‘The patriarch’s guards’
How a radical Orthodox movement appointed itself Russia’s ‘morality police’
During ceremonial services, Russian Orthodox Church head Patriarch Kirill is often surrounded by burly men in distinctive red-and-black uniforms. These are members of the Sorok Sorokov Movement, an ultra-conservative Orthodox group that has supported Kirill since the early years of his patriarchate. In the 2010s, Sorok Sorokov members clashed with Moscow residents over plans to construct churches in public parks and squares. Now, the movement has largely shifted its focus to the “ideological front”, creating a spectacle at religious processions and scribbling denunciations against pop culture figures. Meanwhile, its leader, Andrey Kormukhin, has built an extensive network of companies and charities with the help of his many sons. This includes a nonprofit that ties Kormukhin to Umar Kremlev, a Kremlin-linked oligarch who recently made headlines for bankrolling Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding. For Novaya Gazeta Europe, religious scholar Lera Furman tells the story of Andrey Kormukhin and the Sorok Sorokov Movement.
‘The Hammer’
Before founding the Sorok Sorokov Movement, Andrey Kormukhin was an aspiring composer. He wrote music for his sister, pop-rock singer Olga Kormukhina, who would become an Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation.
Kormukhina’s vocal support of Vladimir Putin and Russia’s war against Ukraine has landed her on more than one sanctions list. Her brother, meanwhile, is not under any international sanctions, despite being the co-founder and public face of a radical pro-Kremlin movement.
According to Kormukhin, Sorok Sorokov has tens of thousands of supporters. But the group’s Telegram channel largely focuses on Kormukhin himself, chronicling his many interviews, visits to Russia’s regions, and meetings with influential people.
Born in Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) in 1970, Kormukhin came from a non-religious family. However, he claims that thanks to his grandmothers, he was baptised into both the Old Believers and the Russian Orthodox Church. Kormukhin pursued a career in the Komsomol and would have joined the Communist Party had the USSR not collapsed. Nostalgia for the Soviet Union remains part of his worldview. He has even paradoxically argued that the decline of Orthodox Christianity brought down the atheist state (“When the generation raised in the Orthodox faith or by Orthodox parents died, the Soviet Union collapsed”).
In the 1990s, Kormukhin graduated from Moscow’s Gnessin College of Music, but his career as a composer was short-lived. In his telling, the 1998 financial crisis forced him to “go into business.” Kormukhin’s name has been linked to companies in commerce, construction, cleaning services, and more, but little is known about his business career; the fact that he acquired the nickname Molot (“The Hammer”) hints at his methods.
A critic told RFE/RL’s Russian service that Kormukhin amassed a fortune. “He has foreign cars, an apartment in downtown Moscow, and a large country house,” this source said. At some point, however, Kormukhin’s career took a radical religious turn, and he quickly became consumed with serving Patriarch Kirill.
‘Hybrid war’
Sorok Sorokov was born out of a PR disaster surrounding Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill. In 2012, the fourth year of his patriarchate, Kirill supported Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency for a third term. Then came a series of scandals over the Patriarch’s ownership of a luxury apartment in Moscow and a Swiss watch, and his harsh response to Pussy Riot’s protest performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. To counter the bad publicity, the then-head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s public relations department, the ultra-conservative Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, was tasked with mobilising Orthodox-nationalist “squads” to support the patriarch.
Kormukhin himself acknowledges that Sorok Sorokov emerged as a response to “information attacks” on Kirill. Initially called “Molot” (after Kormukhin’s nickname), the movement’s co-founders included Russian boxing champion Vladimir Nosov and powerlifter Alexander Mikhailovich, and it counted about a dozen other titled athletes among its leadership. After the movement changed its name in 2014, Patriarch Kirill began referring to its members as his “guards.” “I call them my guard affectionately,” Kirill explained. “These people do a lot of good in the Church.” The Patriarch also kept in regular contact with Kormukhin. In February 2015, Kirill presented the Sorok Sorokov leader with an icon as a 45th birthday gift. The Russian Orthodox Church later awarded Kormukhin a couple of medals, although not of the highest order.
In 2014–2015, Sorok Sorokov’s members violently clashed with Moscow residents over the planned construction of a church in Torfyanka Park. At the time, their numbers were bolstered by football ultras drawn into the movement by Ivan Katanaev, a prominent organiser for the FC Spartak fan club “Fratria,” who formerly belonged to the banned neo-Nazi group Blood & Honour.
