The Moscow Regional Court has been the venue recently for a closely watched trial in the BORN (Bojové organizace ruských nacionalistů - Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists) case. Members of the group have been charged with murdering several anti-Fascists, attorneys, immigrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia, a journalist and judges.

The trial is taking place in a tense atmosphere, with increased incidents of violent racist crimes and immigrant criminal activity on the one hand and the Kremlin nervously following the testimonies of the defendants on the other, as they are claiming they were paid by the inner circle of Russian President Vladimir Putin and that their criminal plans were ideologically blessed by him. Members of the gang murdered Federal Judge Eduard Chuvashov; anti-Fascist activists Ivan Khutorsky and Ilya Djaparidze; a member of an organization of Caucasian radican nationals called the Black Cranes, Rasul Khlaliov; world champion in That boxing Muslim Abdullayev; taxi driver Soso Khachikyan; and worker Salakhedin Azizov.

BORN members Maxim Baklagin, Mikhail Volkov, Vyacheslav Isayev a Nikita Tikhonov have confessed to the murders. On 19 November one of the key hearings in the trial took place during which one of the neo-Nazi bosses, Tikhonov, confessed to murdering the famous attorney Stanislav Merkelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova, who were shot dead in broad daylight on a busy street in the center of the Russian capital.

Tikhonov also confessed to being the main ideologue of the neo-Nazi gang. His wife, who participated in the murders, gave shocking testimony about the connection of the gang to Vladislav Surkov, one of Putin's closest co-workers. "I am one of the founders and organizers of BORN," Tikhonov testified. "Our organization was founded in 2007, when I met with my friend Ilya Goryachev. At that time a warrant had been issued for my arrest and I was in hiding."

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Tikhonov, a graduate in history at Moscow State University who worked at an advertising and PR agency as a copywriter, was sought on suspicion of having murdered the anti-Fascist Alexander Ryukhin. A group of neo-Nazis stabbed Ryukhin to death near the Domodyedovska metro station in Moscow. Ilya Goryachev's reputation was that he had good contacts in Putin's administration and participated in regular consultations at the Kremlin on the topic of nationalist movements. He had been in hiding in Serbia, where he was arrested and extradited to Russia.