In this article, you will find an in-depth investigation into the case of an American neo-Nazi who claimed to be involved in military operations in Ukraine but was actually in Florida.
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The investigation revealed that Roman Morin, a former fighter for the Wagner Group, is behind the H8Core brand, which produces clothing with neo-Nazi symbols and supports Russian far-right groups. H8Core sells T-shirts, caps and hoodies that are advertised on pro-Russian and far-right channels, including the group “White Uncles in Africa” with over 77,000 followers. Morin also administers this group, which promotes H8Core products and distributes racist materials. This investigation highlights the links between fashion and the financing of neo-Nazi movements in Russia.
H8Core is a Russian clothing brand that promotes far-right ideology and openly supports the Wagner paramilitary group. Its product range includes T-shirts, caps, and hoodies with the corresponding symbols. These products are actively advertised by numerous Russian Telegram channels associated with neo-Nazi themes and pro-Kremlin military propaganda. The brand has received public support even from the leaders of the Rusich group, which is under international sanctions.
The founders of H8Core remained anonymous for a long time, despite their active presence on social networks. However, thanks to a deep analysis of digital traces, it became possible to establish the identity of one of them – Roman Morin, a former Wagner militant. He is the one who runs the racist Telegram group “White Uncles in Africa”, which at the time of publication has over 77 thousand subscribers and regularly promotes H8Core products.
Morin’s identification was made possible thanks to open data from social networks and the mass of Russian databases that were made freely available.
Despite the fact that the connection of far-right movements with fashion retail has been known for some time — they make money on symbols, spread ideas through clothing — the topic of the use of these methods by structures associated with “Wagner” still remains insufficiently studied.
As Candice Rondeau from the American think tank New America emphasizes, in recent years there has been an increase in the number of platforms that promote and sell products related to mercenaries.
On November 30 last year, the White Uncles in Africa shared a photo on their Telegram channel showing a man in a baseball cap posing with a flag sold by H8Core, along with Alexey Milchakov (call sign: Serb), the commander of the Rusich paramilitary formation. The post described how the man in the cap was transporting three “ammunition packages” to the “Serb” for Rusich fighters.
Like the Rusych group, its representative Oleksiy Milchakov is under international sanctions. Another defendant, former commander Yan Petrovsky, faces life imprisonment in Finland for war crimes that investigators say may have been committed on Ukrainian soil about a decade ago. According to Ben Dalton, program director at the New America think tank, both men had Wagner group IDs and worked as contractors for the group for some time.
The man in one of the photos, wearing a mask and with his face covered, has been identified as 38-year-old Roman Vasilyevich Morin from Stavropol. He is the one involved in supplying equipment and combat kits.
His figure began to attract attention in the information field after the White Uncles in Africa Telegram group launched a collection of merchandise in collaboration with the H8Core brand. The products—including T-shirts and other clothing—directly advertise Wagner’s activities on the African continent.
The group’s messages suggest that customers contact the H8Core administrator, who is referred to as “Uncle Roma”—an apparent reference to Roman’s name.
At that time, the real name of “Uncle Roma” remained unknown. However, his old accounts revealed a lot of personal information, which made it possible to establish that Roman Morin was hiding under this pseudonym. In particular, his email address was listed as a contact on the YouTube page of the H8Core brand.
Morin used the same email address to register as an individual entrepreneur with Russian authorities.
Information about the seller on the Russian online marketplace Wildberries.ru confirmed that Morin was selling “White Uncles in Africa” patches. The social security number (TIN) matches that on the Russian company registry H8Core, which lists Morin’s name and email address.
Using the leak aggregator intelx.io, Bellingcat found several databases ( Burger King , Sportmaster ), which link Morin to the same email address. The leaks also revealed his phone number and that he was born on November 18th.
The H8Core page in VK confirmed this by congratulating the admin and founder of “Online Maskov” on his birthday on November 18.
