On Friday of last week the State Department announced its decision to designate
the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist
Organization (SDGT) pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224. The State
Department has also designated Fredrik Vejdeland, the group’s leader and head
of its national council, Pär Öberg, head of NRM’ parliamentary branch, and Leif
Robert Eklund, coordinator for various NRM divisions in Sweden.





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COUNTERPOINT BRIEF: US DESIGNATES NORDIC RESISTANCE MOVEMENT AS SPECIALLY
DESIGNATED GLOBAL TERRORIST ORGANIZATION


(New York, N.Y.) — On Friday of last week the State Department announced its
decision to designate the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) as a Specially
Designated Global Terrorist Organization (SDGT) pursuant to Executive Order
(E.O.) 13224. The State Department has also designated Fredrik Vejdeland, the
group’s leader and head of its national council, Pär Öberg, head of NRM’
parliamentary branch, and Leif Robert Eklund, coordinator for various NRM
divisions in Sweden.



NRM is the largest Neo-Nazi movement in Sweden but also operates in Norway,
Denmark, Iceland, and Finland (where it has been banned since 2020). The
group’s extreme ideology is defined by racism and antisemitism as well as
anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQI+ sentiment. Its violent activities have targeted
gay people, ideological opponents, and Muslim refugees.



The State Department designation will serve to block all U.S. property and
interests in property owned by those designated and prohibits U.S. persons from
engaging in transactions with them.



Expert Analysis:



CEP Senior Advisor Alexander Ritzmann:



“The Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) has been a hub of violent right-wing
extremism in Europe and beyond for decades, and its designation as a Specially
Designated Global Terrorist Organization (SDGT) by the U.S. State department
will be helpful in disrupting some of their activities. The EU should strongly
consider designating the NRM as well and adding them to theEU terrorist list
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The NRM is part of a network that includes Russian violent extreme-right
organizations like the SDGT “Russian Imperial Movement ' (RIM), which is
affiliated with Russian military units like the ‘Rusich Sabotage Assault
Reconnaissance Group
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—which has been a part of Russia’s war against Ukraine since 2014. The EU and
its member states should therefore prioritize investigations into the NRM
network and its collaborations with Rusich andsimilar
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militant groups. These actors could pose a high-level terrorist threat in the
EU due to their access to combat-trainedextremists
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and to state-of-the-art firearms and explosives.”



CEP Researcher and Content Review Specialist Joshua Fisher-Birch:



“Several U.S.-based extreme right groups and movements admire the Nordic
Resistance Movement (NRM). Americans have previously traveled to meet NRM
members, and it’s not uncommon to find the group’s propaganda on Telegram
channels affiliated with the American extreme right. In 2022, an American
neo-Nazi publisher dedicated a special issue of their magazine to covering the
NRM anddonated
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$1,000 to the group, which would now be prohibited following the SDGT
designation. NRM’s SDGT designation is an important step toward severing some
of the transnational links between white supremacist groups.”



Nordic Resistance Movement



The Nordic Resistance Movement’s forerunner, the White Aryan Resistance
Network operated in Sweden throughout the early 1990’s, robbing banks to fund
their violent activities, until the NRM was officially founded in 1997. Since
then, the group has carried out violent attacks using smoking flares, pepper
spray, tear gas, knives, and guns. Its members have killed at least three
people since the 1980s. Its stated goal is to replace the Nordic democracies
with a “united ethnic Nordic nation.”



Connections to Russian Extremist Groups



This is only the second time the State Department has applied the SDGT label
to a white supremacist group. The first group to earn the distinction is the
ultranationalist Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), which was designated by the
Trump administration in 2020. RIM has worked to establish an international
network of white supremacist groups, and is reported to have provided
paramilitary training to two Swedish men with connections to NRM in 2016 at
their Partisan Building in St. Petersburg. The two men and an accomplice were
latercharged
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in connection with three bomb incidents in Sweden: one at a refugee center,
one at a far-left café, and a third at a campground which was housing migrants.



More recently, the two groups have met and expressed shared values and
support: RIM leader Stanislav Vorobyev has said both groups share a common
enemy in “Jewish oligarchs in Ukraine,” and NRM leader Simon Lindberg has
confirmed a friendly relationship between the two groups. NRM was also among
the groups invited by RIM to join its “World-National Conservative Movement”—an
effort that has also caused RIM to make contact with various U.S. organizations.



CEP Resources:



CEP’s Report
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Nordic Resistance Movement



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