‘Junger,’ ‘Steiner,’ and ‘Terror’

The neo-Nazi ‘Special Forces’ that recaptured a ‘Russian stronghold’

This is another new post from my other blog, “Ukes, Kooks, and Spooks” (about the neo-Nazi movement in Ukraine, not the “Bandera Lobby”—more on that coming soon)

Vovchansk, now destroyed, was a small city very close to the Russia-Ukraine border

One month ago, Ukrainian military intelligence announced that several of its units recaptured a large chemical plant near the border with Russia. The industrial complex “acted as a Russian stronghold,” according to British military intelligence, which may have overseen the operation, and touted its success. Few seemed to notice when Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence released a group photo of its elite soldiers in the chemical plant, with a couple of full-blown Nazi salutes in the background.

Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov reportedly joined these fighters for several days during a “key stage” of the operation. Of the six units credited with its success in the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR, Holovne Upravlinnia Rozvidky), half of them came from the International Legion and participated in an international neo-Nazi conference in Lviv just a month earlier. The rest came from the HUR’s special forces “Timur” unit, also infested with far-right nationalists.

The news of the operation revealed the existence of another Timur unit, apparently named after a favorite philosopher of Ukraine’s Azov movement. In case you need convincing, let me tell you about the deputy commander of the “Junger Group.” Some readers of “Ukes, Kooks, and Spooks” may remember him. The Junger unit might have been formed around the time that I wrote about this neo-Nazi last year.

Vadim Kitar, aka “Steiner”

Before he became the deputy head of the Junger unit, Vadim Kitar was the right-hand man to the commander of the “Vedmedi SS,” an openly neo-Nazi squad from the Right Sector’s “Da Vinci Wolves” that joined the Azov regiment in Mariupol by 2022. The group’s emblem even includes the lightning bolts of the Nazi SS. Kitar’s call-sign is “Steiner,” and it’s clear from his social media that he named himself after Waffen-SS commander Felix Steiner. He also has the emblem of the SS Dirlewanger Brigade, known as the worst of the worst, tattooed on his right arm.

The Russians captured the Vedmedi SS in Mariupol, but later that year released their Hitler-tattooed commander in a major prisoner exchange that also freed the leaders of the Azov regiment. It didn’t take long for them to get back to war, the only thing that many of these neo-Nazis know how to do. Kitar returned to Ukraine in the spring of 2023, and joined the HUR. He’s been fighting since 2016, when he volunteered at the age of 18. This year, the Vedmedi SS has fought with the 36th marine brigade, which also joined the Azov regiment in the massive Azovstal plant in Mariupol.

Information agency of the Ukrainian military: “Marines showed the destruction of an enemy tank … According to the Navy, the occupiers’ tank was destroyed by fighters of the ‘Vedmedi’ unit of Mykolaiv marines.”

The Azov regiment in the National Guard of Ukraine (NGU) was expanded to a brigade at the start of 2023. Recently I wrote about an NGU Azov delegation that visited the NATO headquarters in Brussels, including “Jedi,” a leader of the Azov brigade’s medical service, and a former prisoner of war after the siege of Mariupol. This year, the recruitment arm of the Azov brigade had some of its officers recommend literature for social media followers. Whereas Bohdan Krotevych, the chief of staff, suggested a 1953 memoir by Nazi war criminal Albert Kesselring, “Jedi” recommended the World War I diaries of Ernst Jünger.

The Paragon Company is another little-known HUR unit that participated in the Vovchansk operation. It started in another elite brigade of the National Guard (Rubizh), and more specifically a battalion affiliated with the far-right “Svoboda” party. That being said, the commander of the Paragon Company in the Svoboda battalion represents “Centuria,” the neo-Nazi paramilitary arm of the Azov movement. The Svoboda unit was evidently transferred, or perhaps “loaned,” to the HUR. The Paragon Company’s fallen HUR fighters “Stitch” and “Krafter” are known to have served in the NATO-trained Rubizh “rapid reaction brigade,” but “Stitch” also fought in the 1st battalion of the Azov movement’s 3rd Assault Brigade that originated in the “Azov Special Operations Forces.”

From left to right: “Stitch,” “Dante,” and “Kraft.” The middle one is the commander of the Svoboda battalion’s Paragon company, who posted the image on the right, which appears to show the fallen HUR fighter at the gates of Valhalla.

