Иллюстрация: скриншот видео, обработанный с помощью ИИ.
An obscure group calling itself the “Black Russes” has claimed responsibility for an incident in which armed men in masks, acting aggressively, attempted to bring a group of migrants from Belarus into Latvia. Who might be behind this claim, and how likely is it that such an organization actually exists?
In a one-minute video published on a Telegram channel and on TikTok, a person with a concealed face and altered voice says that the “Black Russes” group officially claims responsibility “for the incident on the Latvia-Belarus border in Kaplava Parish, Krāslava Municipality.”
Video published on the “Black Russes” Telegram channel on October 7, 2026.
“We confirm that on the night of October 5–6, a group of three Black Russes activists crossed the border and clashed with Latvian military personnel. They subsequently infiltrated Latvian territory again near the village of Matuliški, seized surveillance cameras, damaged equipment, and went undetected,” the unidentified speaker says.
He also says the group intends to continue carrying out acts of sabotage against EU countries bordering Belarus: “This was merely a test of the Latvians’ resilience, and they failed it. Soon, you will see a similar scene at other sections of our border. The EU and NATO are colossi with feet of clay that will collapse after our first strike.”
Yesterday, Aliaksandr Lukashenka claimed that the incident on the Belarusian-Latvian border had been staged by Latvian security services themselves: “We have nothing to do with this — with people in masks, military personnel, entering their territory, grabbing someone, capturing someone, or pushing some group of migrants in there.”
According to the politician, “an operation of this kind, involving entry into a neighbouring country, is impossible without the president’s approval. I was not consulted about any such actions. That means they were not carried out either.”
Incidentally, Lukashenka is contradicting himself here. Remember how, in 2022, he claimed to have had nothing whatsoever to do with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? He supposedly knew nothing about the Russians’ intentions; they were merely returning from military exercises and independently turned south, crossing the guarded Belarusian-Ukrainian border without any difficulty. How could that have happened if he had not been consulted about “such actions”? Did Moscow once again fail to inform him?
In short, whichever way you look at it, the result is embarrassing: either your security services were directly involved in the provocation, or you have to admit that present-day Belarus is an open door through which anyone can do whatever they please.
Worse still, suppose the “Black Russes” organization really exists, is carrying out provocations on the border with a NATO member state, and is preparing further actions — all without the knowledge or direct involvement of the Belarusian security services. In that case, the KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and other agencies should simply be disbanded for professional incompetence. A group whose members can carry out such “feats” right under their noses is operating with impunity in the territory they are responsible for protecting.
Video published on the “Black Russes” Telegram channel on September 27, 2026.
But it is hard to believe this. In Belarus, where everything has been suppressed to such an extent that even sneezing without the security forces’ knowledge is impossible, such independent activity is simply out of the question.
The list of suspects is narrowing. That leaves either Russian security services, Belarusian security services, or a joint operation. But why bring some “Black Russes” group into it?
Clearly, the provocation on the Belarusian-Latvian border is another stage in an escalation. It does not really matter whether it was timed to coincide with the CSTO exercises, ahead of which the border incident occurred, with Latvia’s recent parliamentary elections, or whether it was an operation with no specific timing, part of a series of actions targeting EU countries that support Ukraine. It is an element of hybrid warfare.
Speaking about hybrid threats, David Cattler, NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence and Security, noted that they “combine military and non-military, as well as covert and overt means, including disinformation, cyber attacks, economic pressure, and deployment of irregular armed groups .”
The goal is “to create turmoil and disunity among us—they quietly undermine democratic states and institutions, blur the lines between war and peace, and attempt to sow doubt in the minds of target populations, all while avoiding traditional conflict.”
Paramilitary groups can be used to stage provocations, sabotage critical infrastructure, and fuel local conflicts. They can conduct reconnaissance and infiltrate foreign territory covertly. At the same time, the regimes behind them can deny any involvement in aggressive actions.
In light of this, it is reasonable to suppose that the “Black Russes” were “invented” for precisely these purposes.
