{"id":1434959,"date":"2026-09-02T15:44:04","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T12:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/from-the-russian-army-to-the-rdk-who-is-stepan-kaplunov\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T15:44:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T12:44:04","slug":"from-the-russian-army-to-the-rdk-who-is-stepan-kaplunov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/from-the-russian-army-to-the-rdk-who-is-stepan-kaplunov\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Russian Army to the RDK: who is Stepan Kaplunov?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stepan Kaplunov is a native of Russia who moved to Ukraine after the annexation of Crimea, served in the Azov Regiment and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and after the start of the full-scale war joined the Russian Volunteer Corps. He currently holds the position of Deputy Commander of the RDK for Combat Work.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kaplunov was born in the Russian city of Ivanovo, about 250 kilometers from Moscow, and grew up in the Far North of Russia. He served in the Russian army and carried out missions in Syria.<\/p>\n

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According to Kaplunov, he did not support Russian President Vladimir Putin, but the annexation of Crimea in 2014 was a turning point for him. After that, he went to Ukraine and joined the Azov regiment.<\/p>\n

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Kaplunov served in Azov from 2014 to 2016. After that, he signed a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and performed combat missions in eastern Ukraine in the ATO\/JFO zone as part of infantry and reconnaissance units.<\/p>\n

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After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, Kaplunov joined volunteer reconnaissance groups defending the approaches to Kyiv. He was seriously wounded during battles with Russian troops in the Irpin and Bucha areas.<\/p>\n

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In August 2022, Kaplunov joined the Russian Volunteer Corps. He later became the deputy commander of the RDK for combat work.<\/p>\n

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At the same time, Kaplunov retained his Russian citizenship. He had previously explained that he did not plan to renounce it, since his parents and grandparents remained in Russia.<\/p>\n

The Russian authorities have added Kaplunov to the register of terrorists and extremists.<\/p>\n

It was previously reported that during a search of the apartment of Stepan Kaplunov, deputy commander for combat operations of the Russian Volunteer Corps,<\/a> law enforcement officers did not find any suspicious or compromising items. The search took place against the backdrop of the FSB investigation into the terrorist attack, during which a shootout occurred in Kyiv between representatives of the SBU and soldiers of one of the Defense Forces units.<\/p>\n

As a reminder, the SBU reported that during investigative actions within the framework of the investigation of the terrorist attack<\/a> , organized by the FSB of the Russian Federation, a group of individuals attacked the operational-investigative group of the special service and blocked the passage of law enforcement officers with cars. <\/p>\n

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Also follow \u201cPryamim\u201d<\/strong> on Facebook<\/a> , X<\/a> , Telegram<\/a> , and Instagram.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Stepan Kaplunov is a native of Russia who moved to Ukraine after the annexation of Crimea, served in the Azov Regiment and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and after the start of the full-scale war joined the Russian Volunteer Corps. He currently holds the position of Deputy Commander of the RDK for Combat Work. Kaplunov […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":1434949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76871,76872],"class_list":["post-1434959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2","category-news-feed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1434959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1434949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1434959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1434959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}