Co-founder of US white supremacist group active in Serbia's far-right scene

Rundo is in the United States known as a violent, white supremacist.

The Rise Above Movement saw three of its members imprisoned for violence at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, Bellingcat reported, adding that two of them are still incarcerated.

“A separate federal case against Rundo himself for similar violence in California was dismissed in June 2019. Since then, he has been a free man, although federal attorneys have sought to challenge this outcome and an initial appeal hearing took place this week,” Bellingcat reported.

“So we’re out here in Belgrade, you know, cleaning up the neighbourhood,” Rundo says in one of his videos pointing towards far-right graffiti on a wall painted by locals.

“These locals are apparent far-right comrades of Rundo’s, repainting white supremacist graffiti that had been defaced days before by local anti-fascist activists,” Bellingcat report said.

According to the investigative journalism website, Rundo appeared In July 2020 in a YouTube video at an event hosted by a Serbian nationalist organization called Fondacija Junak (“Hero Foundation”) and that in the video, posted on his YouTube channel, shows an unfurled “Free RAM” banner, referring to Rundo’s RAM colleagues who remain incarcerated.

He also appeared in local Serbian TV coverage of an event of Fondacija Junak, where he was referred to a ‘Roman’, the report said.

In the video, he says he came to “support his Serbian brothers” and added that what the United States did in the 1990s to Serbia was terrible. He argues that he wanted to show that not all Americans are the same.

Rundo toured Eastern European countries before settling in Serbia. He was at the neo-Nazi commemoration in Hungary, the annual neo-Nazi march in Bulgaria, and he also attended similar gatherings in Ukraine.

According to the journalist behind the Bellingcat report, Michael Colborne, Rundo has built up a reputation as someone who is making use of hit experience and charisma to build a new or extend the existing far-right network in Eastern Europe and increase its influence.

Investigative journalist Darko Sper, who is closely following the extreme right in Serbia, told N1 that extremist groups are well connected internationally.

"None of these things he (Rundo) is doing in Serbia could be seen on social networks and in the American media if he did not want that and if he did not have support," he said.

Rundo is, according to Sper, only one of many people with the same agenda who have found a base in Serbia. None of these people ever had problems with Serbian authorities and neither will he probably, he said.