The mysterious group became public at the beginning of March, when an armed group of 45 men from Ukraine invaded Russia.
Russia claimed that a group shot a car and took hostages in the Bryansk region.
However, all that is known about the event is that the group filmed a couple of videos in the locality.
Whatever happened in Bryansk, it was all quite humiliating for Russia. Russia even named last Thursday’s massive missile strike on Ukraine as revenge for the incident.
Putin blamed Ukrainian “neo-Nazis and terrorists” for the invasion of Bryansk. However, the videos shot on the spot show that it was the Russian volunteer corps RDK (Russkiy dobrovol’cheskiy korpus).
So the intruders were Russians. Russians who are ready to kill their countrymen and who seek to overthrow Putin.
In this story, we present two groups of Russians fighting on the side of Ukraine.
Russian Volunteer Corps RDK
RDK organized into its own group in August 2022. It is unclear whether it is officially part of the Ukrainian armed forces. The group itself states that it belongs to the International Legion, which is part of the Territorial Defense Forces of Ukraine.
According to various estimates, RDK has around a couple of hundred members. They are united by extreme nationalism. It is known that most of them lived in Ukraine already before February 2022. Part wars in Ukraine (you switch to another service) already in 2014.
The face and leader of the group is a well-known extreme right-winger Denis Nikitin.
One of the members says by video (you switch to another service)that the members of the group consider themselves “ardently nationalist”.
The group has organized in Warsaw background organization (you switch to another service)which helps to recruit more people to the group.
Even though the leader of the RDK is a well-known extreme right-winger, researcher to Igor Gretsky in my opinion, the group cannot be considered far-right.
– Yes, their leader has an extreme right-wing background. However, the support group in Poland does not consider itself as far-right, but above all as nationalist. They stand against Putin’s imperialism, Gretskyi tells .
Gretskiy works as a researcher at the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute and is familiar with Russian fighters in Ukraine.
Gretskiy states about the group’s attack in Russia last week that it was not significant in a military sense.
– However, the operation sent a clear message that Russia’s borders are not secured and that Russia is unable to hold back even a few dozen men capable of operating inside Russia, says Gretskiy.
The group published the attached video in the Bryansk region. In the video, the organization urges Russians to take up armed resistance.
Freedom to Russia Legion
The largest of the Russian forces operating in Ukraine is the “Legion Svoboda Rossii” or the Legion of Freedom for Russia. It was founded a year ago, i.e. in March 2022. The group primarily consists of former Russian army soldiers and prisoners of war who have switched sides.
There are other stories from the background of the members. Legion briefly made headlines last summer when the deputy CEO of Gazprom Bank Igor Volobuyev said he had joined (you are switching to another service) to the legion.
The emblem of the legion is a blue and white flag. The Legion has replaced the red stripe of the Russian flag with a white one. According to the legionnaires, the red stripe represents blood and violence. The same flag is used by the Russian opposition on a wider scale.
The Legion is officially part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and fights as part of the International Legion. The number of its soldiers is unknown, but the legionnaires have talked about at least two battalions in interviews.
A battalion can be anything between 400 and 1000 soldiers. Some reviews have spoken up to 4,000 (you switch to another service) of the soldier.
According to Igor Gretskiy of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute, the biggest figure may well be true.
– A significant number of Russians have been imprisoned, and new ones are constantly being added. They are a regular source of recruits for the Legion. It is quite likely that their number will increase.
Members of the Freedom to Russia forces have fought on the front of Eastern Ukraine as part of the International Legion in the most sheltered places, such as Bahmut.
Caesar a Russian soldier using the name has told The New York Times in the interview he gave (you will switch to another service)having killed many of his countrymen in Ukraine without remorse. He is one of the few Legionnaires who appeared in public with his own face.
According to the Legionnaires, they fight above all else On behalf of Russia (you will switch to another service).
So they are not only fighting for Ukraine, but they feel that they are fighting for a free Russia. Their first step is to beat the Russian army in Ukraine. After that, the fight would continue in Russia.
– If Ukraine gets its 1991 borders restored and the groups are capable of fighting at that point, they could continue fighting on the Russian side, says researcher Gretskiy.
The groups have been declared terrorist organizations in Russia
Russian media hardly talk about these groups. The Russian Prosecutor’s Office has declared the groups to be Ukrainian to terrorist organizations (you switch to another service).
– The Russian state does not want to let the information spread in the media and admit that the Russians could challenge the Russian government. They don’t even want to acknowledge the idea that the Russians could take up arms and start a war against Russia’s political power, says Gretskiy.
The Russian security service FSB considers the Freedom to Russia Legion to be a particular threat, so new members must pass a strict screening.
Andriy Yusov, spokesman for the Ukrainian intelligence service has told (you switch to another service), that the FSB has tried to infiltrate the Legion several times. Caeser, a member of the group, has also commented on the issue.
– Putin and his administration are very afraid of the Freedom to Russia Legion, because we are the first to make armed resistance to Putin’s junta, says Caeser on video (you switch to another service).
In addition to the two groups operating in Ukraine, there is also a third group fighting against the current Russian regime. The Natsional’naya respublikanskaya armiya (NRA), i.e. the National Republican Army, has taken the name of attacks in Russia. It is an even more obscure organization than the aforementioned groups, and it operates in Russia, unlike the legion and the DRK.
It also uses a blue and white flag as its emblem.
– We have heard about them Daria Duginan with the killing blow, but there is not much evidence of their existence, says Gretskyi.
Daria Dugina was the daughter of a Russian ultra-nationalist philosopher who died in a car bomb attack in Moscow in August 2022. The NRA has claimed responsibility for the attack.
A former representative of the Russian Duma has appeared as the group’s representative in Ukraine Ilya Ponomarev. He has tried to strengthen the cooperation of the three groups.
At the end of August, the groups held a joint press conference in Irpin, Ukraine, where they signed the “Irpin declaration (you switch to another service)“. It agreed on joint strategic goals and, among other things, the use of the blue and white flag.
However, the Russian volunteer group DRK terminated the cooperation soon after this.
Combat units and propaganda tools
According to researcher Gretskiy, groups act in two ways: as combat units and as a propaganda tool.
– They can serve both purposes. The battalions can serve as role models for the Russians on how to fight against Putin’s regime.
Both groups are active on social media and post impressive videos.
– RDK wants to get attention. It wants to spark resistance in Russia. The wider the information about the attacks spreads, the more people might want to join them, says Gretskiy.
The researcher points out that a few hundred men is quite a small number of soldiers if you consider that more than half a million Russians fled Russia due to mobilization. RDK wanted to recruit men from those who had just escaped, but was disappointed.
– They certainly thought they would get more men in their ranks from those who left Russia. However, those fleeing the mobilization were not willing to fight against Russia, says Gretskiy.
For Ukraine, the significance of the Russians fighting on its side is mostly political.
– It is good for Ukraine to show that there are Russians who support democracy and freedom and fight on the right side, Ukrainian military analyst Oleg Ždanov said news agency AFP.
Gretskiy points out that Russian groups fighting on the side of Ukraine criticize the Russian opposition because its representatives have not called on the Russians to engage in armed resistance.
– If you think about Russia’s opposition abroad, none of them has called on the Russians to take up arms and fight. Khodorkovsky, Gasparov, To Navalny group – they only struggle in the information field, hold conferences and broadcasts on Youtube, says Gretskiy.
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