Ukraine 'sabotage group' battle with Putin's forces INSIDE Russia

Ukraine soldiers battle with Putin’s forces INSIDE Russia: Sabotage group opens fire in border village as Zelensky takes fight to the enemy

Russian forces are fighting to ‘eliminate’ a Ukrainian sabotage group in the Bryansk region which borders Ukraine after the group took hostages in a shop, Russian news agencies reported on Thursday.

‘A group of Ukrainian saboteurs infiltrated two villages, taking local residents hostage in one of them. Soldiers from Rosgvardia clashed with the militants,’ TASS quoted an unnamed source in Russia’s security services as saying.

Quoting local emergency services, the RIA news agency said several people had been taken hostage in a store in the village of Lubechanye, less than one mile from Russia’s border with Ukraine.

‘A reconnaissance and sabotage group penetrated from Ukraine to the Klimovsky district in the village of Lyubechane… The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are taking all the necessary measures to eliminate the sabotage group,’ the Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz said in a statement online. 

Russia’s border regions have been increasingly volatile since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine a year ago in what it called its ‘special military operation’ with reports of shelling and sporadic sabotage. 

The FSB security service said in a statement to Russian news agencies on Thursday that its own forces and the army were trying to liquidate what it described as ‘an armed group of Ukrainian nationalists’ who had crossed the border. 

Reuters news agency said it was unable to immediately verify the reports. Ukraine and its western allies have previously raised concerns over possible Russian ‘false-flag’ attacks to give cause for further escalation.

There was no immediate proof of the Ukrainian incursion outside of Russian reports.

Earlier, Bogomaz had said that a Ukrainian ‘sabotage group’ had shot and killed one person after crossing into Russia from Ukraine.

‘Today, a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group penetrated the Klimovsky district in the village of Lubechanye. Saboteurs fired on a moving car,’ he said.

‘As a result of the attack, one resident was killed and a ten-year-old child was wounded,’ Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz wrote on his Telegram channel.

He said Ukrainian armed forces had also launched a drone attack and fired artillery shells at other areas near the border.

The reported attack comes after several drones, understood to be Ukrainian-operated, made attacks or attempted attacks in western Russian regions.

Ukrainian officials did not immediately take responsibility for the drone attacks, but they similarly have avoided directly acknowledging responsibility for past strikes and sabotage while emphasising Ukraine’s right to hit any target in Russia.

Meanwhile, British military intelligence said on Wednesday that Russia was launching drone attacks against Ukraine from the Bryansk region, which lies to the north of Ukraine and is closer to the capital Kyiv than other launch sites.

Russia has accused Ukrainian saboteurs of infiltrating Bryansk before.

In December, the FSB security service said a four-person Ukrainian ‘sabotage group’ had been ‘liquidated’ while trying to enter Bryansk. 

Putin told the FSB this week that it needed to step up its guard against espionage and what he called terrorist threats emanating from Ukraine and the West.

‘Your task is to put a barrier in the way of sabotage groups, to stop attempts to illegally transport weapons and ammunition into Russia,’ he said in a speech on Tuesday.

This is a breaking news story. More to follow… 

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