A wide range of political forces sided with residents seeking to preserve the park, from the liberal Yabloko party to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Communist Party lawmaker Valery Rashkin even appealed to the Federal Security Service (FSB) to investigate Sorok Sorokov over its neo-Nazi ties. Surprisingly, however, complaints against the movement went unanswered, even as Sorok Sorokov clashed with residents over church-construction projects at more than a dozen locations in Moscow. Kormukhin, who described his movement’s tactics as “hybrid warfare,” had turned the name Sorok Sorokov into a mission statement.
This historical idiom, which translates as “Forty Forties,” references the supposedly innumerable churches in medieval Moscow. Kormukhin interpreted this literally, believing the number of Orthodox religious sites in the Russian capital must be increased to 1,600 (40 x 40). As of late 2024, there were 1,232.
Over time, the movement turned its attention to fighting purported enemies of “traditional values”. In 2017, they actively protested against director Aleksey Uchitel’s film Matilda, which centres on Tsar Nicholas II’s romance with ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya. Following arson attacks on cinemas, State Duma lawmakers Irina Rodnina and Oksana Pushkina appealed to the FSB to investigate Sorok Sorokov and the radical Orthodox group Christian State–Holy Rus. The investigation led to the arrest of the latter’s leader, Alexander Kalinin, but Kormukhin walked away unscathed and subsequently launched a counterattack against Rodnina and Pushkina.
Sorok Sorokov and its allies also fiercely opposed a 2019 draft law — championed by Pushkina — that sought to make domestic violence a criminal offence. Kormukhin co-authored a letter to Putin condemning the bill and organised a protest against the legislation. Parliamentary development of the bill stalled, and it never passed into law.
Against the backdrop of pandemic lockdowns and Russia’s war against Ukraine, Sorok Sorokov shifted from direct action to patriotic litigation. Now a semi-virtual network of cardboard troops, the movement’s infamy became directly correlated with the fame of its targets. In early 2020, they went after late-night talk show host Ivan Urgant over a joke nativity scene, forcing him to apologise for “insulting religious believers”. Then came complaints against singer Philipp Kirkorov, rapper Morgenshtern, comedian Guram Demidov, and many other celebrities.
In early 2023, Kormukhin made a widely publicised attempt to launch a political party called “For the Family!” He invited a roster of figures to sit on its political council, including Leonid Reshetnikov, a retired lieutenant general in Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service; pro-Kremlin war correspondent Anastasia Mikhailovskaya; and Anna Shafran, a presenter on the Russian Orthodox Church’s Spas TV. However, the Justice Ministry ultimately refused to register the party on formal grounds, as several of its co-founders were undergoing bankruptcy proceedings.
Putin-worshipping patriotism
These days, Sorok Sorokov offers a blend of Putin-worshipping, pro-war patriotism and cantankerous litigiousness. The movement is not registered as a legal entity and, consequently, has no official membership. The only available statistics come from Kormukhin himself. In 2017, he claimed the movement had around 200 “active members” and some 15,000–20,000 “supporters.”
To expand his base, Kormukhin — who frequently mentions that he has nine children — has leaned into Vladimir Putin’s “demographic campaign.” In 2023, he launched the “All-Russian Family Parade,” which has since held four waves across 140 municipalities. Kormukhin claims these events drew more than 400,000 participants, though the photos published on his website suggest otherwise.
In the radical public sphere, Sorok Sorokov has been eclipsed by Russian Community, a larger and more aggressive group with ties to the Russian Orthodox Church. At high-profile religious processions in Moscow and St. Petersburg this September, where Patriarch Kirill demonstrated his ability to mobilise supporters, Sorok Sorokov and Russian Community symbols occasionally appeared side by side. Earlier, in February 2025, the deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archbishop Savva Tutunov, attended a Russian Community congress to deliver the Patriarch’s blessing. Kirill’s logic seems clear: the Church is hedging its bets on the bigger, more successful player.
Pushed aside by competitors, the ageing Sorok Sorokov movement is stepping up its self-promotion. On Putin’s birthday, Kormukhin and his allies zealously thanked the “supreme leader” in an Instagram post. “Much of what Russian traditionalists could only dream of became state policy under Vladimir Putin,” they wrote. “When Russia was asked to abandon itself and live by the rules of a foreign world order, Putin said ‘no.’ He took responsibility for the country and the people, and defended Russia’s right to remain itself.” In interviews, Kormukhin has suggested that he sees Putin as a “tsar” and the founder of a new dynasty.
Sorok Sorokov has long been involved in fueling Russian aggression against Ukraine. During the height of the Maidan protests in January 2014, members took part in “guarding” a set of holy relics — the “Gifts of the Magi” — during their tour to Kyiv and Crimea.
Once war broke out in eastern Ukraine, the movement sent “humanitarian aid” to pro-Russian militants, and “Donbas veterans” began appearing at church-building “hot spots” in Moscow alongside Sorok Sorokov members.
