A group of Ukraine-aligned fighters, who took part earlier this week in the heaviest fighting inside Russia’s borders since the invasion, has gathered foreign and local press in one location. undisclosed spot on Wednesday to celebrate, mock the Kremlin and show off what it calls a “military feat” from the invasion of their homeland: Russia.
Their leader, Denis Kapustin, is proud that his force of anti-Putin Russians had at one time controlled, he said, 42 square kilometers, or 16 square miles, of Russian territory.
“I wanted to prove that it was possible to fight a tyrant,” he said. “Putin’s power is not unlimited, that the security services can beat, control and torture unarmed people. But as soon as they met full armed resistance, they fled.”
It was the allegation of a freedom fighter to dissent, but there was a contradictory note emerging as clear as the neo-Nazi Black Sun patch on one of the soldiers’ uniform: Mr. Kapustin and prominent members of the armed group he leads, the Russian Volunteers, openly espouse far-right views. In fact, German officials and humanitarian groups, including the Anti-Defamation Leagueidentified Mr. Kapustin as a neo-Nazi.
Mr. Kapustin, who has long used the alias Denis Nikitin but often passes by his military call sign, White Rexwas a Russian citizen who moved to Germany in the early 2000s. He was associated with a group of violent football fans and later became “one of the most influential activists” in a neo-fascist group in mixed martial arts scenesaid officials in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Mr. Kapustin has been reported as forbidden was not allowed to enter Europe’s 27-nation visa-free Schengen area, but he only said that Germany had canceled his residence permit.
The fact that the group has gained attention for its activism and restored coverage of the group’s ties to neo-Nazis is an awkward development for the Ukrainian government, especially for the Ukrainian government. since Russian President Vladimir V. Putin justified his invasion by falsely claiming to be against neo-fascism. -Nazi and made it a frequent subject of Kremlin propaganda.
Most anti-Russian groups harbor long-term political ambitions to return home and overthrow the governments of Russia and Belarus.
“Russian volunteers come in and destroy the current government — that’s the only way,” Mr. Kapustin said earlier this year. “You cannot convince a tyrant to leave, and any other force will be seen as an aggressor.”
In fact, far-right groups in Ukraine are a small minority, and Ukraine has denied any involvement with the Russian Volunteer Corps or any role in the fighting on the Russian side of the border. But Mr Kapustin said his group “certainly received a lot of encouragement” from the Ukrainian authorities.
Some Russian far-rights have long been unhappy with Mr. Putin, especially because of his imprisonment of so many nationalists, as well as because of his policies towards immigrants and because of his political beliefs. what they see as giving too much power to minorities like the ethnic Chechens. Since the Maidan revolution of 2014 and the outbreak of war between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists in the eastern Donbas region, many of them have settled in Ukraine and are now fighting on the country’s side. that they adopt.
The Russian Volunteer Corps, also known by its Russian initials RDK, is one of two anti-Russian militant groups that launched a cross-border attack in the Belgorod region of southern Russia on Monday, engaged the enemy in two days of fighting.
The groups say the aim of the incursions is to force Moscow to redeploy troops from occupied Ukrainian regions to secure its borders, expanding its defenses against an already established counterattack. planning of Ukraine, an objective that aligns with the broader goals of the Ukrainian military.
Russian volunteers have also claimed responsibility for two incidents in Russia’s Bryansk border region in March and April.
The second group is Free Russian Army Corps, operating under the auspices of the Ukraine International Corps, a force consisting of American and British volunteers, as well as Belarusians, Georgians and others. It is supervised by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and is commanded by Ukrainian officers.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Mr Kapustin insisted his group was not controlled by the Ukrainian Army, but said the army had wished the fighters “good luck”. “Nothing more than encouragement” from Ukraine, he said.
“Everything we do, every decision we make, outside of state borders is our own decision about what we do. Obviously we can ask our comrades and friends to assist in planning,” he continued. “They will say ‘yes, no,’ and this is the kind of encouragement I’m talking about.” That claim cannot be independently verified.
Andriy Chernyak, a representative of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, defended Kyiv’s willingness to allow the group to fight on their behalf.
“Ukraine certainly supports everyone who is ready to oppose the Putin regime,” he said, adding: “People come to Ukraine and say they want to help us fight the Putin regime, so of course we leave them, like many others. foreigner.”
Ukraine has called the intrusions an “internal Russian crisis” because the main group members are Russian.
Some analysts dismiss the importance of the RDK as a fighting force even as they warn of the dangers they pose. Michael Colborne, a researcher at Bellingcat who reports on the international far right, said he hesitated even to call the Russian Volunteers a military unit.
“Most of them are a far-right group of neo-Nazis making inroads into Russian-held territory who seem to care a lot about creating content,” Mr. social media more than anything else.
Several other members of the RDK photographed during the border raid also openly adopted neo-Nazi views. A man, Aleksandr Skachkov, was arrested by the Ukrainian Security Service in 2020 for selling a Russian translation of a manifesto on white supremacy. Christchurch, New Zealand shooterwho killed 51 Muslims in 2019. Mr. Skachkov was released on bail after serving a month in prison.
Another member, Aleksei Levkin, who took a selfie video wearing the RDK badge, is the founder of a group called woatanjugend started in Russia but later moved to Ukraine. Mr. Levkin also organized the “National Socialist Black Metallic Festival,” which started in Moscow in 2012 but was held in Kyiv from 2014 to 2019.
Photos posted online by the militants earlier this week show them posing in front of seized Russian equipment, some of which are dressed in Nazi-style clothing and equipment. A patch depicting a hooded member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Mr Colborne said the images of Mr Kapustin and his fighters could damage Ukraine’s defenses by making allies wary that they could support far-right armed groups.
“I worry that something like this could backfire with Ukraine because these are not dubious people,” he said. “These are not unknown people, and they are not helping Ukraine in any practical sense.”
Mr Kapustin, who in addition to speaking Russian is fluent in English and German, told reporters he did not think being called a “far right” was an “accusation”.
“We have never hidden our views,” he said. We are a right-wing, conservative, military, semi-political organization.
Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Andrew E. Kramer And Oleg Matsnev contribution report.
