Russia is experiencing information shocks due to events in Belgorod region

This is stated in a new report by the Institute for the Study of War.

For example, some pro-war bloggers have focused on the fact that pro-Ukrainian Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) and Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR) consist mostly of Russians, calling them traitors to Russia and falsely accusing them of working for the GUR.

"Several milbloggers additionally speculated that the attack was a purposeful information operation intended to distract from the recent Russian capture of Bakhmut and to instill panic in the Russian information space in advance of a potential Ukrainian counteroffensive," the experts say.

Former Russian officer and ultranationalist Igor Girkin said he had long warned that such cross-border raids could be part of a broader Ukrainian counteroffensive strategy.

Instead, Wagner PMC financier Yevgeny Prigozhin used the incident to accuse the Russian government and its bureaucratic inaction of facilitating the attack. He criticized the Russian Defense Ministry for failing to strengthen borders and protect Russia.

The first line of Russian defensive fortifications spotted was, in particular, 2 km from Hora Podil, and the assumption that the RDK forces managed to break through the defensive line emphasizes the weakness of such fortifications, at least when they are not fully staffed with well-trained and well-equipped soldiers.

Analysts note that since most Russian pro-war bloggers responded with relatively different concerns, anxieties and anger, and the information space did not coalesce around one coherent reaction to the event, this indicates that the events took Russian commentators by surprise.

• On May 22, the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps announced that they had liberated the settlements of Kozynka and Hora-Podol in the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation as part of the creation of a demilitarized zone on the border with Russia, and that advanced units had entered Hraivoron. A counterterrorism operation was introduced in the region and nuclear munitions were evacuated.

• Late in the evening of May 22, Russian media reported that administrative buildings in Belgorod, including the FSB and the Interior Ministry, had been hit by drones, and that administrative buildings in Hraivoron and Borysivka had been hit by drones.