The words are strong. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday (March 2) denounced a “terrorist” attack after Moscow reported an incursion by Ukrainian “saboteurs” into a region in southwestern Russia bordering Ukraine, which Kyiv denied. According to Russian authorities, a civilian was killed and an 11-year-old child injured after “saboteurs” opened fire on a car in the village of Lyubetchané in the Bryansk region, located just on the border with Ukraine .
The Russian security services (FSB) said Thursday evening that they had repelled “Ukrainian nationalists” who, according to Moscow, had infiltrated the Russian region of Bryansk, bordering Ukraine, and who allegedly opened fire on civilians.
“As a result of the measures taken, the incursion of Ukrainian nationalists has been halted,” the FSB said in a statement, quoted by Russian news agencies. “The enemy was pushed back into Ukrainian territory and targeted there by a massive artillery strike,” the statement said. Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, several Russian regions have been targeted by bombardments. But incursions by “saboteurs” are rare.
In a speech broadcast on television, Vladimir Putin denounced an attack by “neo-Nazis” and “terrorists” who “opened fire on civilians”. “We will crush them,” he said. According to the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin has canceled a trip planned for Thursday in the Russian Caucasus to follow the evolution of the situation in the Briansk region.
“We are talking about a terrorist attack. Steps are being taken to destroy terrorists,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. In the early evening, the security services (FSB, heir to the KGB) claimed that the situation was “under control”. According to them, a “large number of explosives” were discovered and clearance operations were underway.
According to the regional governor, Alexander Bogomaz, “a reconnaissance and sabotage group infiltrated from Ukraine into the village of Lyubetchane”, in the Klimovsk district of the Bryansk region. “The saboteurs opened fire on a moving vehicle,” killing a resident and injuring a child, he said.
This “saboteur story” “is a deliberate, classic provocation. Russia wants to scare its population to justify “its offensive, reacted on Twitter Mykhailo Podoliak, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency. In two videos posted on social media, four men in fatigues posing as members of a group of “Russian volunteers” within the Ukrainian army claim infiltration in the Bryansk region.
The story about ????sabotage group in RF is a classic deliberate provocation. RF wants to scare its people to justify the attack on another country
In these viral videos, the authenticity of which Agence France-Presse could not verify, the men deny having taken hostages or killed civilians, and criticize Moscow.
In addition, Alexander Bogomaz reported on 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 of 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 the act of a “terrorist state that wants to make every day of ours a day of terror”. “We will drive out all occupiers and they will answer for everything,” he added.
No improvement on the diplomatic front either: A meeting of G20 foreign ministers in New Delhi was marked by deep divisions on Thursday. The participants could not agree on a final declaration, as Moscow and Beijing refused to sign it.
Although the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov had a brief contact, the latter felt that the West had turned 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”.
Consult our file: War in Ukraine
