Denis Nikitin

Denis Yevgenyevich Kapustin (; born 6 March 1984), also known as Denis Nikitin or by his nom de guerre White Rex, is a Russian neo-Nazi activist and militant. After moving to Ukraine, he founded the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) in 2022 and has been the group's leader, fighting on the side of Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Early life Kapustin was born on 6 March 1984, and raised in a middle class family in Moscow. In 2001, when he was 17, Kapustin and his parents moved to Cologne, Germany, Kapustin said his family is Russian, while his maternal grandfather, Efim Aronovich Karpmanskiy, was Jewish. Kapustin attended school in Moscow and in Germany, then studied international business at University College Maastricht in the Netherlands but did not graduate.

Football hooliganism and mixed martial arts Kapustin entered the football hooliganism scene in Germany, where he was a hooligan for his local Cologne team. He was deeply rooted in the football hooliganism scene and led a small group during the riots at the 2016 European Football Championship in the port of Marseille. He said that street violence was ineffective because "if we kill one immigrant every day, that's 365 immigrants in a year. But tens of thousands more will come anyway", while promoting his views on social media was more effective as it addressed the "underlying reason". He wanted the brand to be a National Socialist complete outfitter. and issued him an entry ban into Europe's Schengen Area for "efforts against the liberal democratic constitution" and his significant contribution to professionalizing the right-wing extremist martial arts scene. For example, he travelled with National Corps international secretary to participate in a far-right conference in Warsaw in November 2017, and organised mixed martial arts events at Azov's Reconquista Club.

In August 2022, Kapustin founded the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC), a unit composed of Russians fighting against Russia on the side of Ukraine. He was awarded the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky III class in 2026.

According to Ukrainian war veteran Viktor Pylypenko and activist Diana Berg, Kapustin attempted to tear away an LGBT flag carried by Pylypenko at the 2025 funeral of artist and military serviceman Davyd Chychkan, which resulted in a fight stopped by both being pepper sprayed.

2023 incursions into Russia

In March 2023, Kapustin and several other RVC members performed an incursion into Russia's Bryansk Oblast. On 22 May, Kapustin and the RVC were involved in the Belgorod Oblast attack, a cross-border raid into Russia's Belgorod Oblast. On 24 May, he said the group had left Russian territory after 24 hours, and that they were satisfied with the raid at a press conference given on Ukrainian territory.

Following the March incursion, Kapustin was added to Rosfinmonitoring's list of terrorists and extremists. Russia's Federal Security Service said it had foiled an attempt to assassinate Konstantin Malofeev organized by Kapustin, and stated the RVC was involved in an attack on an oil and gas plant in Volgograd Oblast in 2022. Russia's 2nd Western District Military Court subsequently sentenced Kapustin in absentia to life imprisonment and also convicted him of treason and terrorist activities.

Staged death On 27 December 2025, the RVC reported that Kapustin had been killed in a drone strike while fighting for Ukraine in its Zaporizhzhia Oblast and vowed to avenge his death. However, the following week, the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR) published a video of Kapustin and stated he was still alive. They said that Russian special services had ordered Kapustin's death, but the HUR had foiled the killing through a special operation lasting more than a month. The false reports of death were part of the special operation. The HUR reported having identified the individuals behind the assassination attempt and obtained half a million US dollars paid for the task.

Political views The Antifascist Europe monitoring project described Kapustin as a neo-Nazi and white supremacist. Kapustin has rejected such characterizations and said "you'll never find me waving a flag with a swastika, you'll never find me raising my hand in a Hitler sign." In a 2023 report, PBS found a clip of Kapustin from a 2013 mixed martial arts event where he appeared to mirror Nazi salutes given by the audience. He has called himself a nationalist who believes that Russia belongs to ethnic Russians, and said his views were conservative,

Influence

Kapustin has been described as a key figure of the European far-right political activists and hooligans. Its leader, Robert Rundo, has been reported to have a White Rex tattoo and co-hosted a podcast with Kapustin. The interior ministry of Herbert Reul in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, called Kapustin "one of the most influential neo-Nazi activists".