The thin red line of the border between Ukraine and Russia, has been - perhaps, because communications are of uncertain matrix - crossed for the first time in a year and three months of conflict: hostilities invest Russian territory. No longer just bombings with mortars or drones, but ground troops crossing the border.

The nightmare of the "war at home"

It took place in the Belgorod region, where "a group of saboteurs and reconnaissance of the Ukrainian armed forces" crossed the border, according to Russian sources. And last night after the raids - according to Kiev intelligence - the Russian authorities began the evacuation "urgently" of the nuclear weapons storage site from the city.

Freedom Legion of Russia / Telegram

Belgorod, flag of free Russia

Videos go crazy on social media: explosions and blitz in Belgorod
Kiev, on the other hand, claims to have nothing to do with the operation, which would be conducted exclusively by "anti-Putin Russian militiamen". The incursion, which is continuing, with the last explosion in the night, with videos going crazy on both Ukrainian and Russian social networks, was claimed by two armed organizations of Russians more or less framed in the ranks of the Ukrainian army and of which not much is known.

The alleged "Russian anti-Putin groups"
These are the Freedom Legion for Russia and the far-right group Russian Volunteer Corps. It seems that last summer the two militias made a pact with a third armed group, the National Republican Army, and asked former Russian deputy Ilya Ponomarev, who emigrated to Kiev in 2019 and became a Ukrainian citizen, to represent them in foreign states.

The yellow: the former Russian deputy Ponomarev
The latter, however, has never openly admitted to being involved in this activity except for reading, in August last year, a statement in which the National Republican Army claimed responsibility for the killing in an attack on the outskirts of Moscow of Darya Dugina, daughter of the nationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin.


The numerous raids on Bryansk province
The Russian Volunteer Corps, on the other hand, had also claimed an incursion into the Russian province of Bryansk in early March. Since yesterday, however, the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that the incursion was accompanied by the shelling of several villages, which caused at least eight injuries, damage to residential buildings and the burning of a kindergarten.


Belgorod: fights with tanks and helicopters
Videos appeared on several Telegram channels, Russian and Ukrainian, show fighting with the use of tanks and a helicopter. Sources cited by the Telegram channels Baza and Shot speak of 39 killed in the ranks of the raiders, while several others would have been taken prisoner. But they are news at the moment, which have no official confirmation.

Russian governor: "Anti-terrorism restrictions"In the evening, however, the governor said that most residents of border villages had left their homes and announced the introduction in the region of a special anti-terrorism regime, which involves "
temporary restrictions". The Volunteer Corps and the Legion of Freedom for Russia have issued messages asking residents near the borders with Ukraine to "not resist and not be afraid" and saying that "freedom is near."


Peskov: "Divert attention from Bakhmut"
But for the Russian authorities the operation was launched by Kiev forces. And with a specific purpose, he accuses Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov: to "divert attention" from the defeat suffered in Bakhmut.


The spokesman added that the situation on the ground is constantly being followed by President Vladimir Putin, who on Wednesday is also scheduled to hold new talks in Moscow with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko.


The front in the city destroyed in rubble
In Bakhmut, meanwhile, whose Russian Wagner claimed responsibility since Saturday, demining activities have begun, said the leader of the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin. Ukrainians continue to deny the fall of this Donbass city, stating that a strip in the southwestern districts, the Litak district, remains in their hands.


ISW: "City in the hands of Wagner militiamen"
But even the Institute for the Study of War admits that Bakhmut is now in the hands of Wagner militiamen.
If anything, for the Russians the problem is another: that is, if they resist the Ukrainian attacks that continue around the city and they will be able to avoid being surrounded.

Prigozhin: "We withdraw from May 25"
A danger often denounced by the head of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who yesterday announced that his men will withdraw from the city starting from May 25, leaving control - and all the consequent problems - to the regular army. "If there are not enough units of the Ministry of Defense, there are thousands of generals to do it, you have to train a regiment of generals, give them all the rifles and everything will be fine," Prigozhin said in his usual polemical tones.


Telegram

Camouflage and helmet, again Prigozhin "The enemy kills up to 600 soldiers a day", the video had the background of Bakhmut

The head of Wagner, among other things, had predicted over ten days ago a Ukrainian attack in the Russian regions of Belgorod and Bryansk, but as a diversion, and then unleashed the real counteroffensive in the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia towards the Sea of Azov.