Russia loses control of Belgorod
Analysis of Russian Volunteers Corpus & Russian Liberation Army actions and motives in Belgorod Oblast of Russia; Ukrainian Interests in the region; impact onto the future of Russia and entire Eurasia.
Intro
While everybody in the west discusses if the recent russian terrorist attack against the Kakhovka dam can be considered equivalent to the nuclear strike or not, there is one thing which has a far greater impact onto the outcome of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Far beyond that war, one situation evolving at the other side of the frontline could impact the nearby future power configuration of the entire Eurasian region and even the political map of the globe in 2050. Very probably, the russian terrorist attack against Kakhovka may well be an attempt of russian dictatorial regime to distract attention of russian population from that situation.
The ongoing armed conflict inside the Belgorod Oblast was in breaking news a few weeks ago, but was supressed by more vocal events. Some claim that it is a mere Ukrainian Army diversion inside the russian territory, and some that it is the beginning of a russian internal conflict leading to the civil war. As usual in such complex cases, the truth is hidden somewhere in the middle. You can read my most recent report or other authors for more details about the situation in Belgorod Oblast; this article focuses more on the bottom line of it: the root causes and the potential consequences.
Prehistory of Belgorod Oblast
According to war criminal Putin, the map of Eurasia should return back to so-called “historically justified borders”. But, what Putin misses in that statement, is that according to “historic justice” Belgorod Oblast would need to be returned back to Ukraine. Indeed, it was a part of Ukraine at the dawn of the Soviet Union formation, forcefully disconnected and brought within russian borders in 1920-s by formet soviet dictators. Moreover, before the World War 2, there were little residents of Belgorod Oblast (outside the city of Belgorod) who were able to understand or less so speak the russian language. For ages, the majority of indigenous population of this region were Ukrainian with a small mix of Tatars. It is only the soviet cultural and ehtnic repressions against Ukrainians that turned the tide. Anyway, lets leave that to historians and fast-forward to the present day.
There are a plenty of videos in Telegram channels showing the reaction of local rural population onto the invasion of Russian Volunteers Corpus (RVC) & Russian Liberation Army (RLA) into Belgorod Oblast in May-June 2023. (Those are two separate ornagizations which currently act in tandem). Little observers noticed, yet there are many cases when these locals talk a dialect of Ukrainian language at camera, expressing their hope of liberation from Putin regime’s. There is no wonder given the history of the region: the majority of Belgorod Oblast population are so-called russified Ukrainians: ethnic Ukrainians who were forced to switch their mother tongue due to russian oppression. That is the reason of all their sentiments. And this is one of 2 primary reasons why RLA started their raid into russian territory from Belgorod Oblast and nowhere else.
Hand on heart, if I were a guerilla warrior, I’d prefer to start the guerilla campaign in the region which has the highest chance of support from local population. Due to Ukrainian origins of Belgorod Oblast population, it is that exact region, as Ukrainians are universally anti-imperials, regardless of their residence. Ironically, there are many russified Ukrainians (a large part of the russian federation population), who fighting at a side of russian terrorists, truly believing that they fight against the “Americas Empire”, and that is often the only reason they joined the war. Given an option of fighting back against “russian empire”, many of them would quickly switch sides. As strange as that sounds, there were quite a few historical events, where in a similar situation warriors of steppe region (in particular, Ukrainians and Tatars) behaved exactly that way: unpredictably, if not to say quirky.
Ukrainian Interests
Ukraine has no interests in occupying even 1 meter of russian lands, even those populated by maily Ukrainians, even as “historically justifiable” land as Belgorod Oblast. If ideologic reason does not sound strong enough, there is a cynical reason: such occupation would put Ukraine into the aggressor shoes, which Ukraine is not capable to wear. This simple logic breaks all those arguments of russian propaganda as if Ukrainian government plans to occupy (even temporarily) a part of Belgorod Oblast.
There is a chance that RLA was operation on its own merit. Still, despite all Ukrainian government claims of “purely internal russian conflict”, this is far from being the truth either. Ukraine obviously has interests in Belgorod Oblast, and to understand them one needs to look at the map.
