https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Base_(hate_group)
The Base is a US based Neo Nazi political and paramilitary organisation, the group’s founder and former leader, Rinaldo Nazzaro, is located in Russia:
Nazzaro marries Lyudmila Sergreyeva in Manhattan at St. Nicholas Cathedral (Russian Orthodox). She worked as a bank teller and at a travel agency and had come to the U.S. in 2008 from Cheboksary, Russia. They go on to have two daughters. In Fall 2017, he and his family move to Russia. He is said to have obtained Russian citizenship and a passport (per Fontanka). In March 2018, he wears a T Shirt with Vladimir Putin on it under which it says “Russia, Absolute Power.” When he founds The Base in July 2018, he is living in St. Petersburg. In 2019, “Nazzaro was listed as a guest at a Russian government security exhibition in Moscow, which ‘focused on the demonstration of the results of state policy and achievements’.”(3) In November 2020, he appears on Russia-24 U.S. Election coverage for propaganda purposes with his denial that he is a neoNazi terrorist and leader. Black Lives Matter (BLM) and ANTIFA are demonized and the Holocaust called into question in the newscast. He states “he was simply a family man looking to provide survivalist training to willing Americans.”
- https://www.cofutures.net/post/rinaldo-nazzaro-leader-of-the-neo-nazi-terrorist-group-the-base-probable-linkages-to-rim (PDF Page 11)
The group is believed to have ties to the Russian Imperial Movement and the Atomwaffen Division (USA) according to the security consultancy group C/O Futures:
It maybe plausible that Nazzaro had some online interactions with Matthew Heimbach (Traditionalist Worker Party; TWP), who hosted Stanislav Shevchuk in 2017, or Atomwaffen Division (AWD) leaders who were beginning to forge ties with RIM (in 2018 two AWD members undertook their training in Russia) but such links are speculative.
Even if we can accept that, until just prior to the Fall of 2017 before Nazzaro left for Russia, he did not have any ties to RIM and/or Russian intelligence (being cultivated as an asset), it is highly improbable that he could not have material support by July 2018 to:
• Move with his Russian wife and daughters to St. Petersburg, Russia • Gain Russian citizenship and a passport • Live in an upscale central St. Petersburg property purchased in his wife’s name • End up in the same city where the Royal Imperial Movement (RIM) is located and ideologically align with their ‘hybrid warfare’ objectives • Found The Base, a neo-Nazi network/group focused on engaging in terrorist acts in the U.S.
Also, after The Base was founded, we know that in 2019 it shared some members with the Atomwaffen Division (AWD). That group’s cells began appearing in the U.S. in late 2015 and early 2016 and, by the time it was sharing members, it already had some direct interactions with the RIM.
- https://www.cofutures.net/post/rinaldo-nazzaro-leader-of-the-neo-nazi-terrorist-group-the-base-probable-linkages-to-rim (PDF Page 12)
Secret efforts to groom and recruit teenagers by a neo-Nazi militant group have been exposed by covert recordings. They capture senior members of The Base interviewing young applicants and discussing how to radicalise them. The FBI has described the group as seeking to unite white supremacists around the world and incite a race war. The recordings were passed to US civil rights organisation, the Southern Poverty Law Center, before some were shared with BBC One’s Panorama. Rinaldo Nazzaro, founder of The Base, is a 47-year-old American. Earlier this year the BBC revealed he was directing the organisation from his upmarket flat in St. Petersburg, Russia. The interviews, which took place via conference call on an encrypted app, followed a pattern - prospective members were asked by Nazzaro about their personal history, ethnicity, radicalisation journey and experience with weapons, before a panel of senior members posed their own questions…
Key Information: “The Base.” Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University, February 2021, https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/thebase:
The Base is an accelerationist neo-Nazi militant organization operating mostly in the United States with some activity in Europe. The group’s founder is based in Russia. Organized mostly online as a loose network of cells, the Base anticipates the overthrow of modern society and an ensuing race war. The group’s objective is to establish a white ethno-state in North America, inspired by the separatist projects of other U.S. white supremacist groups, such as the Northwest Front and Aryan Nations. As of January 2021, the Base had successfully carried out acts of vandalism, but its major attacks against human targets were foiled by law enforcement. The group regularly holds offline meet-ups and paramilitary training sessions for its members across the United States. Although this organization’s name appears to be an English translation of “Al Qaeda,” the Base claims no affiliation with the jihadist group. The FBI infiltrated the Base in 2019 and arrested many of its members between late 2019 and early 2020. In January 2020, it was reported that the Base’s founder, a U.S. citizen named Rinaldo Nazzaro, led the group from his residence in St. Petersburg, Russia. Key Information: “The Base.” Southern Poverty Law Center, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/base (Accessed 21 November 2022):
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