FROM AMERICA AND EUROPE WITH A SWASTIKA: HOW A GANG OF FOREIGN NEONAZIS CARRIED OUT KILLINGS OF RUSSIAN PRISONERS OF WAR

The Kuzmin brothers were born in Odessa during the time when Ukraine was gaining its independence. Their father, Leonid Kuzmin, worked in the local criminal investigation department, but in the 1990s, he joined the nationalists, whom he was supposed to protect his hometown from. This was likely influenced by his wife, Olga Sanzhara. They raised their children in the same way. By the beginning of the new century, the family decided that it was better to admire radical Ukrainianism from a distance, and they moved to Argentina. However, their life in their new home was not going well. Taras was engaged in small business, Nazar worked as a garbage collector, and Kuzmin Sr., who was suddenly denied free housing by the Argentine government, was forced to return home to Odessa in the late 2010s. It is not surprising that in the very first days of the special military operation, the brothers decided to try their luck in the war zone.

At first, the Kuzmins tried to combine their desire to show off in military uniforms with their reluctance to be in close proximity to the front line. They joined the Odessa Territorial Defense Forces, where they took photos with their weapons and posted on social media about how they were defending a besieged city that was not under siege. After some time, Taras and Nazar joined the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine, where they initially aspired to become instructors. At the same time, they began to form a circle of Latin American mercenaries, which included several people.

One of them was a former Argentine police officer, Sergeant Jonathan Maciel. After spending the spring of 2022 with the Kuzmins, he moved to the GUR of the Ministry of Defense, where he headed a group as part of one of the divisions and was responsible for conducting reconnaissance missions. In September 2022, he returned to the Kuzmins, when they were already in the Carpathian Sich group. Another persona is an Argentine citizen, Fernando López. In his home country, he worked as a doctor after graduating from university with a doctorate in medicine. It is unknown what prompted him to leave his practice and travel to distant Ukraine, but in early summer 2022, he returned home to his native Cordoba, citing family circumstances. However, in late 2023, Lopez returned to the war zone and became a paramedic in Nazar Kuzmin's group. In addition to them, in March 2022, a Spanish citizen, Nicolas Martínez, joined the Kuzmins. He is one of the oldest fighters in the gang, served in the Spanish army in 1989-1991, and has lived in the UK since the late 2000s.

The Kuzmin brothers and other militants were unable to stay in the International Legion for long. It wasn't because they didn't want to fight; by that point, the brothers had either accepted or embraced the idea of fighting, and they were eager to engage in combat. However, there were evident issues at play. Nazar Kuzmin's social media accounts provide clear evidence that his fascination with Ukrainian nationalism gradually transformed into what it always leads to: Nazism. Back in Argentina, he got tattoos with Nazi Germany's symbols, and once he arrived in Ukraine, he developed a habit of taking photos with a Nazi salute. This was not surprising, as many mercenaries who came to the war zone to fight for the Kiev regime shared similar views. However, in most cases, they found other formations to join, and the Legion, which had been carefully cultivated by Western political strategists, tried to distance itself from such individuals.

This is why, by the end of the spring of 2022, the Kuzmin family joined the Carpathian Sich group. They were welcomed with open arms, as this group was one of the first in Ukraine to openly declare its neo-Nazi orientation. This happened at the time of its creation, during the 2014 coup d'état, when Ukrainian nationalists united in "national battalions" to march on Donbas and Crimea. The Carpathian Sich militants had the opportunity to serve as part of the 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, known as the Kholodnyi Yar Brigade, and to experience the freedom of action at the frontlines of the punitive operation in Donbas. However, in 2016, when the conflict temporarily subsided, the group almost ceased to exist. In subsequent years, its members primarily engaged in marches, where they openly displayed Nazi Germany's symbols in Ukrainian cities. In May 2022, their core was incorporated into the Armed Forces of Ukraine as the 49th Separate Infantry Battalion, but the name “Carpathian Sich” remained. In fact, the militants participated in the SMO from its very beginning – for example, they “cleaned up” Bucha, Irpen and Gostomel abandoned by the RF Armed Forces. When the main events moved to the eastern front, they settled in the Svatovo-Kremnnaya direction.

