dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

KYIV – Robert Rundo, the muscly leader of a California-based white-supremacist group that refers to itself as the "premier MMA (mixed martial arts) club of the Alt-Right," unleashed a barrage of punches against his opponent.

But Rundo, a 28-year-old Huntington Beach resident who would be charged and arrested in October over a series of violent attacks in his hometown, Berkeley, and San Bernardino in 2017, wasn't fighting on American streets.

It was April 27 and Rundo, whose Rise Above Movement (RAM) has been described by ProPublica as "explicitly violent," was swinging gloved fists at a Ukrainian contender in the caged ring of a fight club associated with the far-right ultranationalist Azov group in Kyiv.

A video of Rundo's fight, which was streamed live on Facebook (below), shows that the American lost the bout. But for Rundo, who thanked his hosts with a shout of "Slava Ukrayini!" (Glory to Ukraine), it was a victory of another sort: RAM's outreach tour, which included stops in Italy and Germany to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday and spread its alt-right agenda, brought the two radical groups closer together.

For the Ukrainians, too, the benefits extended outside the ring. It marked a step toward legitimizing Azov among its counterparts in the West and set in motion what appears to be its next project: the expansion of its movement abroad.

"We think globally," Olena Semenyaka, the international secretary for Azov's political wing, the National Corps, told RFE/RL in an interview at one of the group's Kyiv offices last week.

The Rundo fight has received fresh scrutiny following an FBI criminal complaint against him unsealed last month that preceded his arrest. In it, Special Agent Scott Bierwirth wrote that Azov's military wing is "believed to have participated in training and radicalizing United States-based white supremacy organizations."

Washington has armed Ukraine with Javelin antitank missile systems and trained its armed forces as they fight Russia-backed separatists in the east.

But it has banned arms from going to Azov members and forbidden them from participating in U.S.-led military training because of their far-right ideology.

It was Azov's Semenyaka who hosted Rundo along with fellow Americans Michael Miselis and Benjamin Daley, RAM members who participated in last year's "Unite The Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that was the backdrop for the death of 32-year-old counterprotester Heather Heyer.

This month, in Kyiv, she hosted and translated for American Greg Johnson, a white nationalist who edits the website Counter-Currents, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as "an epicenter of ‘academic' white nationalism."

Over the past year, she's made several outreach trips to Western Europe to meet with far-right groups and spread Azov's ultranationalist message.

And when she's not doing it herself, Semenyaka said, that task is sometimes given to Denis Nikitin, a prominent Russian soccer hooligan and MMA fighter who founded the white nationalist clothing label White Rex and has a garnered a large following across Europe and the United States. In November 2017, the two traveled together to Warsaw and participated in the Europe Of The Future 2 conference organized by Polish white supremacist group and "ally" Szturmowcy (Stormtroopers), where they were meant to speak alongside American Richard Spencer, Semenyaka said. But Polish authorities barred Spencer from entering the country and he was unable to attend.

Often in Kyiv when he's not traveling through Europe or visiting family in Germany, Nikitin operates as a sort of unofficial Azov ambassador-at-large and organizes MMA bouts at the Reconquista Club, the ultranationalist haunt where Rundo fought. A combination restaurant, sports center, and fight club, Semenyaka said Rundo and Nikitin met there and "exchanged ideas."

In the current climate, with an apparent shift toward nationalism in parts of Europe, "it's possible for far-right leaders to come to power now and we hope form a coalition," Semenyaka told RFE/RL. And Azov, she added, "wants a position at the front of this movement."