An ultra pro-Russian patriot has mocked Scott Morrison’s plan to send Ukraine missiles, saying the Prime Minister is ‘a complete fool’ who has put Australia’s national security at risk.
Simeon Boikov, who calls himself the ‘Aussie Cossack’, said Mr Morrison’s pledge to fund missiles for Ukraine had made Australia a ‘target’ for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Tuesday, Mr Morrison pledged $70 million to buy military equipment and weapons for Ukraine as part of a co-ordinated Western effort to help its armed forces resist Russia’s invasion.
‘This is very serious,’ Mr Boikov told Daily Mail Australia.
‘We are on the verge of nuclear war. Putin is not mucking around.’
Simeon Boikov, who calls himself the Aussie Cossack, claims Scott Morrison has acted like ‘a complete fool’ funding missiles for Ukraine and provoking Vladimir Putin to retaliate against Australia
Boikov’s wife of one year Katia (above) is a ‘very staunch’ supporter of Russia’s actions and is ‘disgusted’ with the West’s opposition to Putin and support for Ukraine which he says is being liberated not invaded
Mr Boikov, who has tens of thousands of followers on his multiple social media channels, said most Australians would be against Mr Morrison dragging Australia into a war.
‘We shouldn’t be poking the bear’, he said.
‘Putin will have won within a few days … this is the end of the war (but) if other countries get involved it’s World War III.
‘I personally think Australia is the best country in the world … but Putin is not bluffing, I can’t stress that enough.’
Mr Boikov says his glamorous wife Katia is even more ‘staunch … and disgusted with the way the West’ has turned against Russia. The pair married in a Russian Orthodox wedding last year.
Simeon Boikov (above in Cossack uniform in Russia) says NSW police have imposed a firearms prohibition order on him ‘same as on bikies and criminals’ which he is fighting to have dismissed
Simeon Boikov (above) says Australia should not be provoking Vladimir Putin by funding $70m of missiles and military equipment to Ukraine because the Russian President ‘is not bluffing’
Six days since Putin began Russia’s military offensive against Ukraine, Mr Boikov declared ‘I am on war time’ and ‘on Moscow time’ and said monitoring actions in Russia and Ukraine for his Australian audiences had left him with little sleep.
The 32-year-old construction professional, aspiring politician and founder of his patriotic Russian Australian Aussie Cossack movement, is keen for Australians to see the current crisis as he does, with Putin as a ‘liberator’ not an invader or ‘occupier’.
With a St George ribbon marking Russia’s victory over Germany in World War II pinned to his suit, Mr Boikov spoke exclusively with Daily Mail Australia at his bayside inner western apartment block
The one-time student at St Andrews Cathedral School and at Trinity Grammar, where he played in the second row and as a flanker in the rugby firsts, said he believed Mr Morrison was sabre rattling to appear strong going into a federal election.
‘It’s because he’s so unpopular and seen as weak and incompetent,’ Mr Boikov said.
Simeon Boikov (above, left) has more than 30,000 followers of his Telegraph channel posts which spruik his claims that Russia is liberating Ukraine rather than invading the country
Simeon Boikov’s Aussie Cossack movement employs the double-headed eagle as one of its symbols, and he is currently on a high alert war footing as the situation in Ukraine continues
Boikov says that Putin ‘is not bluffing’ and that Australian PM Scott Morrison is foolish to provoke the Russian President by promising to fund missiles for Ukraine
‘It’s a joke. He’s way out of his pay grade and should stick to the floods.
On Tuesday Mr Morrison announced Australia was pledging $105 million to help Ukraine, including $70 million in military equipment.
‘We’re talking missiles, we’re talking ammunition, we’re talking supporting them in their defence of their homeland in Ukraine,’ he said.
‘I’m not going to go into the specifics of that because I don’t plan to give the Russian government a heads-up about what’s coming their way, but I can assure them it’s coming your way.’
Mr Boikov said it was foolish to get involved in ‘financing death, destruction, tragedy and bloodshed (in Ukraine)’.
‘Is it a PR stunt?’ he said.
Mr Boikov claims to be a student of Russian and European history who believes ‘Nazi’ inspired battalions have been waging war against Russian speakers in Ukraine, since a political overthrow of government in 2014.
He also claims Ukrainian nationalist battalions, descended from local swastika and ‘SS’ wearing divisions from the second world war, still operate in modern Ukraine.
This argument, also used by Putin to justify the invasion, has been widely debunked by world leaders and experts as Russian propaganda
Despite admitting ‘a lot of crazies’ follow him’, Mr Boikov said 98 per cent of his serious followers believe Australia ‘should not be committing missiles or financing a war against Russia’.
He described the West’s campaign to get behind Ukraine and oppose Russia as ‘virtue signalling” and derided ‘Instagram models …. who suddenly overnight become interested in the war’ and put the yellow and blue colours of the Ukraine flag on their Instagram pages like ‘they’re Parramatta Eels supporters”.
