US neo-Nazi group with Russia-based leader calls for targeted Ukraine attacks

A US neo-Nazi terrorist group with a Russia-based leader is calling for targeted assassinations and attacks on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine in an effort to destabilize the country as it carries out ceasefire negotiations with the Kremlin.

The Base, which has a web of cells all over the world, was founded in 2018 and became the subject of a relentless FBI counter-terrorism investigation that led to several arrests and world governments officially designating it as a terrorist organization.

Now, with the Trump administration pulling the FBI from pursuing the far right, the Base, left unchecked, is trying to export its violence abroad.

This is the first time the Base has openly allied itself with the Kremlin’s broader geopolitical goals, a sudden change experts say signals its likely involvement in Russian sabotage and propaganda operations now being carried out across Europe.

The Base founder and leader, Rinaldo Nazzaro, a semi-defected American who worked with US special forces during the war on terror and now lives in Saint Petersburg, has for years garnered suspicions of being a Russian intelligence asset. Even members of the Base mused that he was a spy and grew weary of the source of his cash flow.

“Given Russia’s connections to the leadership of the Base, including offering sanctuary to its leader Rinaldo Nazzaro, there is a strong chance that this could very well be a Russian intelligence operation,” said Colin Clarke, a geopolitics expert and director of research at the Soufan Center.

“Supporting and directing violent non-state actors, including racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists, is just another tool in the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare toolkit, and one which Moscow has repeatedly demonstrated that it’s willing to use.”

In posts on Telegram, the Base is offering cash for volunteer operatives and recruits to carry out attacks on, “electric power stations, military & police vehicles, military & police personnel, government buildings, [Ukrainian] politicians”, specifically in Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine.

The Base previously demonstrated it can obtain funding from cryptocurrency vectors and allegedly from Nazzaro’s own unknown funds.

“The remnants of the Ukrainian authorities understand their weakness, we understand it too,” said the Base. “The time is now.”

The plan was unveiled online last week and is in support of a wider bid to carve out a white nationalist enclave in the Zakarpattia region of Ukraine, something the Base describes as having “rugged mountainous terrain which is a force multiplier for an unconventional paramilitary force”.

Uploaded alongside several of the posts were approximately 50 videos, beginning in late March, captured using an automatically generated geotagging app. They generally show assumed members capturing spray-painted symbols of Ukraine’s Base cell on various walls in urban locales, the first sets being in Kyiv and in the port city of Odessa on the Black Sea.

A recent set of videos shows eight from the southern city of Mykolaiv and ten showing locations in Kharkiv, a city close to the frontlines and where Ukrainian intelligence has kept a particularly close eye on Russian saboteurs.

“A financial reward for successful action is possible,” said the caption with the Kharkiv post.

The latest post from the Base’s Ukraine cell is now soliciting donations to an anonymous Monero wallet.

The Guardian reviewed all of the videos for their authenticity and they appeared to be recently taken in each of the cities.

The Base’s Ukrainian ambitions fall in line with a major Kremlin talking point since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine: casting aspersions on the government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, himself a Jewish man, as a sort of new Third Reich. While Russia has long sought to portray Ukraine as a bastion for the far right – even though it harbors Nazzaro, uses a neo-Nazi militia alongside its military and makes alliances with European fascists.

Emails to the Russian Foreign Ministry, asking about the Base and Nazzaro’s presence inside Russia, went unanswered.

How real the Base’s actual presence in Ukraine currently is, remains unclear and is unlikely to be significant. In 2019, Ukrainian security services deported one of the Base’s members for his neo-Nazi activities and trying to enlist in their military. Though they have tried and failed, it is rare for stateside far-right groups to export any real influence into Ukraine.

Nazzaro has repeatedly maintained that he is not affiliated with any spy agencies, even making an uncanny appearance on Kremlin state television in 2020, telling a reporter that he “never had any contact with any Russian security services”.

But, curiously, the posts calling for attacks on Ukraine first appeared on the Base’s VK account, which is hosted in Russia and run by Nazzaro. The chief recruitment email for the Base is also a Mail.ru address – the email provider of a well-known ally of Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

No public charges have been laid against Nazzaro, but he was the subject of an FBI investigation and was once called a justice department “matter” by a US government official.

“I think this means that Nazzaro remains under the thumb of Russian intelligence,” said Clarke, about Nazzaro’s latest ploy in Ukraine. “Russia likes to collect these kinds of ‘useful idiots’ that it can then employ to do its dirty work.”

Clarke continued: “Nazzaro simply must do what Russian intelligence makes him do, as he has extremely limited options given his role as the head of a transnational neo-Nazi organization.”

Reached on Telegram, Nazzaro said the Base’s Ukrainian operations are “not directed by the Russian government” nor is he.

“I have never had any contact with the security services of Russia,” he added.

This isn’t the first time the Base, which has made recent strides in rebuilding its American membership, started appearing in Europe. Last year, members were arrested in Belgium, the Netherlands, and in Italy where authorities cracked down on a Base cell that it said had ties to a network of Russian far-right terrorists recruiting from Telegram.

“While neo-Nazi accelerationists often exaggerates their reach, there is no denying the Base’s resurgence,” said Steven Rai, an analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who monitors global extremism for the watchdog organization who spotted the Base’s Ukraine posts online.

Rai pointed out the Base is “not bluffing” and that since 2023, it has shown itself in nearly 10 countries, including in February when UK counterterrorism police arrested a 15-year-old boy for plotting attacks on synagogues.

“The Base’s operations in Ukraine need to be taken seriously,” said Rai, “as they have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to attract new recruits who then proceed to plan acts of catastrophic violence”.