HOODS HOODS HOODS | 01

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UKRAINE—Three months into Russia’s war on Ukraine. I’m crouched in the back of a pick-up truck with five young football hooligans. Forest fighters mostly. Each of them is armed with a rifle. We’re headed to a military guard-post on the outskirts of Kyiv. The hools have loaded magazines attached to the front of their vests and tattoos etched in their skin from head to toe. Most of them wear boonie hats and black sunglasses with their camouflage fatigues.

All these lads are members of Hoods Hoods Klan (Hoods), Ukraine’s only anti-fascist football hooligan firm. They support the now kaput football club, Arsenal Kyiv. Their name comes from the act of pulling up their hoods as they attack fascists. In the beginning, when they saw their enemies, they’d all shout “Hoods! Hoods! Hoods!”. For more than 10 years now, Hoods has been fighting their far-right hooligan rivals in the streets, and fields, and forests of Ukraine. Now, they’re headed out to fight Russian soldiers on the frontlines of the war.

In the truck we’re moving rapid, doing about 60mph on a narrow dusty road that’s littered with potholes. We all sit wedged shoulder-to-shoulder in the bed of the truck as it sprints ahead. I have a rifle-butt stuck in my ribs on one side and a barrel bashing my knee on the other. The truck begins to bounce as we hit more potholes. The hooligans all laugh before instinctively linking arms and gripping each other’s hands to avoid being flung out the back.

“We’re just football hooligans with an anti-racist position,” one of them says to me as we drive on. “We have a lot of different people, but we’re all anti-racist!”

His name is Konstantin. He’s compact, lean, and constantly either grinning or frowning—nothing in between. He seems proud as he explains what he and his friends are about. “We were the one firm in Ukraine who publicly said that we are anti-racist. The only one. This caused a lot of trouble for us.”

Before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24^th, Hoods would take part in huge fistfights with hooligans from rival football clubs across Ukraine. If they couldn’t attend organised fights, they’d attack their rivals on the metro, in the streets, at football games, or wherever. Almost every other firm in the country is their enemy. The only firms allied with Hoods are other anti-fascist hooligans from across Europe, such as Germany’s Saint Pauli’s Rotsport hooligans and the Partizan Minsk hooligans from Belarus.

Since the firm formed in 2006, Hoods have always been outnumbered. This is because political street violence across Eastern Europe is often aligned with the far-right. But what Hoods lack in numbers, they make up for in organised violence. The lads are known across Ukraine for being notorious fighters. Even their enemies admit that they’re tough.

Hoods have no qualms in asserting their actions wherever they want. There are dozens and dozens of videos online of the lads engaged in wild brawls in broad daylight. In fields, in the middle of the road, on a train, on a bus, outside of a shopping centre—everywhere. There’s even footage of them leaping out of their own stand at a football match, running across the pitch, and trying to fight with the neo-Nazi ultras of Dynamo Kyiv.

Hoods is known as a serious hooligan firm. Currently though, in its new form, Hoods is an armed unit fighting against the Russian soldiers that invaded their country and tore it apart. The lads traded fists and feet for assault rifles and RPGs.

Suddenly, as we zip along in the pick-up truck, we’re all shunted forward. The truck pulls to a quick stop. Anton, who’s driving, jumps out and points at some faded graffiti on a nearby wall: 1925 in white and black bubble writing.

“It’s Arsenal Kyiv,” he says, grinning. “It’s the year when it formed.”

Anton, 35, is the unspoken head of Hoods. Their top boy, in hooligan parlance. He’s friendly, intelligent, and doesn’t mince his words. He’s the kind of guy you’d want on your side in a fight. He’s not huge, or scary, or acting tough, but he’s got that demeanour of a man who knows how to conduct himself. He’s also got a flattened boxer’s nose, a deep scar between his eyes, and ears ready to cauliflower. I like him a lot. It’s somehow instantly clear that he’s a man who lives by his word. No drama, just action.

Like the rest of the lads, Anton regularly trained combat sports before the war started. Now they’re all training with high calibre firearms as they prepare to head to east Ukraine, where the war is still raging.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Reporting from 2022