Actors dressed as warriors fight during a knight festival in St. Petersburg, Sunday 16 April 2006. EPA/ANATOLY MALTSEV

A new “cyber warriors” initiative was launched on Tuesday in the Pskov region of northwestern Russia to target online Russophobes, independent news outlet RusNews has reported.

The region’s authorities said the “cyber warriors”, who refer to themselves as a “druzhina”, the personal guard of chieftains in early East Slavic societies such as Kyivan Rus, would search the Internet for so-called Russophobic statements, criticism of the Russian Armed Forces, and signs of “extremism”.

Yury Gryaznov, head of the region’s Special Programmes Department, announced the initiative at a regional meeting on law and order chaired by Pskov region Governor Mikhail Vedernikov, who said that “special attention must be paid to countering extremism online”.

The “cyber warriors” monitoring group was initially proposed by the pro-Kremlin Popular Front movement, who called for volunteers to scour the internet for so-called Russophobia and negative or “fake” information about the Russian military, RusNews said.

The Kremlin has long attempted to crack down on free speech on the internet, with numerous people being prosecuted and imprisoned for statements they have made online. Russian dissident Alexander Skobov was sentenced to 16 years imprisonment on terrorism charges for a social media post in which he called for missile strikes against Russia.