‘I am against war, but the war has replaced Covid as the latest fear mongering campaign,’ he said.
Simeon Boikov (above) at his wedding to Russian wife Katia, and his brother Gabriel in February last year
The self-styled ‘Aussie Cossack’ claims Ukraine has been the aggressor against Russian speaking people within its borders with ‘Nazi’ like military units descended from WWII forces
‘Pro-choice’ Mr Boikov also campaigned against lockdowns over the last two years but denies he is an anti-vaxxer.
He currently has an annulment application before Burwood Local Court of a charge of not complying with a Covid-19 public health order, and said he and his wife both had Covid last December and it was ‘like a cold’.
He formed the self-styled unit called Australian Cossacks or Zabaikal Cossack Society of Australia to honour the region both sides of his family come from in Russia, which borders Mongolia.
A third generation Russian Australian on his Russian Orthodox priest father’s side, Mr Boikov said his parents had a strict Russian language rule at home and he couldn’t speak English at kindergarten.
At school he was ‘ a leader’, always ready to defend his ethnic identity, challenge teachers’ versions of Western history and loved playing rugby union and other sport.
Aged 18, he insisted in trading his comfortable Sydney life for an austere, monastic existence studying at a seminary in Lubyanka, Moscow near KGB headquarters.
When he returned home four years later, he began working in the building industry and formed Australian Cossacks.
Simeon Boikov says he has never trained in the military in either Russia or Australia but wears Cossack uniforms to honour descendants of Russian horsemen who fought with Tsarist forces during the Russian civil war
Simeon Boikov has mocked sanctions and bans on items like Russian vodka (above, right) by western countries including Australia and says Scott Morrison is ‘a complete fool’ for offering to fund missiles for Ukraine
He made his own documentary about the history of Cossacks, descendants of Russian horsemen who fought with Tsarist forces during the Russian civil war, and who have supported Russia in the long-running Russo-Ukrainian War.
He met Ekaterina Olshannikova, who works at the Russian visa centre, four years ago and they married in February 2022.
Mr Boikov described his two younger brothers and sister, a Sydney University lecturer, a chef and a trainee teacher as ‘normal’.
He moved into his current apartment block because his wife’s family come from the bayside inner western suburb, where he keeps a collection of Cossack memorabilia, including uniforms , he had collected over the years.
He said he had never trained in the Australian or Russian military and his army uniforms were Cossack only and that he didn’t own any firearms, but had been photographed with weapons in Russia, where he had once met Vladimir Putin ‘very, very briefly … he was very amicable and nice’.
Mr Boikov told Daily Mail Australia that NSW Police had imposed a firearms prohibition order upon him the ‘same as bikies and criminals’ six months ago, but he had never owned a weapon in this country.
He was very critical of the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, saying it was his empty threat of arming his country with nuclear weapons that had pushied Putin into invading.
Simeon Boikov and his wife Katia (above) have been together four years and were married in a Russian Orthodox ceremony in Sydney in February last year
Russian Cossack dancers *(above) at Simeon Boikov’s premiere at Burwood cinema of a documentary he made about hundreds of years of history of the Cossacks
‘It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and he (Zelensky) later said it was a joke. Who jokes about that. It’s like saying on a plane you have a bomb.
‘Now Ukraine has opened up the jails and handed out Kalahsnikovs and Bazookas to prisoners so in Kyiv there are small arms battles between looters instead of handing out food.
‘There’s no food in the shops. It will end up in more bloodshed. The Russians need to come in to restore order.’
Boikov mocked the Russian vodka ban by alcohol retailers such as BWS, Dan Murphy’s and Liquorland, saying sanctions had acted against Australia’s interests in the past and now only acted to push Russia and China closer together.
He said Australia’s massive iron ore exports to China before its imposed ban on it and other Australian products including wine, beef and barley could backfire if China sent warships made from that iron ore to attack us.
‘China is very, very strong. It will come back to bite us. I want Australia to facilitate good relations with Russia.
‘There is only one person the Chinese respect and can stop China and that is Putin.’
Mr Boikov campaigned to run as an independent in the Strathfield by-election last months, but did not end up on the ballot because it was ‘to quick’ and he ran out of time.
He may stand for the seat of Reid in the forthcoming federal election, but said it would depend on what happened in Ukraine as his current ‘war’ footing was consuming all his energy.
If he was elected he would join with other political minority ‘freedom party’ members in a move to get rid of the major parties from parliament.
‘(I would be) very clear. Sack them all. We need to get rid of sitting members, Liberal and Labor, they have failed Australia.
‘What have they done to families, the economy? The lockdown has been mishandled.
‘Scott Morrison has mishandled the last two years. He doesn’t act in the interests of the Australian people.’
