One of the participants in the May 22 raid on Russia’s Belgorod region told Novaya Gazeta Europe the story of the incursion in his own words. The source did not share his name with Novaya Gazeta Europe, and he also declined to say which group he was with (both the Freedom of Russian legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps, groups of Russian nationals who fight for Ukraine, said they participated in the raid). He specified only that he is a citizen of Russia.
The man reported that the “timing of the operation’s start” was delayed due to bad weather and washed out roads. “Many vehicles got stuck in the mud, and some weren’t able to participate in further actions,” he said, adding that a total of “a dozen machines and armored vehicles” and around 150 people reached the border between Ukraine and Russia.
“There was no artillery fire from Uragan rocket launchers from the Ukrainian side. We used 120 mm mortars ourselves on the Grayvoron border checkpoint,” the source told Novaya Gazeta Europe. He said the border checkpoint was well fortified, but “when we went on the attack covered by a tank, all its defenders fled.” One person fleeing was killed, the man said, when he caught “at the wrong moment.” Another border guard was taken prisoner after hiding in a basement for several hours.
The source confirmed that footage of two American Humvees was from the border after the vehicles fell into trenches near the checkpoint.
After we captured the checkpoint we dispersed in the directions of our different tasks. The first group went to warn civilians not to leave their houses and apartments. They quickly reached the district center. When the second wave came, which I was in, there was not a soul in the villages. The streets were dead.
According to Novaya Gazeta Europe’s source, it took Russian troops a few hours to “wake up” and arrive with artillery and aviation and open fire. Their targets were “not only the outskirts, where Russian Volunteer Corps and Freedom of Russia fighters were, but the buildings they assumed we’d occupied, like the FSB, Internal Affairs, and administration.”
The raid participant said his fellow fighters sustained minor injuries. Eyewitnesses said that several civilians were wounded during the incident. The participant also said that Russian forces suffered significant losses in terms of both wounded and killed service members.
The only serious resistance, the source said, was met by those who crossed the border at the village center of Grayvoron. Capturing Grayvoron, he said, was the operation’s initial goal, but bad weather and road conditions delayed the operation’s start by half a day “and we didn’t achieve all the desired results.”
“We’re just learning. Our power is growing. We’ll improve. We’ll organize new raids,” the source told Novaya Gazeta Europe. “This time we tried for the district center, and next time we’ll attempt to get to the whole region’s central city.”
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