The authorities of the aggressor state of the Russian Federation do not coordinate their actions and do not know how to react to the events in the Belgorod Oblast.
This follows from a statement by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
Thus, on June 4, the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) and the Freedom of Russia Legion (FRL) carried out a new raid in the Belgorod Oblast and, as reported, continued to operate in the Russian border settlement.
It is indicated that the governor of the Belgorod Oblast, Vyacheslav Gladkov, confirmed that there was fighting in the area of Novaya Tavolzhanka. However, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that units of the Western Military District and the Border Service of the Russian Federation had struck an alleged Ukrainian subversive intelligence group near the settlement, forcing them to move away.
Meanwhile, Russian military bloggers claimed that a sabotage and intelligence group of 20 people entered Novaya Tavolzhanka and the Wall Street Journal's chief foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov reported that they remained in the settlement as of evening.
Analysts drew attention to the fact that Gladkov responded to the request of the RVC and the FRL to hold negotiations on the exchange of Russian prisoners of war. At first, the governor of the Belgorod Oblast agreed to the meeting but later refused.
ISW experts noted that dissonant Russian responses and reports regarding the Belgorod Oblast raid suggest that the Russian leadership has not yet decided how to respond to these limited raids.
"Contradictory information from official Russian sources about the situation in the Belgorod Oblast and the obvious personal decision of Gladkov to respond to the RVC and FRL indicate that the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and Gladkov are not coordinating their response to the raids," the report said.
Russian responses focus mainly on informational influence, and there is no indication that the Russian leadership has developed a broader policy to prevent further limited raids into Russia's border regions.
Also, limited raids and shelling of the border in the Belgorod Oblast are increasingly becoming the center of criticism of the Russian military leadership. Analysts indicated that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Wagner PMC, continued to use the situation in the Belgorod Oblast to criticize the Russian Ministry of Defense on June 3 and 4, in particular, noting the lack of reaction of Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, Colonel General Alexander Lapin, and the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on the evening of June 4, Russian Telegram channels spread information about street fights in the settlement of Nova Tavolzhanka, Belgorod Oblast. In particular, they published videos of gunfights and the movement of armed people on the village streets.
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