy" in Moscow. Yes California is itself an astroturf organization, the president of which is Louis J. Marinelli. Marinelli is a US citizen from New York living in Russia. He admitted to voting for Donald Trump. Both Marinelli and Ionov suggested that California might follow the Crimean scenario in which Crimea voted for independence before being immediately annexed by Russia. This should be cause for concern for any Californian thinking about independence since Russia actually had a in what is now California from 1812-1842. In 2017, Marinelli indicated that he would be seeking permanent residence in Russia and that the current petition would be withdrawn.

Other secession movements
Russia has also funded other astroturf secession movements in the United States, including in Texas, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The largest secession group in Texas, "Heart of Texas" (txrebels), turned out to be a Russian front with over 225,000 followers on Facebook as of summer 2017 before it was removed by Facebook. The Facebook page was xenophobic, nativist, and anti-immigrant; it had many posts targeting Muslim immigrants and refugees, liberals, LGBT activists, vegetarians and Hillary Clinton.

The stated aim of AIGM is "against the global dominance of transnational corporations and supranational trade and financial institutions", but is more likely specifically against the economic dominance of the United States and the EU.

Curiously, despite being funded from the Russian government (or perhaps to distract from the obvious astroturf of the site), there are three news feeds from radical partner organizations on the main webpage: Black Agenda Report, Fight Back News, and Rsf.ie News (Republican Sinn Féin).

African People’s Socialist Party/Uhuru House
Uhuru House and its lesser-known parent organization, African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), have been associated with AGMR, having sent delegates to Moscow in 2015 for an anti-globalization conference organized by AGMR. In 2023, four American members of APSP (Omali Yeshitela, Penny Joanne Hess, Jesse Nevel and Augustus C. Romain Jr.) were charged with conspiring to act as unregistered foreign agents for Russia under the direction of Ionov and two other Russians (Yegor Sergeyevich Popoov and Aleksey Borisovich Sukhodolov). The African People’s Socialist Party also operates under the name Black Hammer in Georgia.