Moscow claimed that a group of Ukrainian saboteurs crossed into Russia and opened fire on civilians on Thursday, an allegation denied by Kyiv as a “deliberate provocation.”
Shortly after Russia reported the alleged incursion, President Vladimir Putin called the attackers “neo-Nazis and terrorists … who today committed another terrorist attack, penetrated the border area and opened fire on civilians.”
Bryansk region Governor Alexander Bogomaz said a sabotage and reconnaissance group from Ukraine entered the village of Lyubechanye and fired at a moving car, killing one person and injuring a 10-year-old child who was hospitalized.
“In the Bryansk region’s border district of Klimovsky, the FSB of Russia and additional forces of the Russian Defense Ministry are taking measures to destroy armed Ukrainian nationalists who violated the state border,” Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said.
Civilian casualties were reported in the clashes that ensued, the state-run TASS news agency reported, citing law enforcement agencies.
Hours later, the FSB released a new statement saying that the situation “is under the control of law enforcement agencies. An inspection of the area is being carried out, and a large number of explosive devices of various types are being demined.”
Putin had been receiving “constant” updates on the situation, the Kremlin said.
“Our soldiers and officers… protect against neo-Nazis and terrorists… those who today committed another terrorist attack, penetrated the border area and opened fire on civilians,” Putin said via video link at a televised education meeting in southern Russia.
“The story about [a] sabotage group in Russia is a classic deliberate provocation. Russia wants to scare its people to justify the attack on another country and the growing poverty after the year of war,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said on Twitter.
Russia’s border regions have regularly reported cross-border aerial strikes since Moscow invaded Ukraine just over one year ago.
But Thursday’s incident marks the first reported instance of on-the-ground fighting inside Russian territory.
