The Ukrainian government had reported that a massive brawl had broken out in Kharkiv, which led to the police detaining 257 teenagers who were involved in it.

It has come to light recently that the teens who wreaked havoc in the streets were inspired by the infamous Phantom Troupe from Hunter x Hunter.

This militia group called themselves Redan PMC, with Redan being derived from the Japanese name of the Phantom Troupe, Genei Ryodan. Meanwhile the PMC was an acronym for Private Military Company, inspired by the Wagner mercenary group.

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However, the similarities don’t end there. The members also sport a jacket with a spider and number 4 on it. In the anime and manga, the number was initially sported by Hisoka Morrow, and once he left, it was taken up by Kalluto Zoldyk.

Other than Kharkiv, the Redan subculture teens were also rumored to have presence in the streets of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, causing much concern for the police forces in the country.

According to sources online, the Redan gangs first appeared in Russia in the city of Moscow. While they were believed to have formed to tackle the organized gangs of football fans, there have been instances which pointed out that Redan members attacked people of non-Russian origins.

While the Moscow Police stepped in and detained people for being involved with the group, even Putin was supposedly concerned about the activities of Redan PMC.

This has prompted the Ukrainian authorities to say that the Russians have been trying to disrupt the peace and spread out an already thin police force by sending forth the negative influence of Redan into Ukraine.

According to the authorities, the Russian propaganda was spread using Telegram channels. Police claimed that they arrested a boy and a girl, aged 14 and 15 respectively, from the district of Darnytsia in Kyiv, under the suspicion of being the coordinators of the Redan subculture in the city.

“The instigators were a 15-year-old girl from Kyiv who, for the sake of hype, created a group on a social network for supporters of a subculture that came to Ukraine from Russia, and a 14-year-old boy – the administrator of another group in a Telegram channel, who called his peers to a conflict meeting,” Oleksandr Mishchenko

The police even asked parents to be more mindful of what their kids were doing, as they feared that Russia might conduct a psychological and information operation and involve teenagers in illegal activities.

“Since the beginning of February, this is not the first case of provoking mass fights among teenagers in Ukraine. A new youth subculture came to us from Russia at the beginning of this year and is aimed at using children to destabilize the internal situation in the state. Parents should pay more attention to their children’s hobbies and interests in order to prevent the child from participating in propaganda activities.”

Incidentally, brawls were organized by the Redan on the other side of the border too at the same time it was taking place in Ukraine. That said, both police forces are moving in hard to curb the influence of this Phantom Troupe inspired militia group.

Source: Twitter 1, 2