The Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC), a far-right paramilitary group that fights alongside Ukraine’s military, announced on Saturday that its founder and leader has been killed in action on the frontline in Ukraine.
Denis Kapustin, who was 41 years old, died overnight on Saturday while engaged in a combat operation in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, according to a statement from the RVC.
He was also known as Denis Nikitin and went by the nom de guerre White Rex.
“In your memory, Denis, we will surely seek vengeance. Your legacy will endure,” the RVC stated on its Telegram channel, promising further information about Kapustin’s death after an inquiry.
Kapustin, a nationalist from Moscow, relocated to Kyiv in 2017 and established the RVC at the beginning of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The RVC’s manifesto outlines its goal to topple Putin and establish an ethnic Russian state, abandoning any imperial ambitions in favor of prioritizing the welfare of ethnic Russians.
In March 2023, Kapustin was listed on Russia’s federal registry of “terrorists and extremists” following the RVC’s incursion into the Bryansk region, which is adjacent to Ukraine. He was placed on the Interior Ministry’s wanted list the same month.
Since 2019, Kapustin has faced a 10-year prohibition from the Schengen Area. The investigative platform Bellingcat reported that he continued to engage in far-right activities in Germany, France, and Bulgaria.
