It’s a small Ukrainian breakthrough on Russian territory led by… Russian soldiers. This Tuesday, March 12, volunteers fighting for kyiv claimed to have infiltrated Russia and taken control of the border village of Tetkino, in the Kursk region. At the heart of the operation, two units: the Siberian battalion and the Russian Freedom Legion. Two groups claiming to be Russian and fighting against the regime of Vladimir Putin, and which have been carrying out occasional actions against the Moscow army since the start of the war, whether sabotage or lightning offensives.
This Tuesday nevertheless marked an offensive of a certain magnitude. In the morning, these fighters announced that they had crossed the Russian border from Ukraine, publishing a video in which we can see three armored vehicles driving in the dark on a country path. Very early in the morning, the Russian Freedom Legion, which claims nearly 2,000 soldiers on the ground, affirmed on Telegram that the village of Tetkino was now “entirely controlled by Russian liberation forces”. The latter assured that they had “destroyed” a Russian armored vehicle in this village and that Moscow’s forces “quickly left” the scene, leaving heavy weapons behind them.
Fights that continue
The fighting was nevertheless still ongoing at the end of the morning, a representative of one of these pro-kyiv Russian units, Alexeï Baranovsky, told AFP. “The Russian army lost several armored vehicles,” he said, refusing, however, to say near which locations fighting would still take place, citing operational secrecy, and indicating that the results of the operation would be known “in the evening”.
On the side of Moscow, the results of the operation were clearly downplayed. The Russian army claimed at the end of the day on Tuesday to have “repulsed” armed incursions on its territory. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, fighters from Ukraine attempted to enter the border regions of Belgorod and Kursk on Tuesday morning, equipped with tanks and armored vehicles and after “intensive shelling” during the night.
Moscow, which claims to have inflicted heavy losses on its adversary, also reported an attack by groups of saboteurs from Ukraine on the border village of Tetkino, in the Kursk region, which was also “repulsed”.
Heterogeneous motivations
This is not the first time that these groups of Russian resistance to the Putin regime have distinguished themselves by shock armed actions. The Russian Freedom Legion has already carried out several major attacks since the start of the war, notably around the town of Belgorod, very close to the Ukrainian border. This unit claims to be made up of defectors from the Russian army, taken prisoner by kyiv at the start of the war and who ultimately chose to fight against their own country.
Among the various pro-kyiv Russian groups, everything converges towards a single goal: to overthrow the regime of Vladimir Putin. Apart from the Russian Freedom Legion, we therefore find the Siberian battalion, a unit fully integrated into the Ukrainian army and composed largely of people from Russian ethnic minorities, over-mobilized in the Moscow army.
But we can also find groups with more obscure motivations, such as the Russian Volunteer Corps, probably also present in this Tuesday’s operation. Founded by a figure of the neo-Nazi movement, Denis Kasputin, its objective is to “put an end to Russia as we know it today, that is to say multicultural and multifaith Russia”, explained in May 2023 at L’Express Adrien Nonjon, doctoral student at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (Inalco), and specialist in Ukraine and the post-Soviet far right. And therefore, for this, to overthrow the Putin regime.
An attack a few days before the presidential election
For kyiv, this incursion into Russian territory remains a real breath of fresh air at a very complex start to 2024 on the front, by making it possible to force the Russian army to fight on its own territory. The spokesperson for the Ukrainian military intelligence services Andrii Yusov thus affirmed to the Kyiv Independent that these units were composed of Russian citizens acting as part of the “security and defense forces of Ukraine”. “They are helping to liberate Ukraine from Russian invaders,” he said. “But they are citizens of the Russian Federation and at home (in Russia) they have the right to do whatever they consider necessary in this situation to protect their civil rights and liberate their country from the Russian dictatorship of Poutine.
For Moscow, on the other hand, three days before the presidential election which should see Vladimir Putin triumph, this operation testifies to a certain crumbling in Russian society. The same representative of one of these pro-kyiv groups, Alexeï Baranovsky, insisted to AFP that this attack had been planned this week due to the imminent election. “We are expressing ourselves today, we are expressing with weapons in hand what we thought of this regime, of these elections,” said Alexei Baranovsky. Although they will probably not change the outcome of the conflict, these groups contribute to feeding the narrative of a Russia that is more disunited than it wants to show.