The suspected bodies of three Ukrainian soldiers lie on the ground, identified by the yellow armbands their troops often wear. They have apparently been executed and lie on their stomachs with their hands on their bloody heads. A Russian fighter poses behind them with a rifle and tactical equipment, he looks proud.
“This is how you photograph an army of winners, not losers,” wrote the Russian sabotage, attack and reconnaissance group Rusitsch to its almost 250,000 followers in November about the photo on the messenger service Telegram. Users left a heart emoji underneath it 18,000 times and the post was viewed more than 400,000 times.
That same evening, the paramilitary unit launched a macabre competition: “The first three people to send in photos with clearly killed (Ukrainian) prisoners in the background will receive a financial reward in cryptocurrency from Rusitsch,” she wrote in a now-deleted post that has been obtained by the taz. Rusitsch then wants to publish the photos.
Rusitsch has earned a reputation for such brutal acts. The right-wing extremist group fights on Russia’s side against Ukraine and consists of mercenaries and volunteers who operate hand in hand with the Russian army and the GRU military intelligence service. According to the Geneva Conventions, the execution of prisoners is a war crime.
Rusitsch is fighting the war not only at the front, but also online. Using photos of highly armed fighters who have significantly better tactical equipment than the average Russian soldier, she wants to recruit fellow soldiers using a chatbot. She finances her operations through donations in cryptocurrencies. And she wants to terrorize her enemies, the Ukrainians, with recordings of her war crimes, from executions to beheadings.
Connections to the Wagner Group
Rusitsch was founded around 2014 by the St. Petersburg neo-Nazis Alexei Milchakov and Jan Petrowski. Shortly after its formation, the unit fought against Ukrainian forces in Donbass before being deployed in Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic in the following years. Since the major Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022, it has again been involved in combat operations in the east of the country.
Rusitsch cares close connections to the infamous Wagner Group – the private army of the Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, which fought on behalf of Moscow in Africa, Syria and Ukraine and was known for torture (their trademark: the sledgehammer). At least until Prigozhin himself declared war on Putin in the summer of 2023, set off with his troops for Moscow and died a short time later in a mysterious plane crash.
Rusitsch founder Milchakov previously served in an elite air assault unit of the Russian army together with the Wagner commander Dmitri Utkinalso an avowed neo-Nazi, who died on the plane with Prigozhin. Miltchakov and Petrovsky were deployed on behalf of Wagner in the past. Rusitsch also posthumously congratulates Prigozhin on his birthday on Telegram.
Similar to Wagner, Rusitsch has become a subcultural brand for patriotic war enthusiasts. The unit sells its own merchandising through a webshop, including keychains and protein powder – the latter advertised with the slogan “Cooler than Butscha” in reference to the small Ukrainian town became synonymous with Russian war crimes. A new hoodie collection celebrates their military missions around the world. In this way, it cultivates a myth that makes it more attractive and compatible for some than the classic Russian army.
Rusitsch is not the only right-wing extremist unit fighting against Ukraine, but it is the most prominent. The 88th Reconnaissance and Sabotage Brigade Espanola, a group of neo-Nazi football hooligans that also has connections to the GRU, was also deployed – before it disbanded in October and commander Stanislav Orlov was said to have been killed in December under unclear circumstances during an arrest in Russia for illegal arms trafficking.
Members of the right-wing extremist Russian imperial movement have been fighting against Ukraine since 2014 and run a paramilitary training camp in Saint Petersburg, where European neo-Nazis as well as the Rusitsch founders Milchakov and Petrovsky were trained in the past.
Cooperation with the Russian army
The digital staging as fearsome warriors should help Rusitsch with recruitment. In one Post from October The group promises a salary of 2.5 million rubles, presumably per year, which corresponds to around 27,000 euros. It is said that you should contact the Leningrad Military District of the Russian Army and provide the name Rusitsch for “accelerated processing” of your application. Evidence that the paramilitary unit works closely with the Russian army.
There are currently no places available at Rusitsch himself, according to the profile bio of the recruiter’s Russian cell phone number on Telegram. If you enter your number into WhatsApp, you’ll see a vacation photo of the recruiter, a sporty man probably in his late 20s in front of Registan Square in Uzbekistan.
Rusitsch is of little military importance in terms of the number of fighters. But the unit has understood how violence can be staged. She deliberately uses social media as a propaganda tool – with images that are intended to shock and messages that are intended to intimidate. The brutality is not a byproduct, but part of the strategy.
According to Michael Colborne, Rusitsch is primarily a propaganda machine intended to spread fear and terror. Colborne works at the investigative platform Bellingcat and has been researching the extreme right in Eastern Europe for years. In Rusitsch he sees a new dimension of wanton violence.
“They understand the power of shocking content to attract attention,” he tells the taz. “Whatever criticism you have on some forcespeople and groups on the Ukrainian side can rightly say, as far as I know, none of them are anywhere near as bloodthirsty as Rusitsch.”
Calls for torture
Founder Alexei Milchakov stands out as particularly sadistic. He is infamous for decapitating a puppy in 2011 and posting a photo of the severed head online.
This was also the case in the war against Ukraine: Milchakov shared photos on the Russian platform VK in which he cut off the ears of Ukrainian soldiers – apparently as collector’s items. In some pictures he has that Spinning wheel – an ancient Slavic sun symbol popular among Eastern European right-wing extremists, which also forms the logo of the Rusitsch unit – carved into their foreheads.
As early as 2022, Milchakov called for the torture and murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war. He published this a “guide” on Telegram: He recommends not reporting the capture of Ukrainian soldiers to commanders so that their fingers and ears can be cut off during interrogation before they are finally “discreetly” shot, stabbed or injured so badly that they die on the way to the hospital.
The bodies should not be handed over to Ukraine. Instead, he suggests writing down the coordinates of the gravesites, taking a selfie at the crime scene and tracking down the relatives of the person killed in order to blackmail them with the location. He recommends transferring $2,000 to $5,000 to a Bitcoin wallet “to purchase equipment, drones and so on.”
Rusitsch himself doesn’t try to create a positive image. At the end of October, the group wrote on Telegram: “It no longer makes sense to act ‘good’ towards the West, because the decision about Russia has long been made. And all these gestures of goodwill (like Kiev, near Kherson) bring us no benefits – only more shame, pain and death for our country.”
Military medals and prison sentences
As well as Rusitsch as well as Miltschakow and Petrowski have been affected by international sanctions since 2022 because of their role in the Ukraine war. In 2023, Petrowski was arrested in Finland while traveling under an assumed name; last March he was arrested there for war crimes sentenced to life imprisonment.
Milchakov continues to enjoy recognition in Russia. According to his own statements, he was awarded several military medals from the Russian Ministry of Defense. In December he was allowed to give a lecture in a public school in Saint Petersburg on the subject of courage – photos show this were published on Telegram. The school director thanks him for his work with a certificate “patriotic education” the student.
As Russia’s war enters its fifth year, different Assessments According to reports that more than a million Russian soldiers (compared to 400,000 Ukrainians) have been killed or injured, Rusitsch is continuing the digital and analogue terror. On January 19, the unit posted a photo of one of its fighters on a snowy path in front of an unguarded Ukrainian checkpoint. Just two words: “Working moments 2026”.