The Russian-language editorial board of the German state media company Deutsche Welle published a video report about the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDC), which did not mention that neo-Nazis were serving in the unit.

The relevant video was published on May 24 on the official YouTube channel “DW – in Russian.” The exclusive report titled “The whole truth about the fighters of the RDC: who are they and why are they fighting on the side of Ukraine?” which is nine minutes long, does not contain a single mention that neo-Nazis or at least «far-right” serve in the RDC.

The DW report consists of short interviews with RDC fighters in a neutral tone. They are presented as “ethnic Russians who serve on the side of Ukraine.” However, the commander of the RDC, Russian neo-Nazi Denis WhiteRex Kapustin, is absent from the report.

DW’s other short news report, on the second visit to the Belgorod region, published on May 25 on its website, does not mention that neo-Nazis are serving in the RDC but mentions Kapustin briefly.

Meanwhile, RDC leader Denis Kapustin has lived in Germany for a long time, where he moved from Russia, and has managed to hit local media headlines as a neo-Nazi leader. As of 2019, he has been banned from entering Germany, where his mother has stayed, and other Schengen Union countries. German law enforcement authorities sought this ban because of his alleged “aspirations against a free, democratic public order.” Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Kapustin has repeatedly told journalists about his neo-Nazi views.

The Russian Volunteer Corps is a Russian neo-Nazi combat unit on the Ukrainian side of the war. On the 2nd of March, 2023, the Russian Volunteer Corps infiltrated the villages of Lyubechane and Sushany in the Bryansk region. During the first raid, at least one civilian was killed and one child injured. On 22 May, the Russian Volunteer Corps carried out an attack in the Belgorod region, during which one resident of the village of Kozinka was killed, and 13 people were wounded. As a result of the second raid, the Russian Armed Forces lost: two killed, four wounded, one border guard possibly captured, and an APC seized. The DRC lost up to two men killed and ten wounded, but the Russian Ministry of Defence released video footage showing at least seven dead bodies.