Notorious former football hooligan Denis Nikitin runs a controversial unit actively engaged alongside Ukraine forces
Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates
Denis Nikitin arrived for an interview at a Kyiv restaurant with a pistol strapped to his side and flanked by two armed bodyguards. It would not have been a surprising sight in wartime Ukraine but for one detail: Nikitin is Russian.
Before Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine last year, Nikitin was known as a notorious Russian nationalist, who built links between far-right groups across Europe and was once a major figure on Russia’s football hooliganism scene.
More Stories
New Canada PM Mark Carney to visit Paris and London amid attacks from Trump
‘All the birds returned’: How a Chinese project led the way in water and soil conservation
ABC apologises after national outage knocks radio broadcasts off air