Rebel Russians carry out daring attacks from Ukraine on Russian territory
Gathered in a Ukrainian farm, the soldiers checked their equipment: rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, spare batteries for radios, red and white flashlights, everything needed for a stealthy and daring night attack across the border into Russia.
The soldiers are Russians who have turned against the government of their country’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and are now fighting for the Ukrainian side by raiding Russia.
Their goal was to break through the first Russian defense line, hoping to open a path for another unit to drive deeper into Russia with tanks and armored personnel carriers.
“We will jump into their trench and hold it,” explained one of the soldiers, who declined to be identified for security reasons. “Either we take them out, or they take us out.”
According to both Ukrainian and Russian accounts, fierce fighting raged for five days along Russia’s southern border, marking the most sweeping ground attacks on Russia since the Russian army invaded Ukraine two years ago.
Three Russian exile groups, almost openly backed by Ukrainian military intelligence, say the attacks are timed to undermine the sense of stability underpinning Putin’s push for a fifth term, with three days of voting ending on Sunday.
Ukraine has recently become increasingly bold in organizing direct attacks within Russia, sabotaging railways in Siberia, attacking refineries and fuel depots with exploding drones and now supporting groups that drive tanks across the border. Fearing that Russia could escalate its military response, the United States and its Western allies have banned the Ukrainian military from using donated weapons in these attacks throughout the war.
Military analysts say the strikes will draw Russian air defenses away from the battlefield, put a dent in Russia’s sanctions-deficient oil economy, unnerve Russians and could create leverage in future negotiations, even as Ukraine faces setbacks along the front in the country.
The area around the border where the exile groups are attacking – a sparsely populated area of fields, forests and small villages – had already fallen into a chaotic state after almost two years of Russian cross-border attacks with artillery and small sabotage units that had slipped into Ukraine.
The response, a politically driven escalation ahead of Russia’s elections, is notable for its scale and the number of soldiers involved, commanders of Russia’s exile groups said.
About half a dozen Russian border posts and villages have been attacked and the tanks are the first foreign military attacks in Russia since World War II, the Russian exiles say.
The ground fighting coincided with a wave of long-range attacks by Ukrainian drones on Russian oil refineries and the Russian city of Belgorod. Two people were killed in drone strikes in the city on Saturday, the regional governor said.
Mr. Putin, speaking at a Security Council meeting on Friday, described “attacks on peaceful settlements on the territory of Russia” and said that 2,500 soldiers, whom he called mercenaries, led by the Ukrainian government, along with tanks and armored vehicles, carried out attacks on peaceful settlements on the territory of Russia. attacks along the border. The attacks on five locations were aimed at disrupting elections this weekend, but they were all repulsed, Putin said, adding: “The enemy will not go unpunished for these attacks.”
The three exile groups – Free Russia Legion, the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Siberian Battalion – have declined to reveal their numbers but confirmed the use of tanks in the fighting.
“Putin has commented twice about our special liberation operation, which means we are hitting the target,” said Aleksey Baranovsky, a spokesman for the Legion of Free Russia. The attacks, he added, were intended to show resistance to Mr. Putin during an otherwise staged election.
“Elections are a time when our voices are heard,” he said.
The attacks continue along a roughly 100-mile border between the Sumy and Kharkov regions of Ukraine and the Belgorod and Kursk regions of Russia, according to both Russian and Ukrainian sources.
Russian military bloggers have identified nine raid locations. Both sides described cross-border helicopter attacks from Ukraine. The preparation of the operation, witnessed by journalists from The New York Times, It involved approximately 50 soldiers, two tanks and four armored personnel carriers, including two American-designed M-113 armored personnel carriers. Many countries have donated M-113s to Ukraine.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement Friday that it had repelled all attacks and used rockets to hit the invading soldiers who landed by helicopter, forcing them into a minefield. The statement said Russian forces had destroyed 18 tanks and 23 other armored vehicles.
Further away from the border area, Ukrainian drones struck two oil refineries in the Samara region, on the Volga River in central Russia, on Saturday, causing a fire at one, regional officials and Russian media reported. Ukraine has hit a dozen refineries since the start of the year, and Russian media have reported rising gasoline prices in Russia.
Ukraine is recruiting from exiled Russian nationalists and disaffected ethnic minorities. The leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps, Denis Kapustin, openly embraces far-right views and uses White Rex as his military call sign. German officials and the Anti-Defamation League have identified Mr. Kapustin as a neo-Nazi.
In an interview on Wednesday at a base in a Ukrainian village, Mr. Kapustin said the attacks in Russia just before the election were bigger than the small-unit sabotage operations he had carried out.
The group, he said, was now attacking “en masse with tanks, armored vehicles and artillery” and had successfully destabilized the border area before the elections. Along with a cross-border attack last spring, he said, his group had managed to derail trains with minor operations.
His group’s attacks on Russia, he said, had shattered Putin’s assumption that Russia would be immune from retaliatory attacks after it invaded Ukraine.
“They were clearly shocked,” he said of Russia’s leadership. “They realized, OK, Pandora’s box is now open. Everything can happen.”
The Ukrainian military, he said, “helps us a lot” with intelligence, logistics and evacuation of the wounded, but, he added, it does not send Ukrainian citizens across the border to Russia. The ultimate goal of the operations, he said, is more than conducting “hit-and-run” attacks; it is intended to hold territory within Russia.
The cross-border raids, he said, had forced Russia to divert military resources that could have gone to the front in southeastern Ukraine. Yet Russian forces have an advantage in numbers, weapons and ammunition and have crept to the front in trench fighting in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian-backed groups have also suffered setbacks at the border. Russian fighter jets carried out bombings near the border with Ukraine, and Ukrainian authorities ordered the evacuation of 22 towns and villages on Saturday.
After donning their gear and checking their weapons, the Russian Volunteer Corps unit that set up in a farmhouse in the early hours of Thursday was ready to launch their attack into Russia – but the tanks and armored vehicles for the second waves of their attack were nowhere to be seen.
The soldiers sat on the ground and one fell asleep on top of boxes of tank ammunition. The column of armored vehicles had gotten lost on back roads near the border.
“Send me your coordinates,” a commander shouted over the radio to the armored car drivers. The drivers did not know them.
“Is it stupidity or sabotage?” the commander shouted back.
Trucks were sent to search for the armored vehicles. Hours passed before they arrived and it was already morning, even though the invasion of Russia would begin at night. It would now take place in daylight.
“It’s war, nothing ever goes according to plan,” said one of the officers.
Later, one tank broke down before reaching the border, and another was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade during the fighting.
The group returned to its base on Thursday evening, without having broken through the border. Military officials reached by phone said they would try again this weekend.