I had traveled to Russia in July to learn about the vision of the Surgeon and his fellow Nochniye Volki. A charismatic showman with a penchant for provocative bombast, the motorcycle club's leader is perhaps Russia's most recognizable nationalist star. Over the past decade, he has transformed a once-underground biker gang into a self-styled vanguard of patriotic holy warriors, reportedly 5,000 strong, with close ties to the Kremlin. In the Russian media, he can regularly be heard trumpeting the country's greatness while warning that its enemies — America, Europe, homosexuals, liberals, traitorous "fifth columnists" — intend to undermine Mother Russia. He and the other Night Wolves often hold motorcycle rallies to promote Russian patriotism and Orthodox Christianity, making rumbling pilgrimages to churches and holy sites. He has vowed to defend the Kremlin from Maidan-inspired protesters and has pledged to die for Vladimir Putin, the country's president. He has famously declared that "wherever the Night Wolves are, that should be considered Russia." Recently, the club held a three-day anti-NATO rally in Slovakia. Lately, the Surgeon has taken to praising Stalin.

Western reporters have dubbed the Night Wolves either "Russia's Hells Angels" or, because of their muscular patriotism, a crucial source of "Russian soft power." But such descriptions fall short. In late February 2014, at the beginning of Russia's takeover of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, the Surgeon was spotted on a flight to Crimea. On the day of his arrival, the Night Wolves were working alongside pro-Russia militias, setting up roadblocks in Sevastopol. In March, according to the U.S. government, they stormed a naval facility, with the Surgeon personally helping to coordinate "the confiscation of Ukrainian weapons with the Russian forces." On March 18th, Russia formally annexed the peninsula. Whether the Night Wolves' leader acted on his own initiative or on orders from Russian officials remains unknown, but it seems unlikely the Kremlin would not sanction, at least tacitly, an operation of such consequence. (The Surgeon soon received a medal for "the liberation of the Crimea and Sevastopol" in Moscow, Russian media reported.) After fighting broke out in eastern Ukraine weeks later, a Night Wolves chapter joined pro-Russia militias battling the country's army — a grinding conflict that continues and has killed nearly 8,000 thus far. The Night Wolves have been running "humanitarian convoys" into the region and, I witness, serving as a police force in Luhansk, one of two self-declared separatist republics.

"For the first time, we showed resistance to the global Satanism, the growing savagery of Western Europe, the rush to consumerism that denies all spirituality, the destruction of traditional values, all this homosexual talk, this American democracy," the Surgeon proudly declared in March.

Band member Nadya Tolokonnikova says of attending New York anti-police brutality rallies: 'We feel this situation is our situation as well'
The gang's rhetoric echoes both a growing wave of nationalism in Russia and a sharp rightward turn in the country's politics. Under Putin's tenure, the Kremlin has jailed journalists and opposition figures, banned "gay propaganda" and crafted ersatz political parties that provide a veneer of self-governance. It has deployed its vast propaganda apparatus — state-controlled radio and newspapers, but above all, television — to fan patriotic fervor. "Russia is like the Kingdom of the Crooked Mirrors," a liberal Muscovite tells me over dinner one night, referring to a Soviet-era fairy tale in which a king uses warped looking glasses to brainwash his people.