Russian volunteer fighters who carried out an incursion from Ukraine to the Russian border are located just a few miles from an empty nuclear garage.
Russia’s Freedom Legion, the Siberian Battalion and the Russian Volunteer Corps are fiercely critical of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion. Last week they said they had entered Belgorod and Kursk oblasts. On Sunday, the Siberian battalion said on Telegram that “Russian liberation forces” had taken over the administrative building in the village of Gorkovsky.
The teams carried out raids in May 2023. La Ukrainian intelligence said at the time that this prompted Russian forces to evacuate stockpiles of nuclear munitions from the Belgorod-22 facility in the Grayvoronsky regional district.
This was not independently verified, as it doubted it could go unnoticed, while the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel, Rybar, said at the time that there were no nuclear weapons at the site for a long time before the attack.
However, through Intelschizo’s account, the existing proximity of anti-Kremlin formations to the site whose official name is Military Unit 25624 of the 12th General Directorate of the Russian Army was alluded to. This post on X, formerly Twitter, about the war in Ukraine, satellite maps and open-source intelligence.
“(Two) lines of advance towards the now empty Belgorod-22 tactical nuclear weapons depot,” the message reads alongside a map showing the terrain where fighting positions are being taken near the Russian trenches and Belgorod-22.
“Recent attacks by Ukrainian-backed Russian forces have taken the village of Gorkovksy town in the Belgorod region. The two forward lines of Kozinka and Gorkovsky are 16 kilometers from the depot,” the message adds. Contacted via Newsweek, Intelsc said there was no evidence that the teams were getting closer.
Meanwhile, Pavel Podvig, an independent analyst based in Geneva where he leads studies on Russia’s nuclear forces, told Newsweek: “I doubt they would try to succeed on the ground, it’s very heavily guarded. In fact, surveillance is an important service of the garrison there. Newsweek has reached out to Russia’s Defense Ministry for comment.
There is no evidence that the nuclear garage is being attacked.
Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukrainian military intelligence, said on Saturday that Ukraine would assist anti-Kremlin militias in their operations on Russian territory. They were no longer perceived as a “grouping,” but “now they have become a force. “
As Newsweek reported in the past, Alexei Baranovsky, a volunteer with Russia’s Freedom Legion, said the purpose of the formations was to “march on Moscow” and ensure the “liberation of Russia from Putin. “
In a video released on Saturday, the KDR, Russia’s Ministry of Defense, lied when it claimed that the formation had been wiped out following last week’s incursion.
The video showed blurry photographs of the infantrymen the organization claims to have captured, while the RDK member called a meeting with Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov to discuss their fate.
Update 3/18/24, 10:30 a. m. ET: This article was updated with comments from Pavel Podvig and the X Intelschi account.
Brendan Cole is a senior journalist at Newsweek in London, UK. It focuses on Russia and Ukraine, specifically on the war unleashed through Moscow. It also covers other areas of geopolitics, adding China.
Brendan joined Newsweek in 2018 from the International Business Times and, in addition to English, is fluent in Russian and French.
You can contact Brendan by emailing b. cole@newsweek. com or following him on his X @brendanmarkcole account.