Journalists from Important Stories analyzed the social media accounts and website of the “Black Russes” and found that these resources had been created “recently, hastily, and with the help of artificial intelligence.”
“The Telegram channel with the handle @chernye_rusy was created on September 24, just a couple of weeks before the incident on the Belarusian-Latvian border. It currently has just over 1,200 subscribers. Apart from the statement about the sabotage operation in Latvia, the channel’s main content consists of AI-generated posts about the Union State of Russia and Belarus, criticism of the Baltic countries, and calls for Belarus’s borders to be strengthened. The posts also feature AI-generated videos,” the publication writes.
The report notes that the “Black Russes” also have a website with a contact form. Users wishing to “join the group” are asked to provide their name or call sign, age, city, contact details, and a short personal introduction.
The website, Important Stories reports, was created using neural networks, and the developers’ prompts to the artificial intelligence remain in the code. They are written in Ukrainian. The page code contains a comment in the website header: «Тексти, які бачить відвідувач, російською — це мова самого сайту. Коментарі українською, повідомлення в консолі англійською» (“The texts visible to visitors are in Russian, as this is the language of the website itself. Comments are in Ukrainian, and console messages are in English.”) Edits to the website’s content in Ukrainian have also been left in the code.
The code for the contact form also contains a comment indicating that the site’s creators originally planned to collect user data through Google Forms. Now, however, all the collected application data is stored in an unknown database: “Анкета йде в /api/join, звідти — у базу” (“The application goes to /api/join, and from there to the database”).
At the same time, the website is registered in Russia to an unidentified private individual. Metadata that could theoretically help identify the site’s creator has been removed from the images on the website.
Could Ukrainians have been behind the information campaign carried out in the name of the “Black Russes”? For example, could they have wanted to troll Lukashenka by showing how little control he has over his own territory? This hypothesis cannot be ruled out entirely. However, it does not seem the most plausible. Moreover, hints of possible provocations that appeared on the “Black Russes” TikTok account before the incident suggest that its authors were connected to what happened. In that case, it would mean Ukrainians were operating “on the ground,” which is even less plausible.
Video published on the “Black Russes” Telegram channel on September 30, 2026.
As Important Stories journalists rightly point out, the Ukrainian-language prompts may have been deliberately left in the code to send investigators down the wrong track.
Put simply, there is a high probability that the “Black Russes” do not physically exist as a group of real people acting on their own initiative and at their own risk. They are not a genuine paramilitary organization, but an element of information warfare — one that can be used to take responsibility for the incident on the Belarusian-Latvian border and for some future provocations against EU countries, which Moscow apparently has no intention of abandoning.
Russian security services are behind this with 99.9% certainty. Even in texts written with AI, their fingerprints are fairly obvious.
Belarusian security services may also be involved. However, the possibility that the Russians simply presented their ally with a fait accompli, carrying out the operation entirely on their own, is also quite plausible. The only thing they might have needed from their ally was fuel to get to the border, since supplies are scarce at home.
Jānis Sārts, director of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, believes that the “Black Russes” group does not exist.
“What is happening at the border is directly connected to both the Belarusian and Russian authorities. What they are doing there now is a pure information operation,” Delfi quotes Sārts as saying.
Claiming responsibility for the provocation in the name of the “Black Russes” is not only a way to deny direct involvement, but also an attempt to prolong the information campaign. The aim is to keep the incident — a de facto incursion into the territory of a NATO member state — in the public eye for as long as possible in EU countries bordering Russia and Belarus. It is about sowing chaos and fear by invoking the image of supposedly “reckless fighters” in balaclavas.
This is another demonstration that Russia has no intention of easing its pressure on the West. It also shows that the Belarusian regime is, at the very least, incapable of doing anything to counter Moscow in this regard — neither preventing it from using Belarusian territory for such operations nor evading involvement. This remains true even if we put on rose-tinted glasses and assume that the regime genuinely would prefer not to take part in any such activities.
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The opinions and assessments expressed by the author may not reflect those of the Reform.news editorial team.