Misha Mavashi

Misha Mavashi, born Mikhail Fyodorovich Nits on 29 January 1985 in Kustanai (now Kostanay) in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, was a Russian rapper, songwriter and poet who later became one of the most visible nationalist activists in Russia. He died on 25 October 2026 in Voronezh at the age of 41.

He grew up in northern Kazakhstan and took up sport as a small child. His stage name comes from mawashi, the roundhouse kick of karate and kickboxing, and a fan biography of him says he trained from the age of six and kept going to the gym several times a week as an adult. He moved to Chelyabinsk in Russia, where he studied law and earned a higher legal education, but he never worked in the profession.

Mavashi began releasing music seriously in 2009 with the album Tolko pravda (Only the Truth). Through the early 2010s he built a large following with tracks about sport, a healthy lifestyle and the rejection of alcohol and drugs, and with his blunt verses about Russia and the Slavic peoples. Further albums followed: To, chto videl (2011), Zerno (2012), Iznanka (2013) and Pitbul (2017). His best known song from that period is Moya krepost (My Fortress), recorded with the rap group 25/17 and released in 2011, which became one of the most widely heard Russian rap tracks of its time.

In 2014 he started the side project TselRazgrom with beatmaker and DJ Edik Stechkin. It released two albums, Kraynyaya neobkhodimost and Vdavayas v podrobnosti, and two official videos, Davay, ne namazyvay and Imperiya zla, before it ended. In 2016 he stepped away from music because of an addiction to prescription drugs, which he later talked about openly in interviews, and then came back to work. From 2016 he lived in Voronezh.

In 2018 he founded MAVASHI group, a band that mixed alternative rock and rap, with Mavashi as frontman and writer of every lyric. The band released several albums, including Utrom viselitsa. Vecherom tantsy (2018), Nashi serdtsa (2019), Epigraf k prodolzheniyu and Staroe, da syznova (both 2021) and Melodeklamatsiya (2022), and recorded Psy s gorodskikh okrain with the rock band Chaif. Its song Molitva appeared on a tribute album for the anniversary of Bulat Okudzhava, and on 9 May 2019 the band performed it on NTV's Kvartirnik u Margulisa.

His public life increasingly overtook his music. He supported Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, delivered aid to Russian forces and claimed credit for the cancellation of concerts by the band Mashina Vremeni, whose leader Andrei Makarevich opposed the war. In 2022 he founded the movement Northern Man (Severny chelovek), named after his 2021 song of the same name. Its stated aim was to bring Russian people together and help one another, and it described itself as patriotic and Orthodox. Independent media and researchers described it as far right, nationalist and anti immigrant. The movement claimed tens of thousands of members and dozens of regional branches, and it took part in raids, protests against a mosque in Moscow and campaigns against concerts it considered antisocial.

His activism brought sanctions and prosecution abroad. Ukraine's National Agency on Corruption Prevention proposed international sanctions against him, the Anti-Corruption Foundation added him to its list of war supporters, and on 8 September 2025 a Ukrainian court sentenced him in absentia to eight years in prison with confiscation of property.

In mid October 2026 he posted photographs from his wedding. A few days later, on the night of 24 to 25 October 2026, he died. A representative announced on his Telegram channel that he had died in an accident and said no further details would be released for the moment. Russian media, citing the Telegram channels Baza and Mash, reported that he was shot in the head at his home while his wife was in another room, was taken to the Elektronika emergency hospital in Voronezh and died there from blood loss. The same reports said investigators were considering careless handling of a weapon and also possible suicide. No official finding had been published when this page was created.

Mavashi remains a divisive figure. For many listeners he is remembered for Moya krepost and for songs urging young men toward sport and sobriety. For others he is remembered as the founder of a nationalist movement and a vocal supporter of the war against Ukraine.