Over the past 18 months, investigators across Europe have dismantled a string of neo-Nazi groups. Some were well organized and armed with guns and knives. Others appeared looser. In Britain, a teenager was arrested and charged with plotting an attack to start a race war.
These seemingly unrelated cases shared a thread. In each, the authorities linked key figures to a far-right group known as the Base, which recruits online, largely through white supremacist memes and propaganda.
The group’s message is that multiculturalism has made Western society irredeemable. Recruits are urged to commit sabotage and murder to hasten its collapse.
American law enforcement officials thought they had stifled the group years ago with a series of prosecutions. Its European resurgence is particularly concerning, experts say, because the Base’s goals align so squarely with the Kremlin’s efforts to conduct sabotage and undermine Western governments.
The man behind the Base, the authorities say, is a 52-year-old American living in Russia, far outside the reach of Western authorities.
In recent years, as Russia has waged war against Ukraine, the Base has begun promoting violence against Ukrainian politicians, government offices and infrastructure, according to a report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an international research organization.
Steven Rai, the author of that report, said the Russian government may simply be giving the group’s founder safe haven. “Another possibility is that the relationship extends beyond tacit approval,” he said, “with Russia offering more direct and covert forms of support.”
Rinaldo Nazzaro, whom Europol identified in December as the man behind the Base, has said the group promotes self-defense, not terrorism or Nazism. He has repeatedly denied any relationship with the Russian security services.
“I don’t know what the goals of the Russian intelligence services are,” he said in a 2021 email to The New York Times. He did not respond to a recent email.
The Russian Embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment.
Though all of the European arrests were made before any violence, the cases represent a reversal of fortune for Mr. Nazzaro, a former contract counterterrorism analyst for the F.B.I. and Pentagon.
In 2020, F.B.I. agents arrested several Base members. “The immediate threat from the organization was thought to be diminished,” said Thomas E. Brzozowski, a Justice Department senior adviser on domestic terrorism at the time.
Mr. Nazzaro began losing credibility among far-right figures, who suspected that he was a Russian agent. “They were blasting him as a spy,” said Scott Payne, a former F.B.I. agent who infiltrated the group in the United States.
But Mr. Nazzaro did not fade away.
In November 2023, a British teenager contacted the Base on the Telegram messaging app.
“Hello,i didn’t realise you guys were active,” the boy wrote, according to a record of messages presented at his trial.
“Yeah we’re still hanging on, even if just barely,” came the reply.
The boy later asked about the process of becoming a member. Over the following months, he attempted to recruit others on Telegram. He hung recruitment posters in the village near his home in Northumberland, in northeastern England.
Investigators found explosive-making materials, a crossbow, knives and a journal the boy kept. In it, he wrote that he wanted to inspire others and to “start a race war,” prosecutors said. He wrote that he would livestream an attack online. “It’s either death or capture by the enemy,” one journal entry said.
The boy, whose name is sealed because he is a minor, was convicted last month of five terrorism offenses, including membership of the Base. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the charge of preparing acts of terrorism. He is to be sentenced on Friday.
Investigators in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands say they have made arrests tied to the Base. The group is banned under terrorism laws in Britain, the European Union and Canada.
“They encourage murder and acts of terrorism, and want to bring about the collapse of society through a race war, with the end goal being a white supremacist utopia,” said Michelle Heeley, a prosecutor in the British case.
American officials have not designated the Base a terrorist organization. Ian C. Moss, a former State Department counterterrorism official, said the Biden administration had discussed doing so, but said there were thorny free-speech issues. The U.S. Constitution protects even hateful, racist speech, and the Supreme Court has ruled that the protection extends to speech generally advocating the violent overthrow of the government.
Regardless, Mr. Nazzaro’s home in Russia puts him out of reach of Western efforts to prosecute him. He traveled to Russia as a tourist, European officials say, then started the Base in 2018 after moving there with his wife, a native Russian. He has said he was attracted to Russia’s conservative culture.
Robert Horvath, a lecturer in Russian politics at La Trobe University in Australia, said the Base had a “symbiotic relationship” with the Kremlin.
He said the use of neo-Nazis was “part of a much larger system where the Russian state is able to mobilize radical extremists in the West.”
Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting.
Adam Goldman is a London-based reporter for The Times who writes about global security.
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