Russian governor says Ukrainian 'saboteurs' crossed border, Ukraine credits partisans

The Telegram channel Baza, which has links to Russia's security services, published aerial footage apparently showing a Ukrainian armoured vehicle advancing on the Graivoron border checkpoint. Reports dried up late in the day, however, as governor Vyacheslav Gladkov imposed a special regime allowing authorities to clamp down on movement and communications.


Reuters | Updated: 23-05-2023 01:37 IST | Created: 23-05-2023 01:37 IST
Russian governor says Ukrainian 'saboteurs' crossed border, Ukraine credits partisans

The governor of Russia's Belgorod region said on Monday that a Ukrainian "sabotage group" had entered Russian territory in the Graivoron district bordering Ukraine and was being repelled by Russian forces.

The Ukrainian outlet Hromadske cited Ukrainian military intelligence as saying two armed Russian opposition groups, the Liberty of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC), both consisting of Russian citizens, were carrying out the attack. The Telegram channel Baza, which has links to Russia's security services, published aerial footage apparently showing a Ukrainian armoured vehicle advancing on the Graivoron border checkpoint.

Reports dried up late in the day, however, as governor Vyacheslav Gladkov imposed a special regime allowing authorities to clamp down on movement and communications. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin had been informed, and that work was under way to drive out the "saboteurs", the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported.

Gladkov said on Telegram that the Russian army, border guards, presidential guard and the FSB security service were involved in the operation. He said at least eight people had been wounded and three houses and an administrative building damaged. Later, in a briefing streamed on social media, he said a large part of the local population had left, either in buses or their own vehicles, and that he had imposed a "counter-terrorist operation" regime.

EXPANDED POWERS This gives the authorities broad powers to limit activities and movement and, notably, to suspend or restrict communication services including mobile networks and the internet.

The Russia Volunteer Corps published video footage late on Monday which showed what it said was a fighter inspecting a captured armoured vehicle. Another video showed what it said were fighters operating an armoured vehicle on a country road. Other videos posted on Russian and Ukrainian social media channels showed pictures and video of what were described as captured Russian servicemen and their identity documents.

In one video, a blindfolded servicemen is shown saying: "I was captured well." Reuters was not able to independently verify the situation.

Baza said there were indications of fighting in three settlements along the main road leading into Russia. The "Open Belgorod" Telegram channel said power and water had been cut off to several villages. A group calling itself the Liberty of Russia Legion - a Ukraine-based Russian militia led by Russian opposition figure Ilya Ponomarev that says it is working inside Russia for Putin's overthrow - said on Twitter it had "completely liberated" the border town of Kozinka. It said forward units had reached the district centre of Graivoron, further east.

"Moving on. Russia will be free!" it wrote. The group also released a video showing five heavily armed fighters.

"We are Russians, like you. We are people like you. We want our children to grow up in peace," one said, facing the camera. "It is time to put an end to the dictatorship of the Kremlin." Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted: "Ukraine is watching the events in the Belgorod region of Russia with interest and studying the situation, but has nothing to do with it.

"As you know, tanks are sold at any Russian military store, and underground guerrilla groups are composed of Russian citizens." Hromadske quoted Ukrainian military intelligence spokesperson Andriy Yusov as saying the operation would create a "security zone" to protect Ukrainians from attacks by Russia.

The Kremlin said the incursion aimed to distract attention from the eastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, which Russian forces claim to have captured in its entirety after more than nine months of attritional fighting. "We understand perfectly well the goal of such a diversion - to divert attention from the Bakhmut direction and minimise the political effect of Bakhmut's loss for the Ukrainian side," Peskov was quoted as saying.

Early in March, the FSB reported an incursion from Ukraine into Russia's Bryansk region. In videos circulating online at the time, armed men saying they belonged to the RVC said they had crossed the border to fight what they called "the bloody Putinite and Kremlin regime".

The RVC was founded last August by Denis Kapustin, a Ukraine-based Russian nationalist, and announced on May 17 on its Telegram channel that it was joining forces with the Liberty of Russia Legion, which also calls itself the Freedom of Russia Legion in English. The RVC has fought alongside Ukrainian forces and says it has made at least three incursions into Bryansk region since March.

(additional reporting by Peter Graff, Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska, Ron Popeski; Writing by Kevin Liffey; editing by Frank Jack Daniel, Nick Macfie and Grant McCool)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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