(Kyiv) The Russian region of Belgorod is the target on Monday of an incursion by armed fighters from Ukraine, which forced Russia to decree an “anti-terrorist” regime and to evacuate civilians in an attempt to repel this new attack on its territory. floor.
If other attacks have taken place in recent weeks in this border region, it is the first to have taken on such a scale, with several villages hit by shells. This offensive also illustrates the permeability of Russian defences.
In response, the FSB (Russian security services) introduced in the afternoon the “legal regime of counter-terrorist operation zone” in the region, giving increased powers to the authorities to carry out armed operations, control civilians or still evacuate people. This is a first since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, indicated that the fighting had left eight people injured, and that civilians were leaving the area concerned.
“The situation remains extremely tense,” he said on Telegram, indicating that the authorities were going house to house to warn the population. “A large part of the population has left the territory concerned, we are helping with our means of transport those who do not have one,” he added.
The localities of Zamostié and Glotovo were attacked by fighters as well as the district capital, Gaïvoron, according to the same source.
“The Russian armed forces, alongside border guards, the National Guard and security services are taking all necessary measures to eliminate the enemy,” he said.
Russian “Liberty Legion”
On Monday afternoon, the Russian authorities had reported the “entry of a sabotage and reconnaissance group of the Ukrainian army into the district of Graivoron”.
Ukraine has denied, as it always does, any involvement in actions on Russian territory.
“Ukraine follows with interest the events in the Belgorod region […]but it has nothing to do with that”, assured Mykhaïlo Podoliak, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency.
As a vast Ukrainian counter-offensive looms, Russian territory has in recent months and weeks been the target of an increasing number of sabotages, bombings and drone attacks attributed to Kyiv, but never claimed by the Ukraine who prefers to evoke the track of Russian partisans.
The operation was claimed on a Telegram channel which presents itself as belonging to the “Freedom Legion for Russia”, a group of Russians fighting on the Ukrainian side, which had already claimed to be at the origin of other attacks in the same region. .
“The time has come to put an end to the Kremlin dictatorship”, declared in a video broadcast by this channel a man who had been presented to AFP in December as “Caesar”, spokesman for the group, identified by media as an ex-Russian neo-Nazi who went to the Ukrainian side in 2014.
According to the channel, the group “completely liberated” the village of Kozinka and attacked a second locality, the capital of Gaïvoron. These claims were not independently verifiable.
The fighting continues
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been briefed, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, who felt it was an attempt by Kyiv to “distract attention” from Bakhmut’s downfall.
Russian forces this weekend claimed the capture of this devastated city in eastern Ukraine, the scene of the longest and deadliest battle of the conflict.
PHOTO ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Russian national newspapers published news about the takeover of the city of Bakhmout on May 22.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has denied the loss of Bakhmout and his army says it still holds a small area, while continuing a breakthrough on the Russian flanks north and south of the city.
“The fighting continues,” said Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar, particularly for “the dominant heights to the north and south” where the Ukrainian army claimed to have taken back ground from the Russians.
The boss of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigojine, for his part affirmed that his men, in the front line, would withdraw by 1er June and transfer their positions to Russian regular troops.
On the Ukrainian side, the authorities indicated that they had countered during the night strikes of an unprecedented scale on the city of Dnipro, in the center-east of the country, with missiles and explosive drones.
Seven people were injured in Dnipro and seven others in its region during this attack carried out using “missiles of different types” and Iranian-made Shahed drones, according to the Ukrainian army.
In the Kherson region (south), a 45-year-old man was killed by shrapnel during a strike, and Russian strikes in the Donetsk region (east) left two dead, according to the Ukrainian authorities .