Russian commanders have faced an “acute dilemma” as its border regions came under attack for the second time in 10 days, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Friday.
The MoD’s intelligence update came a day after anti-Vladimir Putin militias said they crossed into Russia’s Belgorod region. Ilya Ponomarev, an exiled Russian politician—who says he is the political representative for the Freedom of Russia Legion—told Newsweek on Thursday that the group, alongside the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC), had crossed into the border town of Shebekino.
Russian authorities, however, said it had repelled an attempted incursion along its border, while Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said several districts were shelled, but denied “any enemies are on the territory of the Belgorod region.”
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The Freedom of Russia Legion was formed weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, and is made up of defectors from the Russian armed forces and Russian and Belarusian volunteers. The RVC says its members include Russians fighting on Ukraine’s side and against the Kremlin regime.
The British defense ministry said that on Thursday morning, partisan groups attacked Russia’s Belgorod region.
“In a complex battlefield situation, what appeared to be uncrewed aerial vehicles also struck Belgorod city (35km inside Russia), while the authorities evacuated civilians from the border town of Shebikino following Ukrainian shelling,” the MoD said.
“The Russia military and interior forces have likely seen quicker success in containing this raid than the previous one,” it said, referring to breakthroughs into Belgorod by the Freedom of Russia Legion and the RVC on May 22. The Legion claimed at the time to have seized the village of Kozinka and said that its units had entered the small town of Graivoron.
The ministry noted that according to a press release published by Russia’s Ministry of Defense, it has resorted to deploying the full range of military firepower on its own territory, including attack helicopters and the TOS-1A heavy thermobaric rocket launcher.
“Russian commanders now face an acute dilemma of whether to strength defenses in Russia’s border regions or reinforce their lines in occupied Ukraine,” the MoD’s intelligence assessment concluded.
The ministry was likely referring to an imminent counteroffensive by Ukraine to recapture the territories seized by Russia in the full-scale invasion, which Putin launched in February 2022.
Ukraine has maintained that Russian volunteer fighters are conducting the incursions into Belgorod.
There have been a number of attacks inside Russian territory in recent weeks.
On May 3, two drones crashed into the Kremlin in Moscow. More recently, on Tuesday morning, Russia blamed Ukraine for a large-scale drone attack on Moscow. At least eight drones caused minor damage, it said. Ukraine has denied that it was responsible for the attacks.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry via email for comment.
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