Chris

Weirdness kicking off in Russia’s Belgorod district this morning. Partisans calling themselves the “Free Russia Legion” have blown up a Russian border crossing checkpoint at Kozinka and are now fighting their way northeastwards - ever-deeper into Russia itself.

The FRL is comprised of mostly Russian nationals who have fought inside Ukraine for the Ukrainian side. There are all sorts of intriguing questions here, first of which is, is this a Ukrainian psy-op, messing with Russia’s collective mind as part of Ukraine’s battle-space shaping for its spring offensive? If it is, that implies a level of Ukrainian influence in what’s happening, which is quite something, even if Ukrainian soldiers themselves don’t venture into Russia.

And whether or not Ukraine is pulling the strings, how far is the FRL likely to get into Russia? I mean they’re never going to get anywhere near Moscow but what if they actually managed to overrun Belgorod? That would be massive.

The picture is fluid, confusing and not yet reported in mainstream media, but all the usual monitors on the Twitters have been full of it since very early this morning.