Russia pays $500K bounty for faux dying, funds Ukraine battle
For a quick second, the Kremlin thought it had gained a small however satisfying victory.
Certainly one of its most wished enemies, probably the most distinguished anti-Putin Russians preventing alongside Ukraine, was supposedly useless, killed in a drone strike.
As a substitute, it was revealed solely days later that the Kremlin bought conned, and the $500,000 bounty cash awarded ended up instantly funding the very battle it’s attempting to win.
Denis Kapustin, a far-right Russian militant additionally recognized by his identify of battle “White Rex,” was reported useless on December 27 after an alleged Ukrainian drone strike on the southern entrance.
Kapustin is a former soccer hooligan who has been banned from the Schengen Space since 2019 for selling neo-Nazi ideology.
Regardless of this, he has turn into probably the most distinguished anti-Putin Russians preventing on behalf of Ukraine.
Russian intelligence companies had lengthy hunted Kapustin, putting a $500,000 worth on his head. After information broke of his supposed assassination, Moscow paid out the bounty, not realizing the cash was going straight to Ukraine.
Kapustin is the founding father of the pro-Ukrainian Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), which was arrange in 2022 and later carried out cross-border raids into Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk areas.
After experiences of Kapustin’s dying emerged, the RDK confirmed it.
“We will certainly take revenge, Denis,” the group stated on Telegram.
“Your legacy lives on.”
However on New Yr’s Day, Kapustin dramatically re-emerged alive and unhurt in a video launched by Ukraine’s army intelligence company, the HUR.
“Welcome again to life,” HUR chief Basic Kyrylo Budanov stated cheekily, congratulating Kapustin and his crew on a profitable intelligence operation.
“To begin with, Mr Denis, congratulations in your return to life. That’s at all times a pleasure. I’m glad that the cash allotted on your assassination was used to help our wrestle,” Basic Budanov added.
The Timur unit introduced: “Our facet additionally acquired a corresponding quantity of funds allotted by Russian intelligence companies for the implementation of this crime.”
Kapustin stays inside Ukrainian territory and is “getting ready to proceed finishing up assigned duties”, based on a Ukrainian commander.
His household moved from Moscow to Germany when he was 17, earlier than Kapustin relocated to Ukraine in 2017.
Within the early weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion, he helped set up items that later turned Ukraine’s third Assault Brigade, which performed a key position in defending Kyiv.
Responding to experiences of his dying, the third Military Corps stated: “We collectively confronted the frequent enemy within the battle for Kyiv.”
“He perceived [Ukraine] as a spot of actual resistance and freedom,” it added.
Kapustin established the RDK in August 2022 with the said purpose of overthrowing Putin to convey “peace to Russia” and finish a regime of “lies, corruption, and lawlessness.”
Russia has labelled the RDK a terrorist organisation and has sentenced Kapustin twice in absentia to life imprisonment on costs of treason and terrorism.
In March 2024, the group stormed into Russia utilizing tanks and armoured autos, clashing with safety forces and capturing Russian troopers.
Kyiv insists that whereas the RDK operates beneath Ukrainian command, the cross-border incursions weren’t ordered instantly by Ukraine’s management.
It comes because the battle enters its 1,409th day with Ukraine launching a wave of in a single day drone assaults throughout a number of Russian areas, hitting vitality and industrial websites, based on native officers.
Targets have been struck in Krasnodar, Tatarstan and Kaluga, sparking fires at a number of amenities.
In Krasnodar, flames broke out on the Ilskiy oil refinery, whereas an vitality storage website within the metropolis of Almetyevsk, in Tatarstan’s Volga River area, was additionally hit. An industrial facility in Lyudinovo, within the Kaluga area southwest of Moscow, was broken as properly.
As the brand new yr started, Russia and Ukraine traded accusations of attacking civilians.
Moscow reported a lethal strike on a resort in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine. Kyiv responded by insisting it strictly targets army and vitality infrastructure.
Ukrainian officers stated civilians have been hit elsewhere. Kherson regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin stated a person was killed and an 87-year-old lady injured in assaults on the town on Thursday.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Oleksiy Kuleba stated rail amenities have been attacked in three separate areas.
Russia’s feared FSB and GRU intelligence companies have an extended fame for ruthlessness, however via the course of the battle Ukraine has repeatedly proven its skill to outsmart its rival companies.
In November, it was reported that Ukrainian intelligence used Russia’s personal brokers in opposition to it, accepting missions overtly provided by the FSB for monetary reward, solely to sabotage them.
In a single case, a Ukrainian double-agent accepted a process from a Russian jobs board to construct a bomb, which was then handed to a Russian saboteur. The bomb was full of flour, and the Russian agent was arrested after it did not detonate.
Ukraine has additionally claimed accountability for assassinations of senior Russian officers, whereas Kyiv is suspected of orchestrating a number of others.
In April, Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy chief of the principle operations directorate of Russia’s military, was killed by a automobile bomb in a Moscow suburb. Russian outlet Baza reported the machine was strapped to a parked Volkswagen and detonated remotely as he walked previous.
A month later, former Ukrainian politician Andriy Portnov was shot useless outdoors the American Faculty of Madrid whereas dropping off his daughters, in what seemed to be an expert hit.
Most lately, Lieutenant Basic Fanil Sarvarov, 56, head of the Russian military’s operational coaching directorate, died in an explosion in Moscow on December 22. No less than seven close by vehicles have been broken within the blast.
One other senior determine, Lieutenant Basic Igor Kirillov — who oversaw Russia’s nuclear, chemical and organic weapons — was killed on December 17 by a remotely detonated machine hidden inside an electrical scooter.
“Kirillov was a battle prison and a completely respectable goal, as he gave orders to make use of banned chemical weapons in opposition to the Ukrainian army,” a Ukrainian safety supply advised The Telegraph.
