"Some fighters who led an incursion into Russian territory
this week have neo-Nazi ties. “I worry that something like this could backfire
on Ukraine because these are not ambiguous people.”
A group of fighters aligned with Ukraine, who had
participated earlier this week in the most intense fighting inside Russia’s
borders since the invasion, gathered the foreign and local press in an
undisclosed location on Wednesday to celebrate, to taunt the Kremlin and to
show off what they called “military trophies” from their incursion into their
native land: Russia.
Their leader, Denis Kapustin, was proud that his force of
anti-Putin Russians at one point controlled, he said, 42 square kilometers, or
16 square miles, of Russian territory.
It was the rhetoric of a dissident freedom fighter, but
there was a discordant note that emerged as clearly as the neo-Nazi Black Sun
patch on the uniform of one of the soldiers: Mr. Kapustin and prominent members
of the armed group he leads, the Russian Volunteer Corps, openly espouse far-right
views. In fact, German officials and humanitarian groups, including the
Anti-Defamation League, have identified Mr. Kapustin as a neo-Nazi.
Mr. Kapustin, who has long used the alias Denis Nikitin but
typically goes by his military call sign, White Rex, is a Russian citizen who
moved to Germany in the early 2000s. He associated with a group of violent
soccer fans and later became, “one of the most influential activists” in a
neo-Nazi splinter group in the mixed-martial-arts scene, officials in the German
state of North Rhine-Westphalia have said.
Mr. Kapustin has reportedly been banned from entering
Europe’s visa-free, 27-country Schengen zone, but he has said only that Germany
canceled his residency permit.
The fact that the group has garnered attention for its
operation and revived coverage of the group’s ties to neo-Nazis is an awkward
development for Ukraine’s government, particularly since President Vladimir V.
Putin of Russia has justified activity on the claim of fighting neo-Nazis and
made it a regular theme of Kremlin messaging.
Most of the anti-Russian groups harbor long-term political
ambitions to return home and overthrow the Russian and Belarusian governments.
Ukraine has denied any involvement in the Russian Volunteer
Corps or any role in fighting on the Russian side of the border. But Mr.
Kapustin said that his group “definitely got a lot of encouragement” from the
Ukrainian authorities.
Some on the far right in Russia long ago soured on Mr.
Putin, particularly for his jailing of so many nationalists, but also for his
policies on immigration and for what they perceive as granting too much power
to minorities like ethnic Chechens. Since the 2014 Maidan revolution and the
onset of events in Ukraine, many of them have made a home in Ukraine and are
now fighting on the side of their adopted country.
The Russian Volunteer Corps, also known by its Russian
initials R.D.K., was one of two groups of anti-Russian fighters that conducted
a cross-border attack in the Belgorod region of southern Russia on Monday,
engaging enemy troops over two days of skirmishing.
The aim of the incursions, the groups say, was to force
Moscow to redeploy soldiers from occupied areas of Ukraine to defend its
borders, stretching its defenses ahead of a planned Ukrainian counteroffensive,
a goal which aligns with the broader objectives of Ukraine’s military.
The Russian Volunteer Corps also claimed credit for two
incidents in the Russian border region of Bryansk in March and April.
The second group was the Free Russia Legion, which operates
under the umbrella of Ukraine’s International Legion, a force that includes
American and British volunteers, as well as Belarusians, Georgians and others.
It is overseen by Ukraine’s Armed Forces and commanded by Ukrainian officers.
At the news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Kapustin affirmed
that his group was not controlled by the Ukrainian Army, but said that the
military had wished the fighters “good luck.” There had been “nothing further
than encouragement” from the Ukrainian part, he said.
“Everything we do, every decision we make, beyond the state
border is our own decision what we do. Obviously we can ask our comrades and
friends for their assistance in planning,” he continued. “They would say ‘yes,
no’ and this is the kind of encouragement, help I was talking about.” That
claim could not be independently verified.
Andriy Chernyak, a representative of Ukraine’s military
intelligence service, defended Kyiv’s willingness to allow the group to fight
on its behalf.
“Ukraine definitely supports all those who are ready to
fight the Putin regime,” he said, adding: “People came to Ukraine and said that
they want to help us to fight Putin’s regime, so of course we let them, same as
many other people from foreign countries.”
Ukraine has called the incursions an “internal Russian
crisis” given that the members of the group are Russians themselves.
Some analysts dismissed the significance of the R.D.K. 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
was hesitant even to call the Russian Volunteer Corps a military unit.
“They are largely a far-right group of neo-Nazi exiles who
are undertaking these incursions into Russian-held territory who seem far more
concerned about making social media content than anything else,” Mr. Colborne
said.
Some other members of the R.D.K. photographed during the
border raid also have publicly embraced neo-Nazi views. One man, Aleksandr
Skachkov, was arrested by the Ukrainian Security Services in 2020 for selling a
Russian translation of the white supremacist manifesto of the shooter in
Christchurch, New Zealand, who killed 51 mosque worshipers in 2019. Mr.
Skachkov was released on bail after spending a month in jail.
Another member, Aleksei Levkin, who filmed a selfie video
wearing the R.D.K. insignia, is a founder of a group called Wotanjugend that
started in Russia but later moved to Ukraine. Mr. Levkin also organizes a
“National Socialist Black Metal Festival,” which began in Moscow in 2012 but
was held in Kyiv from 2014 until 2019.
Pictures posted online by the fighters earlier this week
showed them posing in front of captured Russian equipment, with some wearing
Nazi-style patches and equipment. One patch depicted a hooded member of the Ku
Klux Klan.
Mr. Colborne said the images of Mr. Kapustin and his fighters
could damage Ukraine’s defense by making allies wary they could be supporting
far-right armed groups.
“I worry that something like this could backfire on Ukraine
because these are not ambiguous 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 speaks
fluent English and German, told reporters he did not think being called “far
right” was an “accusation.”
“We have never concealed our views,” he said. “We are a
right, conservative, military, semipolitical organization,” he said.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/26/world/europe/the-leader-of-a-russian-group-involved-in-a-border-incursion-is-described-by-watchdogs-as-a-neo-nazi.html