Brandon Clint Russell is a

Bahamian American Bahamian Americans are an ethnic group of Caribbean Americans of Bahamian ancestry. There are an estimated 56,797 people of Bahamian ancestry living in the US as of 2019. Bahamian Immigration Bahamians began visiting the Florida Keys in the 18 ...

Neo-Nazi leader and the founder of the

Atomwaffen Division The Atomwaffen Division (''Atomwaffen'' meaning " nuclear weapons" in German), also known as the National Socialist Resistance Front, is an international far right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi terrorist network. Formed in 2013 and based in t ...

Creation of Atomwaffen

Russell, who went by the handle " Odin", first appeared on the Iron March on March 22, 2014, at age 18. Iron March was a far-right

neo-fascist Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration s ...

and neo-Nazi

web forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...

. The site opened in 2011 and attracted Neo-fascist and Neo-Nazi members, including militants from organized far-right groups and members who would later go on to commit acts of terror. Russell would create contacts with American and international neo-Nazis and in an October 2015 post on Iron March, he announced the formation of Atomwaffen Division that had been three years in the making. He stated that Atomwaffen was for very fanatical, ideological people who do military training, absolutely "no keyboard warriors". Dozens responded to the thread, which stated they had 40 members across the U.S., mostly in Florida. In addition to creating the organization in the United States, he would visit Atomwaffen's ideological comrades, National Action, in the United Kingdom. Russell also went to meet with the leaderships of Golden Dawn,

Nordic Resistance Movement The Nordic Resistance Movement; Norwegian: nb, Nordiske motstandsbevegelsen, NMB; nn, Nordiske motstandsrørsla NMR; fi, Pohjoismainen Vastarintaliike, PVL; is, Norræna mótstöðuhreyfingin, NMH; da, Den nordiske modstandsbevægelse, ...

Russian Imperial Movement The Russian Imperial Movement (RIM; russian: Русское Имперское Движениe, translit=Russkoe imperskoe dvizhenie, RID)Marlene Laruelle, ''Russian Nationalism: Imaginaries, Doctrines, and Political Battlefields'' (Routledge, 2 ...

and CasaPound in a neo-Nazi event in

Russian Federation Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

in 2015.

Involvement in terror plots

Tampa murders and subsequent first arrest

In May 2017, Devon Arthurs was accused of killing two of his roommates and fellow Atomwaffen Division members with an assault rifle. Arthurs was arrested following a hostage situation, during which he allegedly told police that he shot 22-year-old Jeremy Himmelman and 18-year-old Andrew Oneschuk earlier that day. On the night of Devon Arthurs' arrest, his third roommate, a 21-year-old, Brandon Russell was also arrested and questioned by local police and the FBI. While it was determined that Russell was not involved in the homicides and was released, the deaths drew investigators' attention to a large stash of explosives at the same location. When the authorities searched Russell's garage, they found explosive precursors

ammonium nitrate Ammonium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is a white crystalline salt consisting of ions of ammonium and nitrate. It is highly soluble in water and hygroscopic as a solid, although it does not form hydrates. It is ...

nitromethane Nitromethane, sometimes shortened to simply "nitro", is an organic compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest organic nitro compound. It is a polar liquid commonly used as a solvent in a variety of industrial applications such as in ...

, homemade detonators and an explosive compound hexamethylene triperoxide diamine. HMTD has been used to make

improvised explosive devices An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mechan ...

by groups such as al-Qaeda, and ammonium nitrate and nitromethane were used by

Timothy McVeigh Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was an American domestic terrorist responsible for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, 19 of whom were children, injured more than 680 others, and destroyed one-third ...

, the perpetrator of the

Oklahoma City bombing The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorism in the United States, domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, on April 19, 1995. Perpetrated by two anti-federal go ...

. The authorities also found

thorium Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. Thorium is silvery and tarnishes black when it is exposed to air, forming thorium dioxide; it is moderately soft and malleable and has a high ...

and americium, two radioactive substances, in Russell's bedroom. Russell, a former student of nuclear physics at the

University of South Florida The University of South Florida (USF) is a public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, and other campuses in St. Petersburg and Sarasota. It is one of 12 members of the State University System of Florida. USF i ...

and a

Florida Army National Guard The Florida Army National Guard is Florida's component of the United States Army and the United States National Guard. In the United States, the Army National Guard comprises approximately one half of the federal army's available combat forces ...

sman, had a framed photograph of

in his bedroom. The authorities also discovered guns, various Atomwaffen paraphernalia and neo-Nazi propaganda. The

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

issued an arrest warrant for Russell on explosives charges and the FBI bulletin warned he might be planning a terrorist attack. Russell was arrested again with another member in Monroe County. The car they were driving contained assault rifles, body armor and more than 1000 rounds of ammunition which they had acquired after the shooting. Russell claimed the explosives were used to power model rockets, but according to an FBI bomb technician the explosives were powerful enough to destroy an airliner. The prosecutors alleged Russell "planned to use the explosives to harm civilians, nuclear facilities and synagogues." In September 2017, Russell pleaded guilty in federal court to possessing an unregistered

destructive device In the United States, a destructive device is a type of firearm or explosive device regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934, revised by the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and Gun Control Act of 1968. Examples of destruc ...

and illegally storing explosives; in January 2018, he was sentenced to five years in prison for those crimes. While in jail awaiting sentencing, he sent bomb-making instructions to his followers. While less than six months into his five-year sentence he issued a statement recorded inside United States Penitentiary in Atlanta. Russell thanked his comrades for their "undying loyalty and courage," and issued a warning: "There is no room in this world for cowardly people...The sword has been drawn. There is no turning back." He was released from prison August 23, 2021.

Baltimore attack plot

In February 2023, a federal grand jury indicted Russell for allegedly conspiring with Sarah Clendaniel, a woman from

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, on planning attacks on electric substations in the

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

area. Russell allegedly shared open-source maps of infrastructure and pointed out substations he said would cause a "cascading failure" if they were taken out.

In popular culture

Karin Slaughter Karin Slaughter (born January 6, 1971) is an American crime writer. She has written 21 novels, which have sold more than 40 million copies and have been published in 120 countries. Her first novel, ''Blindsighted'' (2001), was published in 27 l ...

's book ''The Last Widow'' features Brandon Russell as a Neo-Nazi leader.The Last Widow.

. p.275

References

{{Neo-Nazism 1995 births American neo-Nazis American prisoners and detainees Criminals from Florida 21st-century American criminals Living people American people of Bahamian descent Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government