A split has occurred within the ranks of Russia's main far-right group, the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI), according to a September 15, 2008 article in the national daily "Kommersant." A meeting of 30 regional branches of the DPNI--a group linked with anti-migrant violence in Kondopoga and other cities--rejected the proposal of its leader Aleksandr Belov to ally with more "respectable" political parties. Both sides of the dispute blame the government, which they accuse of engineering the split within their ranks. The delegates then declared that Mr. Belov is no longer the DPNI's leader because he allied the group with members of the small party "Narod" which has taken part in liberal opposition rallies. Since July, Mr. Belov has been trying to transition the DPNI into a mainstream party, allying it with the Narod party and the extremist nationalist Great Russia party of Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's ambassador to NATO. He blamed the split of Russia's secret services, which he claimed "hired around 30 skinheads for a little bit of money" to engineer his ouster.

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