As attacks on Russian territory by insurgents allied with Ukraine dragged on into the third day on Wednesday, concerns grew in Russia that the rare border incursion could lead to new troubles on the battlefield — and demands for the military mounted to devote more resources to defending against such attacks .
A group made up of anti-Kremlin Russian fighters, the Free Russia Legion, claimed responsibility for the attack that began Monday and has sparked the fiercest fighting on Russian territory since the war began.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday that the attackers had been pushed back across the border into Ukraine. But violence in Russia’s border region of Belgorod continued overnight, with “a large number of attacks” by drones and one attack that damaged a gas pipeline and caused a small fire, according to the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
“The night was not entirely calm,” Mr. Gladkov wrote on Telegram on Wednesday morning, adding that houses, cars and office buildings in the city of Belgorod and other settlements were damaged.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov said Tuesday Moscow was “deeply concerned” by the attack and was using the violence to further justify Russia’s 15-month invasion of Ukraine. However, he said that President Vladimir V. Putin will not call an extraordinary session of his Security Council.
Footage released Tuesday by the Russian Defense Ministry allegedly shows destroyed armored vehicles in the Belgorod region, near the border with Ukraine. Source: Russian Defense Ministry/EPA, via Shutterstock
The Security Council met after a brief eruption of violence at the Bryansk border in March, when soldiers led by the same group briefly took control of a Russian village before being pushed back into Ukraine.
But some ardently pro-Russian voices openly expressed fears that the attacks in Belgorod would bring new battlefield challenges for Russia, whose only significant military victory of the last nine months has come in recent days – the capture of the ruins of the City of Bakhmut.
Igor Girkin, a military blogger and former Russian paramilitary commander in Ukraine, wrote that if the news of the border attacks were true, “it would require the inevitable creation of a continuous front along this border, to be garrisoned with combined arms from somewhere. “Units and formations of the Russian armed forces is on the agenda.”
The need to station more soldiers along the border, which would further thin Russian forces, would be beneficial for Ukraine, concluded Mr Girkin, who calls himself Igor Strelkov.
Even before the attack, which began on Monday, a group of Belgorod residents shared a video urging the government to give them weapons to defend against a possible raid. The location of the video could not be immediately independently confirmed.
“Our city and region have not been defended for a long time,” read a man with slightly shaking hands from a newspaper while standing in front of a group of other men. “We fully understand that our armed forces will not fully protect us from the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The front is huge.”
While residents of the Belgorod region have long lived with the sounds of nearby explosions caused by the war, the attack over the past two days could add to Russia’s broader fears and possibly even hurt Mr Putin’s popularity, said Ivan Fomin, a Russian Analyst the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis.
“Some of the more aggressive sections of Russian society will see these attacks as another sign of the Kremlin’s weakness and incompetence,” he said. “So Putin could potentially lose some of his popularity with those who strongly support the war.”
However, depending on how the Kremlin and Russian state media portray the attacks, the raid could also have a “rally-for-the-flag” effect, Fomin said.
“Right now it is difficult for Putin to explain why he started this war, what his goals are and why Russians should risk their lives in Ukraine,” he said. “But if he can illustrate the infiltration of Russian territory by the sabotage groups from Ukraine, it might be easier for him to sell a narrative about Russia being attacked and defending itself.”
Mr. Peskov tried to stem the talk of Russians taking up arms against their fellow citizens by saying that the fighters were Ukrainians, not Russians. But the group that claimed the attack said they were Russians who “finally returned home,” as they put it on Telegram.
Yuriy Karin, an analyst with Information Resistance, a group that debunks Russian propaganda, said Russia’s hesitant official response to the attack shows “shock” that a raid had been carried out.
“Russian propaganda denied it,” he said.
Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting.
— Valerie Hopkins and Milana Mazaeva