Jun 7

Jun 7 Who's blowing stuff up inside Russia? By James Bruno

Ukraine must balance its national defense against out-of-box risk-taking. Setting Russia afire clearly falls into the latter category.

The Moscow Times reports:

The number of acts of sabotage in Russia has more than doubled so far in 2023 compared to the previous year amid the war in Ukraine, the independent news site Vyorstka reported Monday.

At least 57 attacks on Russian railways, military enlistment centers, energy sites and other targets were publicly reported in January-May 2023.

That compares with 21 similar attacks in 2022 and only one in 2021.

Nearly two-thirds of this year’s attacks targeted railway tracks.

At least 26 Russian regions including annexed Crimea have experienced at least one such attack, with the Moscow region in the lead at nine.

May saw the highest number of acts of sabotage at 14, followed by 12 each in January, February and April.

Explosions at ammunition depots, arson attacks on military enlistment centers and damage caused to railway tracks have been regularly reported since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

As of this writing in late May, in less than a day, six regions of Russia, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, have been attacked by saboteurs and drones.

Who Are the Russian Armed Resistance?

Russia is literally on fire (or at least pinpoints of it). Who’s behind it? And Why? Is Russia on track to become a failed state — one huge war lord-ridden Somalia? And what are the implications for Ukraine, Russia, the United States and its allies?

Let’s start with the past week’s dramatic border raids by two anti-Putin Russian insurgent groups.

The Free Russia Legion (FRL) and the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) attacked a Russian border post near the city of Belgorod, killing several officials, then lunged 10 kilometers deep into Russian territory, briefly occupying three villages, a total of 42 square kilometers. Resistance by Russian government forces was spotty. The insurgents claimed government troops ran for their lives. The FRL reportedly suffered two KIA and 10 wounded. The RVC claimed no casualties. By all indicators, Moscow was caught with its pants down, scrambling to assemble enough fighters from a hodge-podge of entities for a counterattack.

As adept, apparently, at p.r. as they are in launching a surprise attack, the two groups brought with them journalists and photographers to record their venture.

“The war will continue until Putin’s hanged body graces the walls of the Kremlin and his gang is judged by a fair trial of Russian anger,” declared a grinning RVC fighter.

“This war will not end in Ukraine, this war can only end in Moscow . . . until Putin's regime is replaced,” said FRL political head Ilya Ponomarev in more diplomatic terms. Ponomarev, the only Russian Duma deputy to have voted against Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014, now lives in exile in Kyiv.

From the FRL’s website:

We are a unit of Russians, which is officially recognized by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We are fighting in full cooperation with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and under the leadership of the Ukrainian command.

The Legion consists of the Combat Wing, which, with weapons in hand, fights together with the Ukrainian army and the All-People's Movement — these are people on the territory of Russia and around the world, united by the values of Freedom.

From the RVC’s Telegram channel:

We, Russian volunteers living on the territory of Ukraine, decided to take up arms and create a military formation — the “Russian Volunteer Corps” in order to defend their Motherland, which sheltered us, together with our Ukrainian comrades, and then continue the fight against the criminal Putin regime and his henchmen.

From today, the Russians in Ukraine have a real opportunity to fight for the future of our countries in the ranks of the volunteer corps with weapons in their hands.

Both groups were formed in 2022 and reportedly number in the hundreds. The combined force involved in the border raid comprised just over a hundred.

A spokesman described the Legion as politically “centrist.” It largely comprises ex-prisoners of war and former military members steeped in Russian military tactics. With seasoned politician Ponomarev as its political director, the FRL appeals to a broad swath of Russians who yearn for a democratic future. This is also borne out in the group’s moderate, if somewhat nebulous, public statements. It operates within Ukraine’s International Legion, a kind of French Foreign Legion that includes Americans, British, Belarusians, Georgians and others. It is overseen by Ukraine’s military and commanded by Ukrainian officers.