As one can see, the entire Belgorod Oblast lies within 100–105 kilometers range from the Ukraine border. The city of Belgorod is within some 25 kilometers from the border (same as the city of Kharkiv). Moreover, it is the only russian oblast, which completely lies within 150 kilomenters from the Ukraine border. What this means: in the nearest future the entire Belgorod Oblast will lie inside the demilitarized zone some 100 or 150 kilmeters inside the territory of Belarus and Russia (if such state would still exist by that time). That is no joke: one of the mandatory conditions of the future piece treaty between Ukraine and Russia is to form such fully demilitarized zone. Expectedly, by the ned of 2025 Ukraine will have both capacity and capability to control and enforce the execution of such treaty.
So, it is highly probably that, besides their own interests like liberation of the whole of Russia from Putin’s regime, RLA soldiers also had a sort of an informal requirement from the Ukrainian military commandment to start such liberation from Belgorod Oblast in exchange for the limited support of such operations. The benefits for Ukraine are two-fold: first, the conflict zone is pushed further away from Kharkiv (the second largest Ukrainian city); second, it is a good excersize on enforcing a zone of military control, which will later be transformed into a delimitarized zone.
Thus, there are obviously rather far-looking Ukraine’s interests in recent events inside Belgorod Oblast. Nevertheless, the internal russian affairs, in particular, internal Belgorod Oblast situation, played the key role in them.
What to Expect
To be honest, I’d like to join the cohort of those predicting the collapse of the russian empire because of the events in Belgorod Oblast. But it is still as far from that as it could possibly be. For the start, RLA are good guys. They russian citizens who voluntarily joined the Ukrainian Army Force to protect the globe against the evil living inside their own country. And now they are trying to eradicate that evil from their motherland. As honorable and heroic as it sounds, this is not enough to change the balance of power inside russia. They still need the “force”, but they are too small to project enough force to control more than a few villages.
To compare, regular russian bands like those of Prigozhin or Kadyrov have an order of magnitude more human resource and equipment, like tens of thousands versus just hundreds of RLA ranks. Yet, those are medium-sized gangs. Personal armies of top-ranks russian oligarchs like Deripaska, Usmanov, or Timchenko are far greater. Even those are just puppet armies compared to Putin’s personal band — rossgvardia (officially, National Guard of Russia), or Gazprom’s security force, counting hundreds of thousands of personnel, and serving the only role — protecting their patrons.
So, this looks like a classic fairy tale, when a small company of heroes are chasing the fiery dragons. With the only difference: in real life their chance of success is little more than zero.
But, there is a more cynical side of the story. Every time you see a group of people with high ideals — look for their more material interest. In this particular scenario, what RLA actually achieved is to show that there is no official force inside russia still in control of the situation: neither russian military commandment, nor russian security and police forces alike, nor even the benevolent lord of russian plebs super-uber-evil Putin itself. To all the regular russian gangs, including those mentioned above, it all suddenly became crystal clear: the king is naked. I guess it is not worth mentioning what the gangs do when their chief gangster looks weak: they seek to replace that puppy and start the war of succession. More on the full story can be found in my trilogy about the disassembly of the russian empire.
So, why would RLA or anybody be interested in the russian gangsters war of succession. It would look silly to believe that a small organization like RLA would have any chance to grab its fortune in it. But, remember the future demilitarization zone, and how well Belgorod Oblast is contained within it. Back in May I predicted that Belgorod Oblast elites might ask Ukraine for protection closer to the end of the war; as Russian Federation sinks in the turmoil of the forecoming Civil War. Quite possibly, that is what is being materialized these days. I mean, Belgorod Oblast might be that jewel RLA is looking for: a small piece of land, under the protection of Ukrainian Army, shielded from russian criminal wars, embrasing principles of librerty and democracy, and free from the ages-long russian oppression. Yet again, quite probably that trophy is a part of a secret deal between RVC/RLA and UAF.
Liberty and Freedom to Belgorod Oblast.
Dream big goals and do small things!
Slava Ukraini!
