Unrest and Conflicting Responses: The Aftermath of Pro-Ukrainian Rebel Raids in Belgorod Region

Random reaction to the rebel raid

Conflicting Russian responses and reports of a pro-Ukrainian rebel operation in the Belgorod region continue to suggest that the Russian leadership has not yet decided how to respond to such limited cross-border raids.

Conflicting reports from official Russian sources about the situation in the Belgorod region and the apparent personal decision of the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov to respond to the RDC and LSR suggest that the RF Ministry of Defense and he do not agree on their responses to the raids.

Unrest in Russia due to events in the region

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War have previously noted that Russian officials have reacted disproportionately to the raids on Russian territory in an attempt to assuage the country’s growing anxiety about the war against Ukraine, as well as supporting ongoing information operations in an attempt to present their invasion as existential for Russia.

“The Russian response has largely focused on information impact, and there is no indication that the Russian leadership has established a broader policy to prevent further limited raids into Russia’s border areas,” the report said.

Evacuation in the region and transfer of forces

Also, ISW analysts add that it is not clear whether the Russian authorities will organize a response evacuation for this activity.

Thus, a RDK fighter stated on June 4 that the authorities of the Belgorod region did not organize the announced evacuation measures in the Shebekino region, and that Russian citizens mostly fled of their own free will, leaving many settlements in a semi-abandoned state.

At the same time, Gladkov claimed that 4,000 residents of the area were currently in temporary accommodation centers in connection with the evacuation.

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister, said on June 4 that the actions of the RFC and LSR prompted the Russian leadership to divert significant forces to stop border incursions, although ISW analysts have not received confirmation that Russian forces have done so.

Criticism of the Russian leadership because of the situation in the Belgorod region

Limited raids and border shelling of the Belgorod region are increasingly becoming the subject of criticism of the Russian military leadership, the publication says.

Thus, the founder of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, continued to use the situation in the Belgorod region to criticize the RF Ministry of Defense on June 3 and 4, pointing out the lack of reaction from the head of the department, Sergei Shoigu, Colonel General Alexander Lapin, and the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation, General Valery Gerasimov.

Prigozhin offered to negotiate the release of prisoners of war held by the RDK and LSR if the Russian authorities did not do this, and in response to criticism of his proposal, he sarcastically stated that the Russian Federation had problems with people who have “eggs”.

Another ultra-nationalist and “military correspondents” reacted to the latest raid by criticizing Gladkov for his willingness to negotiate with the RDK and LSR, as well as the Russian authorities for failing to systematically inform the public about the situation in the Belgorod region.

A well-known “military commissar” used the raid in the Belgorod region to criticize the RF Ministry of Defense for not funding the volunteer formations of the Belgorod Territorial Defense and not considering volunteers as real combatants.

Former Russian officer and ardent ultra-nationalist Igor Girkin has argued that the Kremlin cannot do anything about the situation in the Belgorod region without resorting to a significant diversion of resources that is likely to lead to an attrition operation reminiscent of Bakhmut’s assaults.

Key Findings

• Units of the all-Russian pro-Ukrainian “Russian Volunteer Corps” (RDK) and the Legion “Freedom of Russia” (LSR) conducted another limited raid in the Belgorod region on June 4 and are reportedly continuing to operate in the Russian border settlement.
• The governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, responded to the demand of the RDK and LSR to negotiate the exchange of Russian prisoners of war.
• On June 4, Russian forces again struck Ukraine with Iranian-made cruise missiles and drones, marking the fourth day of strikes against Ukraine.
• Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner PMC, said on June 4 that the Ukrainian Defense Forces may have regained positions in the southwest of Bakhmut, confirming repeated Ukrainian reports that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are maintaining positions on the southwestern outskirts of the city.
• Ukrainian and Russian forces claimed to have made limited territorial gains along the Kupyansk-Svatovo line.
• Russian troops carried out limited ground attacks in the area of ​​Bakhmut and Marinka.
• Ukrainian forces carried out localized ground attacks and reportedly made limited tactical gains in the western part of the Donetsk region and the eastern part of the Zaporozhye region.
• The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has submitted a draft government decree that will no longer require the appearance of a citizen in the military registration and enlistment office for military registration.
• The Russian authorities continue to use “rest and rehabilitation” schemes to deport Ukrainian children from the occupied territories to the Russian Federation.

Operation RDK and LSR in the Belgorod region

Pro-Ukrainian rebels, who continue their operation in the Russian border region, said on Sunday June 4 that they had entered the suburb of Shebekino and offered to negotiate with Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov in exchange for two Russian prisoners.

The Russian official, in his video message, refused to do so, and stated that the RDK and LSR fighters allegedly killed these prisoners. After that, the rebels decided to transfer the captured Russians to Ukraine.

According to the DeepState interactive map, in the Belgorod region, as of the night of June 5, the “gray zone” covered almost 10 square kilometers.