According to “Steiner,” his Junger group works closely with Azov veteran Rodin Batulin, the commander of the Belarusian “Terror” battalion in the HUR International Legion. This past summer, Batulin participated in the “Nation Europa” conference, and so did Kristian Udarov, another fighter from the Terror battalion and the Belarusian Volunteer Corps. Yesterday, Udarov’s younger brother died fighting in the National Guard’s Azov Brigade. Earlier this year, Vadin Kitar took a photo with Udarov, who is affiliated with the far-right Ukrainian organization “Tradition & Order,” which was also represented at the neo-Nazi conference in Lviv.

Denis “White Rex” Kapustin, the commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps and one of the most notorious neo-Nazis in Europe, prominently featured in this event, which went unreported by the western media. “White Rex” was one of the only people whose identity wasn’t concealed in photos that the HUR released surrounding the operation to clear the chemical plant, including an awards ceremony led by military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov. Reportedly for his neo-Nazi fighters, this mission was dedicated to avenging the death of Mykola Kokhanivsky, the extremist commander of the rogue “OUN” volunteer battalion, who died this year in the Vovchansk area.

Kapustin (circled) with Budanov during the Vovchansk operation and the awards ceremony

Several years ago, the Security Service of Ukraine arrested Aleksandr Skachkov, a Russian neo-Nazi who served in Kokhanivsky’s unit, for circulating the neo-Nazi manifesto of Brenton Tarrant, the 2019 mosque shooter in Christchurch, New Zealand. The journalist Oleksiy Kuzmenko discovered that Kokhanivsky was an early promoter of the Telegram channel, “Tarrant’s lads,” that Skachkov was accused of running. In my article about Nation Europa, I explained that the HUR Timur unit’s “Team Nobody” is linked to a Telegram channel that has provided its subscribers a “full video in good quality” of the Christchurch massacres.

British military intelligence gave two thumbs up to Budanov’s neo-Nazi special forces, if only after completing their mission in Vovchansk. A public “intelligence update” on October 1 said, “It is likely that Ukrainian control of the plant will facilitate further counter offensives in the north of the city to push the RGF [Russian Ground Forces] back towards the Ukraine-Russia border.”

Although the western media hasn’t given too much attention to the HUR’s achievement in Vovchansk, this British update stirred a few triumphant articles, such as “Ukraine Recaptures Vital Chemical Plant in Latest Blow for Vladimir Putin” (Huffington Post) and “Russian Stronghold Falls” (National Interest). I’m no military analyst and have no idea how important a victory this may have been for Ukraine, but the British seemed to hint at the possibility of more cross-borders from the HUR’s neo-Nazi special forces.

Before Russia’s 2024 offensive in the Vovchansk and Kharkiv directions, the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) and its allied units carried out a series of incursions into the Belgorod region of Russia. In the spring of 2023, journalist Leonid Ragozin noticed that Aleksandr Skachkov, the alleged circulator of the Christchurch manifesto, participated in the first RVC raid. Skachkov had a KKK patch on his chest, produced by a company commander in the 3rd Assault Brigade.

As some readers may recall, Vadim Kitar’s girlfriend is the main representative of the Azov-linked brand, “Company Group Team,” and last year, Volodymyr Zelensky gave a peculiar shoutout to this “military community” on Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces Day. Indeed, the “CGT” brand, perhaps above all others, appears to unite those in Ukraine’s “autonomous neo-nazi army” — the Azov movement and allied units. For example, in June 2024, when the Azovite commander of the NGU Svoboda battalion’s Paragon company gave an interview to the battalion’s official podcast, he was interviewed by a neo-Nazi CGT enthusiast from the Svoboda unit.

Last year, when Petro Poroshenko visited the aforementioned 36th marine brigade and received a neo-Nazi patch from one of its units, the former president put his arm around a soldier wearing a CGT shirt. These are just a couple examples that I found months ago, before discovering the degree(s) of separation between them and the Vedmedi SS. Seeing the CGT spokesperson fundraise for her boyfriend’s Junger Group in recent days, I looked up the definition of a “company group” again: “a collection of parent and subsidiary corporations that function as a single economic entity through a common source of control.”

Almost every day, it becomes more plain to see that there is a neo-Nazi conglomerate in the Ukrainian armed forces, but for those who think that justifies Russian military aggression, you might want to consider how “deNazification” went for “Steiner,” or exiled Ukrainian Nazi collaborators after World War II. Even in the worst case military scenario for Ukraine, its neo-Nazi special forces will probably have plenty of dirty work to do for NATO countries and criminal enterprises. This could give them more time and resources to pursue their real interests, such as building international neo-Nazi networks.

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