Ukrainian-backed Russian groups in exile carry out attacks on Moscow’s compound
Ukraine launched a wave of cross-border ground and long-range drone strikes against Russia on Tuesday, attacks that appeared aimed at disrupting President Vladimir V. Putin’s re-election campaign, with the message that the war had turned in Moscow’s favor.
Three armed groups of Russian exiles operating in coordination with the Ukrainian army said they had crossed the border into southern Russia overnight and were fighting in border areas. Further from the border, drone strikes hit a Russian oil refinery and fuel depot.
Throughout the war, Ukraine has attacked targets in Russia to disrupt military logistics, hitting planes parked on runways and blowing up railway bridges. The cross-border attacks, Ukrainian officials have said, are also aimed at unnerving the Russians and undermining Putin’s efforts to isolate them from the war.
Mr Putin has been in power for the past two decades – and has seen several elections, the next of which will take place scheduled for next week – portrayed an image of bringing order to Russia. The Kremlin has done that too banned the only outspoken anti-war candidate from participating.
Reported fighting in the border area in two regions, Kursk and Belgorod in southern Russia, could not immediately be independently confirmed.
The groups say they have entered Russia – the Free Russian Legionthe Russian Volunteer Corps and the Siberian Battalion – operating in coordination with the Ukrainian army. Some members of the groups, including the leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps, hold far-right nationalist views.
Members of two of these organizations, the Volunteer Corps and the Legion, also crossed into Russia last spring to engage in skirmishes with Russian border police and the Russian army. But while last spring’s raid was believed to have a military objective — diverting Russian forces to the border before a planned Ukrainian offensive elsewhere — Tuesday’s attacks delivered a more overtly political message.
A deputy commander of the Free Russia Legion, Maksimillian Andronnikov, posted a video on social media describing the raid as timed ahead of presidential elections that will extend Putin’s term for a fifth term.
“We are the same Russians as you,” Mr Andronnikov said in the speech. “We also have the right to an advance directive.”
Reports of fighting in the border area coincided with Ukrainian drone strikes across central Russia, including an attack on an oil refinery near Nizhny Novgorod, east of Moscow. The refinery’s operator, Lukoil, said the facility had halted operations, but did not clarify why.
A spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence, Andriy Yusov, confirmed that Ukraine had launched the wave of long-range strikes, but did not clarify their intent or confirm specific targets.
“Such incidents will happen to anything that is used for military purposes in one way or another,” Mr Yusov told Radio Liberty. “This work will continue.”
Oleksandr Chubko reporting contributed.