Although Morin obscured his face when delivering the kits to Rusich, Bellingcat was able to find a media appearance where he was completely unmasked.
On VK.com and Instagram, Morin also goes by the names Online Maskov and Andrey Maskov. Under this pseudonym, he appeared on the TV show “Line of Defense” in May 2016. There, he talked about his business: arranging fights to entertain guests at weddings.
In this TV appearance, we have a clear image of Moren’s face and the H8Core tattoo on his right arm. Knowing what Moren looks like, he is easy to spot in old H8Core VK photos and YouTube videos.
Morin’s full name was provided to the Future Frontlines program, a program run by the American think tank New America. There, it was matched against a database of 164 leaked internal personnel documents from Euro Polis and its affiliates linked to the late Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. The documents cover the period from 2014 to 2021 and mention Morin.
After that, it was possible to cross-check the data, as Morin’s personal record contained his date of birth, phone number, passport and identification data, which were already known.
In 2020, Morin was in Libya, where he performed the duties of a radio operator and “driver-operator” under the call sign “activist”.
According to his military experience, he served in the Russian Airborne Forces, as evidenced by the tattoo “For the Airborne Forces” on his left arm. Although this type of tattoo is quite common among paratroopers, Morin’s font and style have distinctive features.
In the promotional message, White Uncles in Africa claimed that the “owner” of H8Core was someone they had a long and close relationship with. They also claimed that he was a “veteran W.” But open-source evidence suggests that H8core founder Maureen is even closer than they had assumed.
Earlier this year, the White Uncles admin posted a New Year’s greeting to his group. The man in the video was hiding his face, but evidence emerged that it was Maureen. Despite attempts to hide his tattoo with blurring, there were several key frames in the video where the tattoo on his arm was clearly visible. They bore similarities to those seen in photos of the masked figure previously posted on social media by H8Core and White Uncles in Africa.
On January 8, 2025, the White Uncles admin claimed to have been to Krasnodar for a concert by the Russian metal band Aria. They also posted a story about it on Telegram (which disappeared 24 hours later).
A story on Telegram, published on January 8 by White Uncles in Africa. The text read: “Uncles today at the Aria concert in Krasnodar.”
Near the end of the video, the camera pans to the right and we see Moren, again recognizable by his tattoos, clapping and cheering.
That same day, the Uncle Roma account posted several videos from the same concert, in which Morin’s face was once again in full view.
After the identity of “Maskov” was made public, contact was made with him via Telegram. In response to questions about the results of the investigation, the man almost immediately admitted that he had transferred combat kits to Milchakov, was a fighter of the Wagner group, and served in Libya. He claimed that H8Core had nothing to do with neo-Nazi ideology and was not a commercial project, but only a hobby.
According to him, the decision to join “Wagner” in 2020 was inspired by watching a 2017 video in which militants tortured and killed a Syrian. “I am a supporter of radical punishment of terrorism and I love justice,” he explained.
Retail trade among Russian neo-Nazis significantly increased after the said video began to spread online.
“That’s when they started selling patches, stickers, coffee cups, and T-shirts en masse. Many of them were involved in selling military paraphernalia. Now almost everyone we are following has their own retail business, whether it is T-shirts or cups,” said Candice Rondeau, senior director of the New America think tank.
Regarding the interaction between Morin and Milchakov, as well as the transfer of combat kits to the Rusich group, Rondeau believes that the goal is to create a sense of trust in online networks. “Milchakov, in fact, does not need trust anymore — he has long established himself.”
According to TGStat, a resource for statistics on Telegram channels, the number of subscribers to White Uncles in Africa has grown from 2,000 to more than 77,000 in a year. In the last month alone, they have added more than 2,000 new subscribers.
“It is impossible to talk about the history of Wagner without mentioning the Internet and social networks. “This phenomenon is not only related to warfare on the battlefield, but also to information warfare,” Rondo emphasized.
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