The Siberian Battalion, an anti-Kremlin Russian group, asserts that it has entered the settlement of Gorkovsky in the Belgorod Oblast and captured the local administration building.
The coalition of Russian battalions fighting alongside Ukraine announced on 12 March that they had launched offensive operations inside Russia’s border territories to liberate it from the “criminal dictatorial regime” in the Russian Federation.
“Units of the Russian liberation forces, together with volunteers from the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, entered the settlement of Gorkovsky in the Russian Federation and captured the building of the local administration,” the battalion’s statement reads.
Members of the Siberian Battalion also published a photo with the Russian flag and a sign of the local administration. Gorkovsky is a village in the Grayvoron district of the Belgorod region, located near the border with Ukraine. According to the latest data, the settlement had a population of up to 450 people.
The battalions have repeatedly urged residents of the Belgorod and Kursk oblasts to evacuate as they were “forced to strike at military positions located in the cities of Belgorod and Kursk.”
Russian battalions, consisting of Russian citizens, have repeatedly carried out raids into the Russian Federation, crossing the Ukrainian-Russian border. The raids were mainly conducted in the Belgorod and Bryansk oblasts of Russia. Previously, offensive actions occurred in the Belgorod region on 23 May 2023, when the Russian authorities declared a counter-terrorist operation regime.
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