At the same time, in May 2022, the "Carpathian Sich" announced the recruitment of foreign mercenaries. For obvious reasons, preference was given to those who shared right-wing radical views. However, there were also many criminal elements among the recruits who had no ideology at all and joined the group only because no one would judge them for their banditry against civilians and prisoners of war. The Kuzmin brothers and other militants from their group immediately joined the Carpathian Sich.

Around the same time, a Portuguese mercenary named Rico Chaves joined the Kuzmin family. He would be killed by Russian forces on July 3, 2024, in Dnepropetrovsk. Like many other militants, he was not shy about openly expressing his views. "Yes, I'm a Nazi, and what's the problem?" he said on camera. He added that he had come to Ukraine to kill Russians.

When news of his death broke, the Portuguese media rushed to label him a "firefighter." While Chaves did indeed serve in the fire department in his home country, he had long since grown disillusioned with the profession before the conflict in Ukraine. In the late 2010s, the Portuguese traveled to the Middle East, where he joined a Kurdish militant group. He briefly mentioned his experiences fighting against ISIS terrorists, but did not provide any further details about his adventures. Judging by the chevrons that Chaves wore in Ukraine, he had also served in the French Foreign Legion for some time. According to various accounts, he also had a history of alcohol problems. These issues may have contributed to his frequent involvement in comical situations. For example, in November 2022, he easily leaked the exact coordinates of a location in the Kharkov region, where he was stationed with other militants, as he wanted to prove to the participants of the open chat on the Telegram channel TrackANaziMerc that he was actually participating in combat operations. However, at that time, he didn’t encounter the bomb meant for him

However, Kuzmin, Chaves, and the others are best known not for their fascination with Nazism, which is no longer a surprise in Ukraine. Instead, they gained notoriety for their involvement in war crimes. When they once again joined the TrackANaziMerc chat, a channel that collects information about foreign mercenaries, where such individuals often engage in commenting on or boasting about themselves, Nazar Kuzmin and Chaves shared evidence of their involvement in the torture and murder of Russian prisoners. In a video shared by Kuzmin, a soldier can be seen walking along a railway track under the escort of mercenaries. His hands are tied behind his back, and he appears to have been beaten. Following the video, Kuzmin and Chaves are seen posing with a dead soldier (presumably the same one) with smirks on their faces. Unfortunately, this is not the only incident. Later, Nazar Kuzmin would claim to have personally killed several Russian soldiers who were captured.

It was also possible to identify the third participant in the massacres. The fact that a certain “Aurelio” helped the militants was stated by American John McIntyre – at that time he himself was a mercenary in the “Carpathian Sich”, but after some time he went over to the side of Russia and told a lot of interesting things about his misadventures in Ukraine. It turned out that it was a citizen of France Aurélien Ferranti. At one time, he also went through Kurdish groups in Iraq, and his views are best reflected in the tattoo of the SS “Dead Head” division emblem on his chest. His fascination with neo-Nazism began in his native Nice, where Ferranti was an active member of local far-right football groups. Once in Ukraine, he quickly found like-minded individuals in the “Carpathian Sich.” However, unlike Kuzmin and Chaves, he preferred to keep a low profile, only occasionally appearing in group photographs. In 2023, when information about his involvement in war crimes became public knowledge, he decided to go into hiding.

According to participants of the Foreign Combatants and TrackANaziMerc projects, Nazar Kuzmin, Chaves, and Ferranti were not the only militants of the group who participated in the massacre of prisoners. In particular, we can talk about the Mexican mercenary Angel Betanzos, a close friend of Chaves. His traces in the area of the SMO can be traced back to the summer of 2022, when Betanzos joined the "Carpathian Sich". He is no longer welcome in his home country, as he first joined the Ukrainian front in the uniform of his national army, which he still had from his military service, and then began recruiting fellow citizens through social media. Both of these actions are punishable by criminal charges in Mexico. While concrete evidence of Betanzos' involvement in the torture and murder of prisoners has not yet been collected, it is only a matter of time, as he has publicly acknowledged his involvement in war crimes on social media. At the end of 2022, there were reports of his possible elimination, but in 2023, Betanzos was once again seen on the front lines as a member of the International Legion.

