White Phoenix

White Phoenix is the designated Ukrainian operational cell of The Base, the neo-Nazi accelerationist paramilitary network founded and directed by Rinaldo Nazzaro from St. Petersburg, Russia. The cell became publicly active in early 2025 and conducted operations that counterterrorism analysts described as the first instance of The Base openly aligning its activities with Russian geopolitical and military objectives.¹

Emergence and Graffiti Operations

In late March 2025, videos surfaced on Base-affiliated Telegram channels showing individuals spray-painting The Base's symbol and insignia in multiple Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Kharkiv. The videos were accompanied by material attributing the activity to members within Ukraine operating under the White Phoenix name. Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) researcher Steven Rai noted that The Base's use of bot-amplified accounts on VKontakte to publicize the activities raised questions about state support.²

Bounty Offers and Ukraine Targeting

In April and June 2025, Nazzaro posted via Telegram offers of cash payments to volunteers for attacks on Ukrainian power stations, military and police vehicles, government buildings, and political officials in Kyiv and other cities. The materials explicitly proposed the creation of a "white nationalist enclave" in the Zakarpattia region of western Ukraine. Colin Clarke, Director of Research at the Soufan Center, described the targeting package as one that "could very well be a Russian intelligence operation" given Nazzaro's Russian sanctuary, citizenship, and the group's shift to Russian-owned digital platforms.³

Voronych Killing

On July 10, 2025, White Phoenix claimed responsibility for the killing of Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Colonel Ivan Voronych in the Holosiivskyi district of Kyiv. An unidentified assailant approached Voronych and fired five aimed shots from a silenced pistol; Voronych sustained multiple penetrating gunshot wounds and died at the scene. He was the highest-ranking SBU officer killed in a targeted assassination in Kyiv since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.

White Phoenix's Telegram claim described the killing as a "carefully planned" operation carried out by its "activists" as a "warning to the regime" of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The SBU subsequently announced that it had killed two Russian operatives, a man and a woman, whom it said had been directed by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) to surveil Voronych and had been led to a pre-positioned weapons cache containing the silenced firearm. The SBU attributed the killing to Russian state direction. Whether White Phoenix served as a FSB cutout, conducted the killing independently, or made a false attribution claim has not been confirmed. Counterterrorism sources quoted by the Kyiv Independent described the White Phoenix claim as credible; the SBU did not publicly confirm The Base's involvement.⁴

Odesa Car Bombing Claim

In February 2026, The Base's Ukrainian branch claimed responsibility for a car bombing in Odesa, stating the target was a border service officer described by the cell as assisting Russia. No independent confirmation of the claim was available as of the research date.⁵

Assessment

The White Phoenix cell represents a qualitative shift in The Base's operations: from preparing members in the United States for a future race war to conducting or claiming actual targeted killings in a live conflict zone on behalf of objectives that align with Russian military strategy. The combination of Russian operational direction of the Voronych killing (per SBU) and White Phoenix's claim of credit for the same killing is consistent with either a Russian intelligence cutout arrangement or a coincident opportunistic claim. Neither the U.S. government nor any allied government has publicly attributed White Phoenix's activities to Russian state direction as of 2026.