Vladimir Putin’s man in Australia gunned his 4WD through the tunnels under Sydney, determined to reach the Russian consulate in Woollahra where he could remain out of prison and continue broadcasting pro-Moscow propaganda.
“The Aussie Cossack”, Simeon Boikov, was on parole for breaching a suppression order when he was told by police he was wanted for questioning over the alleged assault of a pro-Ukrainian protester. Rather than face arrest on the eve of a planned trip to Moscow in December, he drove straight to the Russian consulate.
Now Boikov has had his main channel silenced and has urged the fearsome Wagner Group to capture Australians fighting for Ukraine so he can be traded in a prisoner swap.
Simeon Boikov, known as “The Aussie Cossack”, is hiding from warrants in Sydney’s Russian consulate and has appealed to the notorious Wagner Group for help.Credit: Wolter Peeters
“The Russians don’t plan to surrender me, to give me up, this is not the Ecuadorians,” Boikov told the Herald from the consulate, referring to the years-long extradition fight of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
“I’m not living out of a suitcase.”
The 33-year-old Australian has been holed up since December in a modest apartment in the blonde-bricked Russian consulate overlooking the finessed lawns of wealthy Woollahra.
The anti-vaccination Boikov leant out of the window to update the Herald last week after YouTube permanently terminated his channel. He claims it was because he shared comments by South Australian senator Alex Antic about COVID-19 vaccines and excess deaths.
Boikov and Russian general Sergey Bobrov pose with a group described by Boikov as “Cossacks from Australia at a Spetsnaz training facility in Russia”. Credit: Svoboda Alliance NSW Inc
“Well there’s good news,” Boikov said.
“I was in shackles. I couldn’t say vaccine, Pfizer, Moderna whatever, I had to go soft on Russia-Ukraine.”
Boikov said being banned from YouTube was not a disaster, but three months ago he fled his comfortable life in Breakfast Point hoping to keep his broadcast alive.
“I was driving on the Anzac Bridge, I rang Day Street [police], they connected me to the inspector he said ‘come in, hand yourself in, you’re going back inside, parole wants ya’,” Boikov said.
“I said ‘yeah nah’. I gunned it to the consulate hoping I wouldn’t get picked up.”
Boikov had been given 10 months in prison for breaching a suppression order and naming an alleged paedophile at an anti-lockdown rally in May 2022. He was paroled and booked a ticket to Russia.
Then he spotted a pro-Ukraine protest at Town Hall and decided to start filming.
An older man confronted Australia’s most vocal pro-Putinist, and Boikov pushed him away. The older man was injured tumbling down the steps.
Police charged Boikov with assault and causing actual bodily harm. His passport and parole were revoked on the eve of the flight to Moscow.
“The government want me, want me badly. I can be of no use if I’m in prison bail denied or parole or whatever. I can’t broadcast,” he said.
“They call me Putin’s patriot, Putin’s main man in Australia, do we trust the Australian police to give me a fair go after what they did to me last time?”
A magistrate convicted Boikov in absentia in February and issued a second arrest warrant.
Boikov became notorious for visiting Russia, where he posed with guns, and for celebrating Putin’s growing authoritarianism while dressed in military fatigues.
Boikov’s apartment in the Russian consulate overlooks street signs and posters on other diplomatic buildings supporting Ukraine.Credit: Wolter Peeters
Born in Sydney but of Russian heritage, Boikov visited his ancestral homeland in 2014 and met one of the three Russian nationalists later convicted in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment for downing the passenger airliner MH17 over Ukraine.
Boikov refuses to accept a European court’s ruling that pro-Russian forces committed the mass murder of 298 people including 38 Australians. He called it a “tragedy” but believes it was an accident.
On return to Sydney, he was questioned by multiple security agencies before being released.
But his following grew dramatically during the pandemic as he railed against vaccines and lockdowns.
Simeon Boikov meets Igor Girkin, aka Strelkov, one of three Russian nationalists convicted in absentia of downing flight MH17.Credit: Svoboda Alliance NSW Inc
“I think he was hitting the prominent core themes of the freedom rallies: the government as the problem, ‘they’re trying to control you’, the anti-vaccine mandates,” said Dr Josh Roose, a researcher of right-wing extremism.
“He certainly exploited the lockdown to increase his profile.”
Boikov would drive around Sydney with the Eureka flag flapping behind his car, filming confrontations with police as they pulled him over and debated public health orders.
Police took a special interest in Boikov as he whipped up an audience online and crowds during anti-lockdown rallies.
“They were handing out infringements like confetti, load him up, get him off the road’,” Boikov said.
Boikov’s official request for citizenship and asylum from “hostile state – Australia”.
“The police turned me into what I am.”
Roose said Boikov had come full circle since the Ukraine invasion, pivoting once more to become Australia’s number one Putin propagandist.
“He’s no Julian Assange … He’s a cheerleader for Russian fascism and anti-democratic forces in Australia,” Roose said.
“The Russians may well have chosen a more articulate figurehead, I think he’s an accidental one, I think they don’t know what to do with him.”
YouTube’s ban has relegated Boikov to obscure corners of the internet where his remaining tens of thousands of followers laud Putin’s bloody invasion and spread unhinged conspiracy theories.
If Boikov reaches Russia he said he would avoid the conflict zone because it would be a “waste of talent” to hand him a Kalashnikov.
“The fighting for me is all on the political front and informational front, that’s my interest,” he said.
The Herald understands diplomatic discussions are under way about how to get Boikov out of Australia, but he said his links to the Kremlin were overblown.
Boikov with priests and officials in Russia in 2015 holding the flag of Novorussia, an unrecognised area of southern Ukraine that Russia claims.
“It demoralises me sometimes, I just wish someone [from Russian officialdom] would say ‘well done for f— sake’,” he laughed. “What saves me is there is no formal link to the Russian government.”
If Boikov is not a useful trade, he may be forced to leave the consulate and finish his time in prison in Australia. Only then will he be able to get on a plane to Moscow.
Inside the consulate hallways, diplomatic staff keep a distance. His wife visits him each day to cook.
Boikov said that “distance” is probably for everyone’s benefit.
“The Russian government … see me as unpredictable, unhinged, uncontrolled. That’s why I have gotten away with it,” he said.
“Am I an agent of influence? Yes. But am I an agent of foreign influence? No.”
The Russian consulate was approached for comment.
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