Both Men Were Members Of U.S. White Supremacist Group Atomwaffen Division
(New York, N.Y.) – Ukraine has deported two American citizens who had belonged to the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division (AWD) for attempting to establish a local AWD branch and trying to join a far-right Ukrainian military unit to “gain combat experience.” The AWD reportedly disbanded earlier this year, though former members have since reorganized as National Socialist Order (NSO) in order to “build an Aryan, National Socialist world by any means necessary.” According to the Security Service of Ukraine, the two unnamed men disseminated a video online that encouraged neo-Nazi-style terrorist attacks in Ukraine. The men also reportedly participated in “illegal activities” in Kyiv, Lviv, and Kharkiv.
German for “atomic weapons,” AWD was a neo-Nazi organization founded in 2015 that sought the creation of a National Socialist government through a violent “white revolution,” and believed in the inevitability of a coming race war. The group promoted Nazi and satanic propaganda in pursuit of “total Aryan victory.” AWD gained national prominence after some of its members attacked counter-protesters at the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Police also suspect individual AWD members to be the perpetrators of multiple murders throughout 2017 and 2018. The FBI arrested multiple AWD members in February 2020 on harassment charges, leading to the group’s alleged disbanding the following month.
In an approximately three-minute audio recording released on Soundcloud on March 14, James Mason, a long-time member of the American neo-Nazi scene and author of Siege, announced AWD was disbanding. The declaration followed the arrest of John Cameron Denton, one of the group’s alleged leaders, and four other suspected members for threatening journalists and minorities. Mason stated that AWD was disbanding immediately because of infiltration and arrests of AWD members by law enforcement, as well as the claim that the media had falsely portrayed AWD as a terrorist group.
NSO, the unofficial successor group to AWD, says in its official program that it completely rejects the current social-political world order as a “left-wing framework cultivated by the Jew.” The group further calls for all members to be armed and “ready at a moment’s notice.” NSO has affirmed it is a U.S.-based organization but supports “the overthrow of all Jew-controlled governments worldwide in order to liberate the Aryan race.”
To read CEP’s Atomwaffen Division/National Socialist Order resource, please click here.