- by
- 01 30, 2025
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In the late afternoon of May 22nd footage emerged of two grinning pro-Ukrainian fighters in the midst of a cross-border raid into Russia. “The key to the border has been broken in half,” says one, quoting from “Everything is Going to Plan”, a cult anthem by Civil Defence, a Russian rock band. But the attack that the two men had helped engineer showed that, for Russia, things were very much not going to plan. It included: an illegal crossing from Ukraine into Belgorod, a Russian region on the border, by tanks and infantry fighting vehicles; the death of at least one border guard; farm buildings on fire; a downed helicopter; traffic jams of fleeing locals; and the reported evacuation of a nuclear-arms facility several kilometres into Russian territory. Who was responsible for the incursion?