“New Paramilitary Group Emerges in Russia Against Putin’s Regime: The Russian Legion of Freedom and the Russian Volunteer Corps”

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The Belgorod region, Russia, recently received an attack. The Kremlin also accused Kyiev of being behind the attack, considering that this area is quite close to Ukraine which is at war with Moscow.

However, new paramilitary groups emerged claiming to be behind the action. They claim to be partisans who are 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 following the attack on Belgorod.

From this event, a man named Maximillian Andronnikov proclaimed himself commander of the Russian Legion of Freedom. Under the nickname Caesar, he is known to serve as the media spokesperson for the group.

“We are Russian people just like you. 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 Russia A modern Putin, who is rotten through and through due to corruption, lies, censorship, restrictions on freedoms and repression,” he said, which was later uploaded online, quoted by The Guardian, Sunday, (28/5/2023).

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 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 head of the St Petersburg military-patriotic club, was not charged.

The plot is related 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 is working as an archery trainer in 2022 when large-scale attacks begin and quickly leaves for Ukraine. He has fought on Kyiv’s side since then and said earlier this year that 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 are bad Russians. And I kill them every day,” he said in another interview earlier this year.

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 agency.

(fsd/fsd)