VICE World News has identified an ex-Marine recruit that Ukraine’s intelligence service allegedly booted in October for what they said were links to neo-Nazi terrorism. In October 2020, Ukrainian intelligence released a video of what it claimed was two American men in baseball caps carrying camouflage-patterned duffle bags as an agent escorted them to the baggage counter at the Kyiv airport. The video was likely choreographed by the authorities: Ukraine’s security services alleged the Americans were members of a violent U.S.-based hate group and among a growing number of men from around the world trying to fight illegally in the still-raging war in the country’s eastern Donbass region against Kremlin-backed separatists. But as quickly as they made headlines in the U.S. and in Ukraine, the men disappeared and neither was ever identified publicly—until now. VICE World News has learned that Ryan Burchfield, 21, is one of the men in the video. Burchfield is a Virginia native, a Marine Corps dropout, and a former member of the Base, one of the most violent American-born terror groups in recent decades, and one under the ongoing specter of an FBI counterterrorism probe. According to information from inside Ukraine obtained and reviewed by VICE World News, Burchfield, who by his own admission traveled to the country for a taste of war and to prepare for a future career as a mercenary, was one of the men deported by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU)—Ukraine’s main intelligence agency—for “illegal activities.” (The deportation was detailed in a public release where Burchfield went unnamed.) The SBU accused the Americans of trying to join military units on the front lines and promoting terrorism in the country. Both, according to the release, were banned entry into Ukraine for three years. The SBU asserted that the Americans operated in the cities of Kyiv, Lviv, and Kharkiv, three major cities in Ukraine, the latter being one of the closest to the fighting in Donbass. At one point Burchfield used a unique photo of a nationalist lion statue in Lviv, a symbol some claim is linked to the Galician division of the Einsatzgruppen (SS) death squads, as his personal display picture on Instagram.
via vice: U.S. Man Deported From Ukraine Was Marine Dropout Linked to Neo-Nazi Terror Group