Propaganda coup.
Russian dissident
soldiers back from a raid inside Russia,
parading a captured Russian vehicle
for the world.
What do you
hope will be the effect of this raid
effect of Israel?
It was amazing.
It was information of shell information
bombed
blowing about to this whole Internet,
blowing up,
boiling.
These men are all Russian nationals.
And part of Ukraine's security forces,
and they carry Ukrainian military IDs.
This incursion
into Russian territory,
which these guys say is ongoing,
was as much a propaganda mission
as it was a military mission.
But they say
it was also done
independently of the Ukrainian military.
That is a claim
we have to take with a big pinch of salt.
They jointly raided Russian territory
this week
and flooded
the Internet with images of their work.
Russia claims to have driven them out.
Still, the raid has rattled Moscow.
Do you think this is part of the coming
summer offensive, an attempt
to keep the Russians off-balance
keep them guessing?
I think it's it's kind of it's
yes, it's kind of it.
And their cafeteria.
American-Made vehicles appear
to have been used
in the cross-border operation
in Belgorod province.
It's unclear if they were US donations.
The vehicles
that you took included
some of the American MRAPs.
Is that right?
We use it.
We use have the also we buy them in
international shops workshops.
Yeah.
So you bought these vehicles
on the open market? Yeah, of course.
Every everyone
who have some money can do it.
Ukraine's government,
which has received U.S.
vehicles and lethal hardware,
says that these men operated inside
Russia privately.
But a security source said here
that Kiev had advance
knowledge of the raid,
and Caesar admitted
Ukraine helped out with supplies,
small arms,
artillery, weapons,
heavy vehicles, everything what we need.
So this was a raid
that the government can deny
but still enjoy the results
Divisions in the ranks of their enemies.
Mercenary leader
Yevgeny Prigozhin
immediately reacting with fury
following the putting
their egos of shit
is not gonna see the way we do not done
because we win the theater.
The bigger interesting of Musk was after
he made us feel good.
But, you know, pretty little girl
school was too simple.
But when I said
this,
we managed to get our hands
on the far right
leader of the Russian volunteer.
He even warned that Moscow
could face a revolution.
The operation is ongoing.
This is how I should put it.
To be honest,
it definitely has various phases.
So phase one,
we consider it a successful phase.
It's over now,
but the operation is ongoing.
That's what I can say for now.
Yes, please.
It's the same. Kylie joins us now.
Sam, it's
really fascinating to hear from them.
I mean, they sound very confident.
They also sound like
at least
they want people to believe
there will be more attacks
from these kind of groups
on Russian soil.
How likely is that
I think it's pretty likely, Anderson,
in that
they are relatively small in number,
numbering in the hundreds
rather than thousands of
these Russian citizens.
But they are also trying to hook up with
partizan groups deeper into the country
to try and inspire other people into
acts of
sabotage ultimately.
And then at the same time,
the Ukrainians are prosecuting
these sorts of attacks
behind the Russian lines here inside
Ukrainian territory,
either with special forces
or now
with the Longer-range weaponry
that they've been getting,
particularly from NATO's partners
the United Kingdom recently
supplying the storm shadow
cruise missile
that may have been behind
a recent explosion
in a Russian occupied town
more than 100 kilometers,
some 80 miles
or so behind the front lines Anderson.
Sam Kiley in Ukraine,
thanks for that report.
Joining us now,
CNN military analyst and retired Army
Lieutenant General Mark Hertling.
General Hertling,
I mean, in terms of Ukraine's
fight against Russia,
are these cross-border raters
effective either
strategically or psychologically?
Or in any way in all those ways?
Anderson,
whenever you're conducting raids
or feints or demonstrations,
it causes the enemy
to take a look
at what they're doing
where they're defending
what you're talking about
along the border between
Ukraine and Russia,
on the eastern part of the country
is close
to probably
a thousand kilometer or 600, 700 miles
that the Russians
cannot defend
across that entire length and breadth.
So anytime you have a raid like this
that gets in very quickly,
causes a little bit of disruption
in some chaos
and then moves out very quickly.
You see the enemy reacting to that,
just like the Russians did.
The Russians claim
they killed 70 of these raiders.
It's just not true.
You can tell by talking to that commander
just now that he didn't lose
a whole lot of people.
In fact, he said he
he lost one soldier and two were wounded,
but it caused a lot of disruption
on the Russian side.
What do you make of where the
war is right now for Ukraine?
I think they're continuing
Ukraine is continuing to conduct
shaping operations.
And these kinds of raids
and demonstrations
and feints are a part of that.
You see continued strikes by the Ukraine
against key
elements of the Russian military.
You see not only these raids
that are taking place that they can
they can basically say, hey,
we don't know who did that,
but we know it's helpful
all the way to the bombing
or the destruction of artillery depots
and ammo dumps in places like Bury Downs,
which happened today.
You see, like you showed earlier,
the unmanned surface vessel going
after against a Russian ship
it's just a thousand knife cuts
against Russia.
And it's all part of shaping operations
for the Ukrainians to determine
where the weak spots are in the lines
where they can attack
and how the Russian forces
are moving their elements
around to address
different threats
coming from unexpected directions.
You said shaping operations.
So it sort of probes in a way.
It is probes.
It's intelligence gathering,
it's preparation of the battlefield.
By different attacks,
using artillery to strike command, post
ammo dumps,
railroad crossings, places
that disrupt the enemy activity
and cause the enemy commander
to take a different approach
or to move forces
or to defend things that he didn't
want to defend in the past
or continue to guess
at where the Ukrainians might come next.
And it takes active Russian forces
away from the defensive lines
that they've been building
for the last five months
and puts them in other places
like border post
so that the Ukrainians
will see this movement
and use that to their advantage
to attack in places where the Russians.
Just quickly,
Prigozhin the head of the Wagner
group, said that in an interview
that 20,000 Wagner
troops
had died in the attempt
to take over Bermuda.
Do you think that's an accurate number?
And if so, what does
I think right about the fight?
Yeah,
I believe that's a lowball number
from all of the U.S.
Open source intelligence.
That's significantly less
than they lost their by count.
But it's also persuasion continuing
to insult
the minister of Defense, Shoigu,
and the chief General Gerasimov.
So when they fail,
if there's any failure, he can say, hey,
see that I was the guy that was attacking
and having great success.
You pulled me offline.
You took away my bargaining group,
and now you all have to suffer
the consequences of failure.
So he's insulting
and he's also
prepping a future battlefield
from a political standpoint
to gain more power inside of the Kremlin.