The RVC, on the other hand, is another kettle of fish. Led by Denis Kapustin, a Russian football hooligan and neo-Nazi, in contrast to the FRL, it draws its members from Ukraine-based ethnic nationalists and right-wing extremists and uses the symbols of the Russian Liberation Army, which collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II. Its stated goal is “to see a smaller, ethnic Russian state.”

Around a dozen anti-Putin armed groups will soon be collaborating with Ukrainian intelligence, heavily wounded ex-partisan fighter Volodymyr Zhemchugov told Ukrainian news agency Glavred. These range from BOAK, an anarcho-communist collective, to Atesh — Crimean Tatars, Russians and Ukrainians who claim to have carried out nearly a hundred successful anti-Kremlin ops against the Russian army and rail facilities.

Former U.S. diplomat Patricia Kushlis, who had served in Russia, emphasized to me the need for Russia watchers to pay closer attention to restive minorities inside the country, starting with the Tatars and Chechens. But Buryats, Tuvans and others include nationalist activists advocating for independence. These non-Slavic groups bear the brunt of fighting and dying in Ukraine. Many are trained combat veterans. Some of the acts of arson and other internal attacks on government facilities may be attributable to them. “The anti-Russian war effort within Russia is likely a patchwork of people operating clandestinely with differing motivations. But all hate Putin and the invasion,” she said.

Ex-CIA clandestine service officer John Sipher warns of Russian counterintelligence operations — a tried and true tactic of the intelligence services — to try to identify and penetrate anti-government groups. “The Kremlin has a long history of taking false flag actions to smoke out enemies, for example, the Bolsheviks’ Operation Trust and the 1999 Russian apartment bombings,” he told me.

Ukraine’s Role: Talking Out of Both Sides of Their Mouth

A spokesman for Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence said of this week’s border attacks, “We can confirm that this operation was carried out by Russian citizens. These actions are the consequences of intensified Russian cross-border attacks, which have led to victims and destruction.” He added that the units involved were, “part of defense and security forces” in Ukraine but that: “In Russia, they are acting as independent entities.”

He may be splitting hairs.

According to Ukrainian open source intelligence group Molfar, activities of the Russian oppositionist factions fall under Ukraine’s intelligence’s covert “Black Box” program, supported with public donations — amounting to $6.23 million last year — organized by the Come Back Alive Foundation, which raises funds to purchase equipment for Ukrainian troops. Molfar told BNE IntelliNews that the number of fires in Russia doubled once the program became fully funded.

“The most successful operations take place either with the help of our intelligence and sabotage groups, or with the help of Russian citizens who cooperate with our special services,” Zhemchugov told Glavred.

The Ukrainian government contradicts itself regarding its role in sabotage operations inside Russia.

Plausible denial —

“Ukraine is watching the events in the Belgorod region of Russia with interest and studying the situation, but it has nothing to do with it,” presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted.

On the other hand —

“We’ve already successfully targeted quite a few people. There have been well-publicized cases everyone knows about, thanks to the media coverage,” Ukraine’s chief of military intelligence Kyrylo Budonov said in an interview. Ukrainian operatives are widely believed to be behind the assassinations of Russian pro-Putin propagandists Daria Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky, and the severe wounding this month of another, Zakhar Prilepin.

Breaking news reveals that Ukrainian intelligence was most likely also behind the May 3 drone attack on the Kremlin, which President Zelensky has, of course, (plausibly) denied.

Strategy of Ukraine and the Resistance

If an overarching strategy can be discerned among the main armed oppositionist groups, what is it, apart from bringing Vladimir Putin down? The FRL and RVC are the leading militant factions. They work closely with and are equipped by Ukraine’s overlapping security services and clearly serve that government’s strategic goals as well as their own. It is unclear to what extent President Zelensky is briefed, or signs off on the operations.

