After nearly 16 months of fighting on Ukrainian territory, will Russia have to fight on its own soil? For the second time in ten days, pro-Ukrainian Russian partisans carried out a June 1 raid in Russia’s Belgorod region. “Up to two companies of motorized infantry reinforced by tanks attempted to make an incursion into Russian territory,” the Russian Defense Ministry reported Thursday, June 1, claiming to have “repelled three attacks”.
At the same time, the “Russian Volunteer Corps”, made up of Russian fighters supporting Ukraine, ensured the same day to fight near the Russian town of Chebekino, located about thirty kilometers from Belgorod. This same group had already claimed its participation in a previous raid carried out in the region on May 22 with the “Freedom of Russia” legion, also made up of Russian forces favorable to Kiev. During their two days of operations, the two paramilitary groups had claimed the “liberation” of several Russian villages near the border, before retreating into Ukrainian territory.
“Raids end with a planned withdrawal from a narrowly defined target area and do not seek to establish long-term control over the territory, stresses in a report the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. Neither group has made any serious attempt to control the territory of Belgorod Oblast, despite their avowed aim of seizing Russian territory.” Moscow’s inability to prevent these incursions is nonetheless a disappointment. more for Moscow.
“An acute dilemma”
“This causes a feeling of disorder and feverishness in the Russian camp, agrees General (2S) Jérôme Pellistrandi, editor-in-chief of the National Defense Review. This is a snub for both Putin and the Russian command.” Result: faced with the multiplication of strikes in the region, evacuations of civilians began this week. The governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, indicated that 800 people would be moved by June 3 to temporary accommodation in other Russian towns far from the Russian-Ukrainian border.
A house destroyed in fighting with a group of fighters from Ukraine in the Russian border region of Belgorod. Photo uploaded on May 23, 2023 by the governor of the region.
© / afp.com/Handout
An unprecedented situation in Russia since the launch of its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. “The president constantly receives information from our border guards, the army, rescuers and representatives of the municipal and regional authorities of Belgorod region,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on June 1. “The responses of Russian officials […] to the limited raid in Belgorod Oblast are indicative of a heightened and continued anxiety within the Russian information space regarding the war,” notes the Institute for the Study of War.
These incursions into Russian territory also have tactical implications. In an attempt to push back the pro-Kiev fighters, the Russian defense “has resorted to deploying the full range of military firepower on its own territory, including attack helicopters and a TOS-1A heavy thermobaric rocket launcher. “, points out British intelligence in a note published this Friday, June 2. “Russian commanders now face an acute dilemma: strengthen defenses in Russia’s border regions or strengthen their lines in occupied Ukraine.”
A choice all the more perilous as the Ukrainian army has been planning a major counter-offensive for weeks. “For the forces of Kiev, the objective of these raids is to disorganize the Russian military device by striking its logistics in depth, underlines General Pellistrandi. The Russian staff finds itself forced to simultaneously protect a front line of almost 1000 kilometers and all of its borders with Ukraine.” For Putin’s soldiers, the equation is complicated.