Russian Commander Fighting Alongside Ukrainians Killed in Action

Denis Kapustin, commander of the pro-Ukrainian anti-Putin organization called the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), was killed on the Zaporizhzhia front line. He is said to have died as a result of a drone attack.

According to the RDK Telegram channel:

“Last night, our commander, Denis Kapustin (WhiteRex), perished heroically while performing a combat mission on the Zaporizhzhia front sector. According to preliminary data, he was killed by an FPV drone.”

“All details will be announced later, as the circumstances of what happened are still being established,” the RDK said.

In April 2024, a Kyiv Post reporting team visited the base of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) for two days of exclusive interviews with Kapustin and other RDK members in the wake of the unit’s raid into Russia’s Belgorod Oblast.

Kapustin, (nom-de-guerre “WhiteRex”), discussed operations in Russian Federation territory, recruitment, training, equipment and the possible bounty placed on his head by Kremlin secret services.

Kyiv Post journalists also met and spoke with more than a dozen fighters from the unit. It was the first time a reporting team had been allowed on the RDK’s secret training base.

Kapustin was reported to have been living in Ukraine since 2018.

“I want to prove that it’s possible to fight against a tyrant,” Kapustin said in a 2023 press conference after the RDK, backed by Ukraine’s armed forces, conducted one of their first raids into Russian territory. “That Putin’s power is not unlimited, that the security services can beat, control and torture the unarmed. But as soon as they meet a full armed resistance, they flee.”

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A Russian citizen, Kapustin had long been a controversial figure. He had moved to Germany in the early 2000s, where he associated with a group of violent soccer fans. Later, he 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.

Eventually Germany canceled his residency permit.

In Ukraine, he was a supporter of the Euromaidan protests, which also rallied people against Russia’s coercive influence on Ukrainian politics and society.

When Moscow launched its full-scale invasion, Kapustin drew like-minded Russians together in an effort to combat the Putin regime.

The RDK is subordinate to the Ukrainian military’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) and is one of the various units of HUR’s International Legion.