Dmitry Shifrin, who heads the Sorok Sorokov-founded charity “Russian Help A Russian”, fought against Ukraine as part of the paramilitary arm of the Russian Imperial Movement, a white supremacist group designated by the U.S. State Department as global terrorists. At least seven members of Sorok Sorokov have died fighting in Ukraine, and their names are now included in the movement’s memorial prayer lists.
Meanwhile, those who haven’t gone off to fight spend their time writing denunciations. Sorok Sorokov has created a dedicated “human rights centre” for this purpose, headed by Kormukhin’s associate Georgy Soldatov. Ostensibly tasked with defending “traditional values” and the “feelings of religious believers”, the group acts as though it imagines itself to be an Orthodox morality police.
In addition to filing police reports against Rouletka (a random video-chat platform) and media personality Ksenia Sobchak, members scour social media sites for LGBTQ+ people living in Russia and then denounce them. They’ve also targeted “Satanists”, teenagers involved in furry fandom, and “self-proclaimed healers”, while demanding criminal investigations into cultural figures — such as rapper Kanye West and film director Andrey Zvyagintsev — for “insulting the feelings of believers”.
The Kremlev connection
Even during this period of decline, Sorok Sorokov does not appear to be struggling financially. Uniforms, promotional materials, events, trips, “aid for the special military operation”, and banners for religious processions all require considerable investment. Yet the movement remains unregistered and lacks an official bank account. Its website suggests sending donations to the Sberbank card of Alexey Andreevich K. — presumably one of Andrey Kormukhin’s sons.
According to public records, Kormukhin Sr. heads the “Sorok Sorokov” charitable foundation (which does not accept private donations) and founded the nonprofit “Family Parade”. Several other companies are registered to his other sons. Serafim Kormukhin heads the construction firm “Serafim”, which reported 12.2 million rubles in turnover in 2025; Aleksandr Kormukhin heads “Legion-MK”, an LLC with no employees and zero profits; and Ignatiy Kormukhin co-founded the aforementioned “Russian Help A Russian” foundation.
Serafim Kormukhin is also the general director of “Russian Village Centre”, a nonprofit registered in Serpukhov (Moscow region) that the “Sorok Sorokov” foundation co-founded with “Russian Cross”, a charity established by Putin-linked oligarch Umar Kremlev.
Kremlev made international headlines last month when ProPublica revealed that he had secretly financed Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding celebrations in the Bahamas. The revelation sparked a major scandal, but Trump Jr. and his wife maintained that Kremlev had simply given them “an extraordinarily generous wedding gift”.
Like Sorok Sorokov, Kremlev has long-standing ties to the boxing world. He is the president of the International Boxing Association (IBA), and has headed the Russian Boxing Federation (RBF) since 2016. The IBA, a Gazprom-sponsored organisation, has been stripped of its International Olympic Committee accreditation. The Russian Boxing Federation, meanwhile, is unofficially linked to Russia’s Federal Protective Service and sponsored by companies under Kremlev’s control, including several leading gambling companies and the car dealer Rolf.
Kremlev’s business partner, Maxim Kotov, co-founded “Russian Cross” and sits on its board. Kotov also co-founded the betting company Pari (a Russian Boxing Federation sponsor), which raked in 143.6 billion rubles in revenue last year.
As SotaProject reported, the executive director of “Russian Cross” is Yulia Nazarova, a member of Putin’s Human Rights Council who served as one of his official election campaign proxies in 2024. Nazarova, who took up the post in May, previously headed “Food Bank Rus”, a pioneering charity that collects defective and expiring goods from major retailers and then redistributes them to the needy — or sends them to the “SVO zone” as humanitarian aid.
The “Russian Cross” website lists a project called “Russian Village” among its charitable programmes. It would appear that “Russian Cross” and Andrey Kormukhin’s “Sorok Sorokov” foundation co-founded the nonprofit “Russian Village Centre” to bring this idea to life.
The fact that these aggressive promoters of “traditional Orthodox values” are being fed by the betting industry is ironic: the 50th canon of the Sixth Ecumenical Council strictly prohibits gambling.
Ultimately, Sorok Sorokov embodies a number of systemic vices in contemporary Russia’s church, politics, and business worlds. It merges a gangland dedication to unwritten rules, a cult of physical strength and martial arts, and superficial piety with Soviet nostalgia, submission to authoritarian power, a zeal for denunciations, and corrupt financial schemes. Yet Sorok Sorokov remains a paper tiger: not radical enough for the state, its members serve as a prop for imposing a pseudo-Orthodoxy that bends to the party line.