Reports that Stanislav Orlov was killed by Moscow security services highlights careful managing of non-state power
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eneath the frescoed ceilings and golden icons of Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, hundreds of men packed tightly into the lower hall as priests intoned prayers for the dead. Dressed in dark winter jackets, the mourners on Monday filled one of Russia’s most sacred spaces – a church usually reserved for moments of state ritual and national commemoration. Later, near his grave, the crowd lit bright flares and shouted: “One for all, and all for one.”
They had gathered to bid farewell to Stanislav Orlov, better known by his callsign “Spaniard”, the founder of the far-right Española unit – a formation of football hooligans and neo-Nazi volunteers who fought as a paramilitary force on Russia’s side in Ukraine.
Russian pro-war Telegram channels framed the funeral as an act of consecration: a battlefield commander laid to rest at the heart of Moscow’s spiritual and political establishment. Yet amid the solemnity, one detail was conspicuously absent. No official cause of death was mentioned – a silence that only underscored the unease surrounding Orlov’s final days.