In war college, we learned from Sun Tzu the importance of diversion in winning wars:

He who knows the artifice of diversion will be victorious. Such is the art of maneuvering. What is difficult about it is to make the devious route the most direct route and divert the enemy by enticing him with a bait. So doing, you may set out after he does and arrive at the battlefield before him. One able to do this shows the knowledge of the artifice of diversion.

FRL political head Ponomarev describes this month’s border incursion as an effort to “liberate a certain part of Russian land,” to compel the Russian military to divert troops fighting in Ukraine as well as to destabilize the Putin regime. “We think now they need to reconsider and deploy more forces all along the Ukrainian border,” he said.

Retired UK special forces member Robin Horsfall also sees as a Kyiv objective to spread and divert Russian forces:

A front line without a strategic reserve, is a line just asking to be broken. Crimea is becoming isolated. Ukraine is shaping the battlefield. They are weakening Russia at every point along their lines, spreading Russian defenses, forcing them to be reactive rather than proactive. Unsure of what to do next their troops become tired, and even more demotivated as they sense the lack of confidence in their commanders. No one knows what Ukraine will do next but rest assured it will surprise us all.

Implications for the West, Ukraine and Russia

That much of the military hardware used by the FRL and RVC to invade Russian territory was American has given policymakers in Washington major agita. A key objective of the Biden administration has been to avoid at all costs escalation of the conflict beyond Ukraine’s borders. Footage of deliriously victorious Russian rebel warriors crashing Russia’s border in American-supplied MaxxPro MRAP armored vehicles and Humvees clearly doesn’t serve this end.

“We’ve been pretty darn clear: We don’t support the use of U.S.-made equipment for attacks inside Russia . . . we’ve been clear about that with the Ukrainians,” NSC spokesman John Kirby said. Intense discussions are taking place behind the scenes.

Leaks in the press indicate that Washington has told Kyiv that it does not approve of Ukraine carrying out violent ops inside Russia. Perceptions of U.S. involvement risk things getting out of hand, leading to dangerous escalation with Moscow.

That the RVC appears to be a bastion of neo-Nazis also doesn’t help. It serves perfectly Putin’s propaganda that Ukraine’s leaders are Nazis, thereby justifying Moscow’s need to intervene to destroy such evil forces.

Kyiv’s approach appears to be “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Sorry, but Hitler fans and tattooed racist rabble rousers only sully Ukraine’s otherwise heroic David to Russia’s evil Goliath image. Zelensky and crew would best clean house of these types.

Finally, Putin and his regime are facing an existential struggle with their Ukraine fiasco. The longer it goes on, with consequent bleeding of men, resources and image, the greater the danger of Russia’s continuation as a sprawling ethnic quilt of 21 republics and 49 territories ending. No less of a critic than Wagner honcho Yevgeny Prigozhin this week warned, “This division might end as in 1917, with a revolution — when first the soldiers rise up, and then their loved ones follow.”

Washington policymakers view a breakup of Russia with deep concern and most oppose it. There are the nuclear weapons to worry about. Then likely conflicts among the newly independent nations over resources, borders and ethnic rivalries. Not to mention an expansionist China inserting itself. And the prospect of a grudge-filled revanchist Russia evokes post-World War I Germany. Après nous, le déluge. Putin’s successor(s) could make him look competent and judicious.

Putin’s hero Peter the Great captures Russia’s eternal dilemma: “I have conquered an empire but I have not been able to conquer myself.” Until the Russian people finally overcome their troubled history and join the ranks of civilized, democratic nations, they will simply keep getting more Putin’s with consequent catastrophe for themselves.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is already on the road to defining itself as a modern democratic nation anchored with the West. In doing so, it must balance its national defense against out-of-box risk-taking. Setting Russia afire clearly falls into the latter category.

James Bruno (@JamesLBruno) served as a diplomat with the U.S. State Department for 23 years and is currently a member of the Diplomatic Readiness Reserve. An author and journalist, Bruno has been featured on CNN, NBC’s Today Show, Fox News, Sirius XM Radio, The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, and other national and international media.