ISW: Putin may be setting conditions for further Russian raids into northeastern Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting on Feb. 1 to discuss restoring residential infrastructure in Russian-occupied Crimea, as well as Russia's Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk oblasts following what he dubiously called a “shelling by neo-Nazi formations," the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest report.

Putin and Russian propagandists often make baseless claims that the government in Kyiv or members of the Ukrainian military are neo-Nazis, despite no proof to back up the falsehoods.

According to the D.C.-based think tank, Putin’s dubious focus on the supposed danger of Ukrainian shelling of border regions likely serves a two-fold purpose. 

Firstly, it furthers an information operation intended to "frame the war in Ukraine as an existential threat to Russian citizens" to generate domestic support for a protracted war. 

Secondly, the experts note, Putin may also be setting conditions for escalated cross-border raids to distract and disperse Ukrainian forces from critical axes of advance by pinning them to northeastern border areas. 

"Russian invasion from Belarus is exceedingly unlikely, and the ongoing information operation to pin Ukrainian troops against the northern Ukraine-Belarus border seems to be faltering as Ukrainian officials increasingly assess that this contingency is improbable," the institute found. 

"The threat of cross-border raids from Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk oblasts into northern and northeastern Ukraine is likely an attempt to force Ukraine to deploy limited elements to these areas to protect against such attacks, thus dispersing Ukrainian troops to an extent in advance of a likely Russian offensive operation in the coming months," ISW wrote.