ISW: Volunteer Offensive Leaves Kremlin Confronted With Difficult Choice
- 15.03.2024, 15:20
Russia will suffer serious losses anyhow.
The Russian MoD confirmed the fact that the "saboteurs" broke into the territory of the Kursk and Belgorod regions, and also told about the small battle in Tetkino, Kozinka and Spodaryushino.
Analysts from the ISW Institute for the Study of War decided to analyze the situation with volunteer raids in Russia.
On the eve of the Z-channels began to claim that the Ukrainian helicopter landed in the Kozinka area and landed troops.
Some Russian milblogers still cannot understand how the border with Ukraine remains open to "saboteurs" in the third year of the war. The military corps called on the Kremlin to move the border away from the Russian Federation to a distance of 40 km.
Some Z-patriots guess why there are still no normal defensive structures or at least barricades on the border with Ukraine.
ISW analysts believe that the Kremlin has to balance the reputational costs of recognizing that "saboteurs" can sometimes enter the territory of the Russian Federation and conduct effective raids, and the resource costs of allocating additional forces and weapons to protect its borders in the east.
In 2023 as well as in 2024, the Kremlin was not yet able to protect its citizens from invasion. The Russian media is in shock because of such volunteer raids.
Back in the summer of 2023, ultranationalists criticized the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation for failing to protect Russians within their own country.
Since then, the Kremlin has cracked down on complaints of the Russian media against the Russian Ministry of Defence, actively censoring some marginal and extremist milblogers through including arrests or other measures, encouraging self-censorship and subordination among the remaining correspondents.
Now the reaction of Z-bloggers is not as vivid as in 2023. They criticized Russia's reaction to the events of March 12, 2024, but no longer condemned the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation.