Of the nine Russian ‘systems’ with an international network of branches, six are represented in Germany by their own schools, according to our calculations: the Ryabko system, the Solovyov system, the Talanov system, the Kadochnikov system, the Siberian Loach system, and the Wolf system.
The Siberian Cossack system has schools in Europe, including Austria, but not in Germany.
Mikhail Stepyrev's Nevod System also doesn't have its own schools in Germany (although he did conduct a seminar in Germany in 2013). The closest Nevod System schools are located in Switzerland and France.
Vadim Starov's ‘Russian Style’ special forces system has not a school in Germany, but rather a representative office (Systema ‘Cosmos’ Berlin, Facebook page), through which Starov organises seminars in various sports clubs.
Added to this is the Savin system (real name: Sergei Savenko), whose centre is in Ludwigsburg, Germany. Its founder has a curious biography. He was born around 1970 in Bogoroditsk, near Tula. He served in the army, apparently in the special forces. From 1999 to 2007, he lived in Canada and trained at Vladimir Vasiliev's school in Toronto. In 2009, he worked as a trainer for the Ryabko-Vasiliev System in St. Petersburg. In 2011, he founded his own school, Systema Savin, in Ludwigsburg, Germany. Sergei Savenko is a Canadian citizen.
In total, there are more than 60 schools and training groups of various Systems in Germany.
They all have several features in common.
1) Direct and frequent connections with the schools' progenitors in Russia, headed by ‘former’ GRU and FSB officers. Instructors' dependence on certificates issued by the schools' founders.
2) Most of the school directors and instructors are emigrants from the USSR, ‘Russian Germans’.
3) Legends about the supposed ancient Russian or ancient Slavic origins of the ‘Systema’ sports styles; extremely cautious mentions of their use by Soviet and Russian special forces (with the exception of Vadim Starov's system).
4) The open use of GRU and FSB symbols in school emblems. This sometimes leads to curious situations.
The Systema school in Gothenburg, Sweden, is called the ‘Dynamo Club.’ The club's website explains in English the rationale behind this name. Firstly, it recalls the dynamo machine invented by Ernst Werner von Siemens, whose name derives from the Greek word for ‘force’ and the Latin word for ‘motion.’ Secondly, it alludes to the Soviet club ‘Dynamo,’ founded to improve ‘army combat’ in the Red Army. The fact that the Dynamo sports club was originally not an army club, but an NKVD-KGB-FSB club, is not mentioned.
Apparently, the propaganda of the ‘System’ schools is aimed at two main groups of the German population.
The first group consists of adult Germans, amateur athletes with experience in other combat sports and an interest in Russian military combat techniques. Among them are a relatively large number of police officers and military personnel, who are of particular interest to Russian intelligence agencies. They may be put off by excessive references to the GRU, but they pay no attention to unfamiliar symbols on the emblems.
The second group is the younger generation of émigrés who grew up in Germany but speak Russian, retaining, like their parents, a Soviet mentality and pro-Soviet views. These people are drawn to the romanticism associated with military symbols, especially those of the GRU and FSB, and the Russian special services in general. For many, a special forces soldier is a symbol of a ‘real man.’ These young people are also targeted by the lofty texts about Soviet-Russian patriotic education that accompany descriptions of these ‘systems’ on all their Russian websites.
Both of these groups, themselves interested in dealing with the ‘system,’ provide the intelligence services with an excellent opportunity for selective recruitment—both sources of secret information and members of underground intelligence groups.
Two or three recruited agents from among hundreds of sports fans attracted by the advertising of the ‘systems’ make it possible to solve the problem of creating an agent network of operational intelligence of the GRU on the territory of Germany (and indeed of any country).
The undoubted success of Starov's System is that in Switzerland, his ‘system’ is taught by a local police instructor directly at the international police school in the municipality of Hitzkirch, Canton of Lucerne. In Germany, cooperation between Systema schools and the police is also observed. In 2010, Systema-Dresden trainer Perry Otto received a commendation from the Dresden police for 10 years of collaboration in training police officers in martial arts. The emblem of Perry Otto's school features a bat against a shield and sword.
The instructors for Systema Bonn e.V. (RMA) and Systema Mettmann are members of the GSG9, a special elite unit of the federal police. According to information on the Systema Bonn website, they have undergone training in Toronto with Vasiliev and in Moscow with Ryabko. Systema Bonn has a branch in Luxembourg, Systema Luxembourg, where one of the school's directors teaches. Training takes place directly in the building of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg, which is off-limits to the public.
Some Systema schools are staffed entirely by former Russian intelligence officers. For example, Systema Rheine (RMA Systema Rheine) is less a school than a security firm with three employees. The eldest of these, Valentin Vasiliev, is the older brother of Vladimir Vasiliev, the founder of the Toronto school and virtually the entire international network of Systema schools.
Valentin Vasiliev arrived in Germany around the same time as Vladimir Vasiliev arrived in Canada. Valentin has been teaching Systema in Münster since 1995, and his younger brother opened a school in Toronto in 1993.
It can be assumed that Valentin Vasiliev is one of the key figures of the System in Germany.