So, pro-Ukrainian Russian combatants have entered the Russian oblast of Belgorod, meeting few initial resistance and capturing several border villages. Apparently, the Russians are still coordinating their resistance, but front line aviation, including jets and helicopters have been attacking the attackers. Currently, it looks like a raid to former US Army general Mark Hertling (
https://twitter.com/MarkHertling/sta...38470037422080), who again laid out some thought on the operation today. Yesterday, he wrote that the operation is likely part of Ukrainian battlefield shaping, forcing Russian Armed Forces to react at a point along the front, which is unlikely to be the focus of upcoming Ukrainian counter offensive actions. It seems, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are trying to put their Russian counterparts into a bind, by either having to allocate precious forces from along their front in Ukraine or have a raiding party in their back, wreaking havoc on an oblast with major GLOCs running into Donbas.
The raiding party seems to consist mainly or solely of two detachments. One being the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC, sometimes also abbreviated RDK for Russian "Russkiy dobrovol'cheskiy korpus"), an organization with right-wing extremist influences allegedly still led (and founded) by neo-nazi Denis Nikitin. The other being the socially liberal oriented Freedom of Russia Legion (FRL, sometimes also abbreviated LSR for Russian "Svoboda Rossii"; hence also known as Svoboda). Both combat units allegedly are part of the larger movement named "Irpin Declaration", but only Svoboda openly commits to the cause.
So far, this raid looks like a text book operation in what 18th century warfare called "Kleiner Krieg" (petty warfare), i. e. operations conducted by small elements of troops in reconnaissance, sabotage, guerrilla, and terrorism in order to demoralize, confuse and exhaust the enemy, destroy specific goods, inhibit logistics, liberate POWs (probably not in this case), kill specific enemy personnel (unclear at this moment), gather intelligence and capture enemy assets.
Currently, several armored vehicles of the RuAF have been captured and repurposed by the raiders, with own losses kept disclosed. A single American made infantry mobility vehicle as been confirmed lost by OSINT. Traditional doctrine for a raid calls for the party to keep their operation short, bring all their supplies themselves or use captured supplies if need be and then egress behind friendly lines before heavier enemy reinforcements can be brought in to destroy the raiders.
Naturally, Russian social media is running hot. Especially since the raiders allegedly captured Russian police vehicles and uniforms and are now feared to extend their correctly flagged raid into possible false flag operations or in other forms might try to infiltrate and seep into the territory or even the security apparatus of the Russian Federation.
An interesting, and possibly thought-giving (at least for referees), operation!