The podcast was created by Denis Kapustin and Robert Rundo, two MMA fighters who became notorious figures in the far-right mixed martial arts scene.
Two notorious white supremacists have started a podcast teaching fellow nationalists how to form their own hate groups.
Titled “Active Club,” the podcast was created by Denis Kapustin and Robert Rundo, two MMA fighters who became notorious figures in the far-right mixed martial arts scene. Kapustin, who is better known as Denis Nikitin, is a Russian neo-Nazi, MMA fighter, and football hooligan who rose to infamy by promoting a white supremacist MMA organization and clothing brand known as White Rex. His co-host, Rundo, is one of the founding members of the Rise Above Movement, a white supremacist, pro-Trump gang that considered itself the “premier MMA fight club of the alt-right.”
“It’s been a long time in the making but we finally have brought together two notorious nationalists … to team up in an east meets west to share insights from real world experiences to cover all topics in the nationalist lifestyle,” the duo wrote on Telegram when promoting the first episode of the podcast in January 2020. “From the highs and the lows, from underground MMA events to FBI house raids, we will give you the street level of politics from two that have been front and center at some of the biggest nationalist events and demonstrations in Europe and America.”
Over the course of five episodes to date, the two white supremacists have covered a wide range of topics for prospective white nationalists, including how to protect your identity from journalists and investigators, how to stay safe during street fights, and how to effectively spread propaganda in order to maximize outreach. The duo recalled encounters with the police, the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, how nationalist movements have adapted during the coronavirus pandemic, and what American far-right agitators can learn from the Russian extreme-right scene. They also celebrated the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, used homophobic slurs to describe anti-fascists and leftists, and used ethnic slurs such as the n-word to describe Black Lives Matter protestors.
Initially, the Active Club podcast was available on PodOmatic, a San Francisco-based podcast-hosting site, despite the site’s terms of service explicitly forbidding content that “advocate or incite violence.” Later, in response to a VICE World News report on the podcast, the hosting platform removed the podcast after deeming it in “extreme violation” of the terms of service. However, the podcast remains accessible on Rundo’s Media2Rise far-right clothing website, as well as on Telegram.
Rundo, who was previously arrested on rioting charges in relation to a rally in Huntington Beach in 2018 only to have the charges dismissed by a district judge, also founded the white nationalist propaganda outfit known as the International Conservative Community, which boasts a network of neo-Nazis around the world, including groups in Greece, Poland, Sweden, Hungary, Russia and Canada. The ICC is behind the propaganda campaign for Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old charged with the fatal shooting of two protesters during a demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Rundo’s campaign included spreading artwork depicting Rittenhouse with the caption, “Kyle was Right.” The ICC has planted stickers, large-scale graffiti work, and banners emblazoned with Rittenhouse’s image across Europe and North America. In Serbia, where Rundo was living in 2020, the group painted a picture of an armed Rittenhouse standing proud with a Schwarze Sonne (German for Black Sun) as his backdrop. The Black Sun (also known as the sonnerad) is synonymous with far-right groups that traffic in neo-Nazi ideologies. The painting in Serbia was featured alongside a Confederate flag and a picture of a deranged Homer Simpson aiming a gun, with the caption “KILL YOUR LOCAL ANTIFA SCUM.”
Last month, Rundo was reportedly expelled from Serbia after Bellingcat outed his location in Serbia. The Serbian daily Blic reported on Feb. 11 that Serbian police escorted Rundo to the Trbušnica-Šepak border pass, which connects Serbia to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
As for Kapustin, the Russian extreme-right mainstay recently announced that his White Rex clothing brand and MMA promotion was “back” following years of inactivity.
“Our work continues,” he wrote on the White Rex Telegram account last week. “Stay tuned.”