An “anti-terrorist operation regime” decreed on Monday then canceled on Tuesday afternoon, while fighting was still raging around the small town of Grayvoron, in the Belgorod region, near the Ukrainian border (several villages were attacked, Russian border guards killed and taken prisoner). Rumors spread on local Telegram groups that the attackers – anti-Putin Russians – would be wearing Russian police uniforms and calling on residents to shoot any policeman they saw on sight. Videos showing panicked residents pounding on the door of a closed air-raid shelter, which later turn out to have been filmed months ago in another area…
The incursion has caused unprecedented confusion on social networks and in the Russian media, which is obviously looking for a parade. One of the first official reactions came from Russia Today. “The Russian army set a trap for Ukrainian saboteurs in the Belgorod region and allowed them to progress to Graivoron to liquidate them there”, assures the Russian state media on Monday May 22 at the start of the afternoon. . “It looks completely believable to me,” the Gray Zone account, affiliated with the Russian mercenary group Wagner, quipped on Telegram. “We voluntarily abandoned the Sumy region to give the enemy the possibility of reaching the Russian border. Then our intelligence voluntarily did not notice that the enemy was forming an armored column and returning to our territory. Three hours more late, we deliberately did not react when he bombarded the border post with tanks. The Ukrainians took the bait, they are screwed”.
Storm of sarcasm
In pro-war circles, people are indignant at the ease with which the commando was able to cross the border, which was supposed to be protected by a line of defense and minefields that cost ten billion rubles (about 125 million euros). euros). “We must form real territorial defense brigades, with weapons”, demanded this Tuesday the deputy Andreï Gouroulev on Russian television.
On Tuesday evening, new videos are circulating. They show a Russian officer walking along a road in the combat zone. Martial step, bulging chest, flag of the USSR sewn to the sleeve of his fatigues, he shouts to his men “Forward guys, for the Motherland!”. This is Alexandre Lapine, the general in charge of repelling the incursion. Unanimously despised in pro-war circles for the crushing defeat suffered by the Russian army in Kharkiv, under his command, his presence raises a new storm of criticism and sarcasm.
Evacuated houses
Contradictory information continues to appear. Tuesday around 1 p.m., Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announces that he has repelled the raid and claims 70 soldiers killed… but at the same time, these “dead” continue to post mocking videos and messages on Telegram, announce that they have shot down a Russian helicopter. , captured an armored personnel carrier and marching on Belgorod. Telegram accounts close to the Russian army publish photos of corpses wearing Ukrainian uniforms. Other Internet users immediately point out that their outfit does not correspond to that seen in the previous videos of the commando. Explosions occur in Belgorod itself, attributed to drone attacks. The governor of the region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, thanks on social networks the inhabitants of the villages attacked for having evacuated their homes. Questioned by one of his constituents, he says he has “as many questions as she” to ask the Ministry of Defense…
Nowhere will it be mentioned that the attackers are actually Russians engaged alongside the Ukrainian army. On all state media they are never called anything other than “Ukrainian saboteurs”. The case is already embarrassing enough as it is… It took almost twenty-four hours for Moscow to officially react to the news “It is deeply worrying and proves that the Ukrainian fighters continue their activity against our country”, was content to declare the spokesman of the Kremlin Dimitri Peskov, Tuesday in the middle of the day. “It takes effort from us, those efforts continue, and the special military operation continues so that such incursions cannot happen again in the future.” A lukewarm reaction which confirms, in the eyes of the Russian “hawks”, that the red lines set by the Kremlin mean nothing.