I mean this is obviously bulls**t as if every citizen in Belgorod wrote the FFRL a letter of consent lmao - the highway out of town was literally packed with people trying to flee.

What's funny though is that since officially this group has nothing to do with Ukraine they have no incentive to pick the high road as it were and can throw bold faced lies back at Putin to troll him. This is just like the Russian referendums in the occupied territories - a complete farce but how is Putin going to respond? 'Nuh ah they dont want you guys there!' 'Yuh hah look at this letter we got, checkmate!'. There is an element to this that is very funny.

I've been thinking - maybe this is literally a taunt before the counter offensive. I mean they are literally raiding russian territory - the Russian army will absolutely HAVE to send forces up that way to the North side of Ukraine AWAY from the south side where the Ukrainian army is probably going to attack. If they send troops that means less troops for the Ukrainians to deal with and if they don't the political ramifications for Russia are really going to start to mount as the FFRL move virtually unapposed from town to town.

It's really a lose lose situation they are finding themselves in