“According to the investigation, the accused “illegally crossed the Russian border and entered two villages in the Bryansk region, shooting at civilian vehicles and people.””, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
RDK commander Denys Kapustin and actor Kyryl Kanakhin were sentenced to life imprisonment in the case of the invasion of Bryansk region. In addition, Kapustin was fined 2.5 million rubles, and Kanakhin – two million.
Oleksandr Galanov, Anton Zyryanov and Oleksiy Ogurtsov are also accused in the case – the court also sentenced them to life imprisonment with fines in the amount of two million rubles each.
In addition, the court decided to jointly collect 10 million rubles from the convicts for the benefit of the civilian victims, and 3.5 million rubles for the benefit of communal services.
According to the investigation, the accused “illegally crossed the Russian border and entered two villages in the Bryansk region, shooting at civilian vehicles and people.”
Russian courts have previously sentenced Kapustin and Kanakhin to life imprisonment – then they were both accused of high treason, and Kapustin was also accused of attempting to commit a terrorist attack, teaching terrorist activities, creating a terrorist community and purchasing explosives.
“Russian Volunteer Corps” is an armed formation that fights on the side of Ukraine and consists mainly of Russian citizens. According to the statements of the RDK fighters, their goal is to “liberate their land from Putin’s regime.” In Russia, the RDK is recognized as a terrorist organization.
They repeatedly carried out raids on the territory of the Russian Federation, crossing the Ukrainian-Russian border. The raids were carried out mainly in the Belgorod and Bryansk regions of Russia.
To confirm the reality of their actions, the fighters of the RDK and the Legion “Freedom of Russia” post photos and videos from the border points on the Russian side, near post offices and road signs, to prove that they are really on the territory of Russia.
The depth of their penetration in Russia is also different – from a few kilometers to a maximum of 130 kilometers (the village of Lyubimivka, Bryansk region).
At least once, due to the actions of volunteers in the Belgorod region, on May 23, 2023, the Russian authorities announced the regime of a counter-terrorist operation. Also, at the end of May, during a raid by volunteers, the Russian authorities were forced to move the 3rd Motorized Rifle Division of the 20th Combined Arms Army from the occupied parts of the Luhansk Region of Ukraine to the Russian Belgorod Region.
The Russian volunteers also posted videos of captured Russian army soldiers they captured during the raids, as well as reports of downing at least two Russian tanks, as well as a pair of BMPs and BRDMs.
Russian volunteers joked (in the style of 2014 propaganda) that they bought weapons and uniforms “at a military market”.
Some European countries – for example, Belgium – expressed concern that these fighters were using automatic weapons supplied to the Armed Forces of Belgium outside of Ukraine. As for the Western weapons, the commanders of the volunteer units explained that they had recaptured these weapons from the Russian army near Bakhmut after the Russians had first captured those Western weapons from the ZSU.
The military-political leadership of Ukraine does not officially speak of any involvement in the actions of Russian volunteers on the territory of the Russian Federation. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said on May 22 that Ukraine has no relation to the events in the Belgorod region, “however, it is watching their development with interest.”
“The only driving political force in a totalitarian country of twisted nuts always inevitably becomes a partisan movement with weapons in their hands,” added Podolyak, who also called hostilities on the territory of the Russian Federation “the end of the era of “Putin’s stability.”
Against the background of the raids, Ukrainian social media users actively wrote about the creation of the “Belgorod People’s Republic” on the territory of Russia – they say, in response to Moscow’s actions regarding the creation of the so-called “DNR” and “LRN” in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
According to their status, Russian volunteers are part of the Armed Forces, but, as Andrii Yusov, a representative of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, said, “if we talk about their activities on the territory of the Russian Federation, as citizens of the Russian Federation, of course, they act autonomously at home.”
Oleksiy Baranovskyi, a representative of the Political Center of the Russian Armed Opposition, noted that at the time of the raid on the territory of the Belgorod region, volunteers of the “Russian Volunteer Corps” and the “Freedom of Russia” Legion were taking leave from service in the Armed Forces, that is, they were going on vacation.
Reasons The reasons for their armed raids are given by the Russian volunteers as the struggle for the liberation of the Russian people from the “anti-national regime” and that they oppose the “criminal Kremlin authorities and all persons who give and carry out criminal orders”, as well as those who support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Oleksiy Baranovskyi, a representative of the Political Center of the Russian armed opposition, said that “the maximum goal is to take the Kremlin and hand over Putin to an international tribunal”.
At first, Russian television was perplexed – how to report on the military operations of Russian volunteers on the territory of Russia itself? But then on Russian TV channels they began to be called “neo-Vlasovites” and accused of “fascism”.
Who are they? Citizens of the Russian Federation are fighting in the RDC and the “Freedom of Russia” Legion, among whom are former Russian military personnel, as well as ex-employees of the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. There are also former activists of far-right Russian nationalist movements who were disillusioned with the ideas of the “Russian world”.
Summing up the invasion of the territory of the Russian Federation in May 2023, one of the leading fighters of the Legion “Freedom of Russia” with the call sign “Caesar” said that the main conclusion after the operation is that “the border (of Russia) is not locked” and advised people in the Kremlin ” don’t relax.”