Armed groups enter Russian territory, Ukraine denies involvement

Nepal Views

Kathmandu: An armed group has crossed from Ukraine into Russia’s Belgorod region and clashes there have injured a number of people, Russian authorities say.

Local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Russian forces were searching for ‘saboteurs’ who, he said, had attacked Grayvoronsky district by the border. Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said the Russian president had been informed.

Mr Gladkov said eight people had been hurt, including two people admitted to hospital after a village was shelled and three people who were hit by shrapnel in the town of Grayvoron.

Fighting had also damaged three houses and a local administrative building, and the situation remains ‘extremely tense’, he said. The governor said a ‘counter-terrorist operation’ had been launched in the region, giving special powers to the authorities including on identity checks and communications surveillance.

Ukraine denies responsibility and says Russian citizens from two paramilitary groups were behind the incursion.

Ukrainian news broadcaster Hromadske, citing Ukrainian military intelligence sources, said two armed Russian opposition groups, the Liberty of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC), consisting of Russian citizens, were responsible for the attack on the Belgorod region.

Little is known about the groups or their ties with the Ukrainian military. The RVC was founded last August and reportedly consists mostly of anti-Putin far-right Russian fighters who have links with Ukrainian far-right groups.

Ukraine intelligence representative Andrii Cherniak also said that Russian citizens were behind the cross-border assault. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said on Twitter that Ukraine had ‘nothing to do with it’ and suggested that an ‘armed guerrilla movement’ had emerged to oppose ‘a totalitarian country’.