“Russian Legion of Freedom: Inside the Emerging Paramilitary Group”

International

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Russia recently had an attack on its territory in Belgorod. The region is close enough to Ukraine which is at war with Moscow that the Kremlin accused Kyiv of being behind the attack.

In the midst of these accusations, new paramilitary groups emerged who claimed to be the masterminds behind the action. They claim to be partisan strongholds against the regime of President Vladimir Putin.

About 10 fighters from a group called the Russian Legion of Freedom and 30 others from the Russian Volunteer Corps spread out on the ground Wednesday for a press event that also served as a victory lap after the attack on Belgorod.

Seen a person named Maximillian Andronnikov, who self-proclaimed commander of the Russian Legion of Freedom, made a statement. Under the nickname Caesar, he is known to serve as the media spokesperson for the group.

“We are Russian people just like you,” he was quoted as saying later posted online The GuardianThursday, (25/5/2023).

“We are people like you. We want our children to grow up in peace and be free people so they can travel, study and be happy in a free country. But this has no place in modern Putin’s Russia, which is rotten all the time.” because of corruption, lies, censorship, restrictions on freedoms and repression.”

With the attack on South Russia this week, the spotlight on the Russian Freedom Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps continues to shine. A number of the group’s guerrillas are veterans of anti-Kremlin groups.

Andronnikov himself was previously a member of the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), an ultranationalist group that has openly opposed Vladimir Putin but has also fielded pro-Russian fighters in the war in Ukraine since 2014. A RIM member who knows Andronnikov said he left the group before the war in Ukraine started in 2014.

Andronnikov, who was born in Sochi and later lived in St. Petersburg. Petersburg, was also called as a witness in a 2012 case of alleged military coup plotted by several men in the Ural city of Ekaterinburg. Andronnikov, then chief patriotic-military club St. Petersburg, not charged.

The plot relates to Vladimir Kvachkov, a retired colonel and hardliner. He was jailed after members of his group, the People’s Front for the Liberation of Russia, were accused of practicing bows in a plot to overthrow the government.

Andronnikov was working as an archery trainer in 2022 when large-scale attacks began and quickly left for Ukraine, fighting on Kyiv’s side since then and saying earlier this year his main goal was to remove Putin from power.

Prior to this attack, he said he had fought near the town of Bakhmut, which was the toughest battlefield for both Russia and Ukraine.

“I’m a good Russian, and on the other side is a bad Russian,” he said in another interview earlier this year. “And I kill them every day.”

The militia also includes members of the Russian security services who have defected. Ilya Bogdanov, a former FSB officer, left Russia for Ukraine in 2014. Video published from this week shows Bogdanov hijacking a Russian BTR-82A armored personnel carrier during combat.

Ukrainian officials have denied any links to this group. They claim the group is purely Russian, although they say it also protects Ukrainians.

“They created a ‘security zone’ to protect Ukrainian civilians,” said a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence service.

(luc/luc)