Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday denounced a “terrorist” attack after Moscow reported an incursion by Ukrainian “saboteurs” in a region of southwestern Russia bordering Ukraine, which Kiev denied.
Russian authorities say two civilians were killed and an 11-year-old child injured after ‘saboteurs’ opened fire on a car in the village of Lyubetchane in the Bryansk region, just on the border with Ukraine .
Russian news agencies, citing unnamed witnesses and officials, further reported that the alleged attackers may have taken hostages. AFP was unable to verify these claims immediately.
The Ukrainian presidency denied these allegations, seeing in them a “deliberate provocation” which, according to it, aims to justify the military offensive that Moscow has been carrying out in Ukraine for more than a year.
Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, several Russian regions have been targeted by bombardments. But the incursions of “saboteurs” are rare.
In a speech broadcast on television, Mr. Putin denounced an attack by “neo-Nazis” and “terrorists” who “opened fire on civilians”. “We will crush them,” he said.
According to the Kremlin, Mr. Putin has canceled a trip planned for Thursday in the Russian Caucasus to follow the evolution of the situation in the Bryansk region.
“We are talking about a terrorist attack. Measures are being taken to destroy terrorists,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
In the evening, the security services (FSB, heir to the KGB) affirmed that the situation was “under control”, “the Ukrainian nationalists” having been pushed back towards Ukraine and targeted there by “a massive strike of artillery”.
According to the FSB, a “large number of explosives” were discovered and clearance operations were underway.
According to regional governor Alexander Bogomaz, “a reconnaissance and sabotage group infiltrated from Ukraine into the village of Lioubetchané”, in the Klimovsk district of the Bryansk region.
“The saboteurs opened fire on a moving vehicle”, killing two residents and injuring a child, he said.
This “story” of saboteurs “is a deliberate, classic provocation. Russia wants to frighten its population to justify” its offensive, reacted on Twitter Mykhaïlo Podoliak, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency.
In two videos posted on social networks, four men in fatigues posing as members of a group of “Russian volunteers” within the Ukrainian army claim infiltration in the Bryansk region.
In these viral videos, the authenticity of which AFP could not verify, the men deny having taken hostages or killed civilians, and criticize Moscow.
Furthermore, Mr. Bogomaz reported a Ukrainian drone attack on the village of Souchany, which caused the burning of a house, as well as mortar fire which damaged two houses in the locality of Lomakovka, also in the region. from Bryansk.
And in the Kursk region, also bordering Ukraine, a person was killed in a Ukrainian bombardment on the village of Tetkino, according to the authorities.
Moscow this week reported an upsurge in Ukrainian drone incursions into Russian territory and into annexed Crimea. An aircraft even crashed, for the first time, in the Moscow region.
In Ukraine, at least three people were killed and six others injured in a strike on an apartment building in Zaporizhia, southern Ukraine, overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, according to local authorities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced an act of a “terrorist state which wants to make each of our days a day of terror”. “We will drive out all the occupants and they will answer for everything,” he added.
No improvement on the diplomatic front either: a meeting of foreign ministers of the G20 countries in New Delhi was marked Thursday by deep divisions. The participants could not agree on a final declaration, as Moscow and Beijing refused to sign it.
Even if the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov had a brief contact, the latter considered that the West had transformed this G20 meeting into a “farce”.
For his part, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday reported discussions with kyiv and other allied countries on “future security commitments for Ukraine”.
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03/02/2023 17:55:28 – Moscow (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