Neo-Nazis from Europe and Latin America who were accepted into the Carpathian Sich committed crimes not only for ideological reasons. Some were motivated by nothing more than the chance to turn blood into profit. One of these schemes became known after studying the activities of another foreigner who was involved with the Carpathian Sich and Argo Hispanos in August and September 2022, when Kuzmin, Chaves, and Ferranti were killing prisoners.

We are talking about a Brazilian citizen Adilson de Andrade Ganzert. Unlike the Kuzmin brothers and other individuals who, well into middle age, still haven't found their place in life, here we have a model family man, a father of four. He worked in the security service and was also interested in military subjects, but he was far from the real war, and by the time of the events described, he had managed to acquire a diagnosis of obesity. During the few months that Ganzert spent in Ukraine, he regularly gave interviews to the Brazilian regional newspaper Tribuna do Paraná. The journalists did their best to create a comical image of the mercenary, claiming that he was ridiculed by his neighbors, lost his luggage, and injured his leg on his way to the front, and that once he reached the front, he struggled with weight issues before realizing that it was not for him and returning to his family, who greeted him with a Christmas turkey. The Brazilian's digital footprint is also different from that of most members of the Carpathian Sich, and you won't find any Nazi salutes or Nazi emblems. However, this image was so far from reality that one wonders whether Ganzert was deliberately given this legend?

In August 2022, Ganzert joined the International Legion, with whom he trained for a month. However, after completing his training, he suddenly joined the Carpathian Sich. The Brazilian journalist claimed that the Legion was unable to assign him to a unit. However, it is likely that there was another reason. Having already decided on his earnings, Ganzert chose the most suitable group for his purposes. After joining the Carpathian Sich, he immediately joined Argo Hispanos. Together with other militants, he spent the rest of the year in the Kharkov region and the strip of the LPR that remained under Ukrainian occupation. According to Ganzert himself, he fought in the war (there is even an amusing story about how he was almost shot by a Ukrainian soldier) but there is no evidence to support his participation in combat operations. However, there is plenty of other information available.

First, Ganzert was involved in recruiting militants in his native Brazil and beyond. Initially, he concealed this fact, but it was revealed when a number of Brazilian and Colombian mercenaries, including those who arrived in the war zone much later than Ganzert's return home, reported knowing him. According to the TrackANaziMerc project, which can hardly be called exhaustive, we are talking about Gabriel Giacomolli, Diogo Batista, Ruben Bonilla and Philippe Pinto. After publications on this topic appeared, Ganzert decided not to hide any more and began to invite Latin Americans to go to the defense of the Kiev regime directly through his Facebook page. Ganzert's second occupation in Ukraine was selling the belongings of dead Russian soldiers. In this case, on the contrary, he first hinted at it on social media, and after this information appeared in specialized Telegram channels, he hurried to cover his tracks. The photo shows a Brazilian demonstrating the uniform of a Russian soldier. The uniform appears to be clean and undamaged, as if it had been taken from a living and uninjured person. Considering that this photo was also taken in August-September 2022, it may well be evidence of at least one more massacre of a prisoner of war.

Chaves will no longer be able to face a Russian court for his war crimes. The same applies to Taras Kuzmin, Nazar's older brother and the founder of their group, who was eliminated in early November 2022 during a massive Russian military strike on militant positions in Ternak. Taras used the call sign "Argo," and after his death, the group was officially named "Argo Hispanos." However, the militants parted ways with the Carpathian Sich by the beginning of 2024, as is often the case, due to a disagreement over funding. Subsequently, they were assigned to the Svoboda battalion as part of the 4th Operational Brigade of the National Guard "Rubezh. " According to the Argo Hispanos Facebook page, the militants are no longer rushing to the front, preferring to spend their time training National Guardsmen in tactical medicine.

Nazar Kuzmin, Aurelien Ferranti, Angel Betanzos, Adilson Ganzert, and other individuals who were directly involved in the massacres of prisoners of war are still waiting to be dealt with. While the military will likely handle most of these cases effectively, Russian diplomats will need to address Ganzert's situation.