anti-Putin Russian rebels seize border towns inside Russia | Eastern NC Now

Two allied organizations of anti-Putin Russian rebels, the Freedom of Russian Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps, have stormed across the border from Ukraine and occuipied parts of Russia's Belgorod region.  The groups have about 10,000 fighters between them and are made up of those who have fled Russia and defectors from Putin's army.  They have called for Russians to rise up and overthrow Putin.

The Russian commander in the area, Colonel General Lapin was previously fired from a command in the Ukraine invasion for incompetence.   One huge headache for the Russians is that a major nuclear weapons storage depot, Belgorod-22 is located near the town of Grayvoron, and anti-Putin fighters have now entered the suburbs of Grayvoron and fighting is going on there.  Russia appears to be frantically trying to evacuate the nuclear weapons before the facility is overrun.  They are also pulling troops out of their Ukraine invasion to deal with the emergency at home and ordering civilians to evacuate a wide swath of Belgorod Region.

.https://redstate.com/streiff/2023/05/23/russia-evacuates-nuclear-weapons-stockpile-as-dissident-invasion-of-russia-continues-n750242

The area shaded in blue on the map below shows territory overrun by the anti-Putin rebels and the two other arrows show other reported but unconfirmed cross border attacks by anti-Putin rebels.