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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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An American man who was fighting alongside Ukrainian forces has reportedly been killed.
Dalton Kennedy, 26, died in a battle near the city of Kharkiv, Russian pro-government news website Life reported, citing a post from an associate of Kennedy's in an online forum for neo-Nazis.
"Ukraine will continue his work. Dalton Kennedy. Rest in peace," the post said.
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Kennedy, of North Carolina, was among seven Americans being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI for war crimes allegedly committed while fighting in eastern Ukraine, BuzzFeed News reported in October last year.
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He and three others confirmed to BuzzFeed that they had fought in Ukraine, but denied allegations that they committed or aided any possible war crimes.
Kennedy was mentioned in a 2020 report in Triad City Beat, a weekly newspaper in North Carolina, about how Ukraine's fight against Russian-backed separatists was attracting white supremacists and neo-Nazi volunteers from the U.S. following Russian President Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Kennedy graduated in 2015 from Western Johnston High School in Benson, where he had been a member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, according to the newspaper.
He joined the U.S Army that summer, but left after less than two months without completing basic training. The newspaper said it had obtained footage showing Kennedy fighting in Ukraine, and cited four sources who confirmed Kennedy was in the country in 2016.
Kennedy said he had served in "two militaries" in a Discord channel using the name "Alfred NC" in January 2018, according to the Triad City Beat, but did not mention Ukraine.
He joined Right Sector, a volunteer far-right nationalist group in Ukraine, in 2016, but told BuzzFeed News that he had only stayed for a couple months.
"When I was there nothing like that happened," he said of the alleged war crimes. "We didn't even take any prisoners the whole time I was there."
According to BuzzFeed, the DOJ wrote in a document that U.S. authorities believe Kennedy and another man returned to Ukraine after spending some time back in the U.S. "with the intention of planning and participating in an armed attack on the Ukrainian [parliament]" in 2017.
Kennedy denied planning any attack on Ukraine's parliament building, and showed BuzzFeed his passport which indicated that he wasn't in Ukraine at the time the DOJ said he was.
"I do believe the FBI is unfairly demonizing and trying to prosecute us for no real reason other than our involvement in Ukraine," he added.
The DOJ and U.S. State Department have been contacted for comment.
Update 5/23/22, 7 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
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