Published: Less than 10 min ago
Gunmen shot civilians and took hostages in a Russian village this morning.
– Ukrainian terrorists, says Putin and convenes his security council.
– Deliberate Russian provocation to frighten the people, replies Ukraine.
The data from Russia was dramatic.
A group of saboteurs allegedly crossed the border from Ukraine and created chaos and destruction in the village of Lyubechanye on Thursday morning.
The group allegedly fired at a moving car. During the shooting, two civilians were killed and a ten-year-old boy was injured.
In connection with the attack, Russian residents are also said to have been taken hostage.
Canceled trip
All according to the governor of the Bryansk region Alexander Bogomaz and the Russian intelligence service FSB.
“The situation is now under control. When investigating the area, explosive devices were found. Mine clearance is in progress,” the FSB wrote in a statement during the morning.
According to the Kremlin, President Putin has summoned his Security Council for a meeting on Friday. He is in contact with the Ministry of Defence, the Intelligence Service and the National Guard.
It is also stated that Putin canceled a trip to southern Russia where he was to participate in the inauguration of the “Year of the Teacher”.
– Our soldiers and police fought back against neo-Nazis and terrorists who today carried out another terrorist attack when they crossed the border and shot at civilians, says Putin.
Photo: Twitter”Going to crush them”
The president says that the people “who run the Ukrainian neo-Nazis” are unlikely to care about the attack on Russian civilians, according to the Russian news agency Tass.
But Putin says about the situation that has arisen:
– They will not succeed. We will crush them.
According to Ukraine, it is a so-called “false flag” operation, where Russia carried out an attack on its own population.
Ukraine already warned on February 23 that such a plan was being planned in Russia.
“Probably to be able to accuse Ukraine of violating Russia’s territorial integrity”, it was said at the time.
“Deliberate provocation”
“The story of a group of saboteurs in Russia is a classic deliberate provocation. Russia wants to scare the population to justify its attack on another country and the growing poverty after a year of war,” Mykhaylo Podolyak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Twitter.
In addition to both countries blaming each other for the attack, an opposition force, the Russian Volunteer Group, also claimed responsibility in a post on Telegram writes NBC News.
The group is said to have been formed by Russian volunteers from the right wing fighting on the side of Ukraine.
However, it is unclear how much cooperation the group has with the Ukrainian military, writes NBC.
“The Russian volunteer corps went to Bryansk to show their comrades that there is hope, that free Russian citizens with weapons in hand can fight against the regime,” writes the group on Telegram.
However, they say in a video that they are not “fighting civilians and unarmed”.
Can affect the war
However, it is not clear what they wanted to achieve with their alleged attack.
Regardless of who or who was behind the chaos in the village, many now fear that Putin will take the incident as a pretext to further escalate the war.
Dimitrij Peskov, spokesman in the Kremlin, was asked by Russian journalists on Thursday whether the “special military operation” will change due to the “terrorist attack”.
Peskov did not want to answer that.
But he said that “the Russian Federation will continue the international community on Ukrainian terrorist attacks”.
– We are talking about a terrorist attack. Actions are now being taken to crush these terrorists.