A Russian nationalist militia fighting alongside Ukrainian forces claimed to have killed two Russian intelligence agents during a raid on Russian territory on Tuesday.
The Russian Volunteer Corps, which has carried out armed raids in the Russian Federation, said the action took place in the Bryansk region, which borders northern Ukraine.
Bryansk Governor Alexandr Bogomaz said on Monday evening that the Russian army and Federal Security Service (FSB) troops had thwarted a sabotage attempt by Ukrainian secret services on Russian territory.
The governor’s version was denied by the militia in a statement posted on social networks, quoted by the Spanish agency EFE, in which he, ironically, saluted the FSB “for yet another successful operation”.
The group further claimed that the two allegedly killed Russian agents were shot by the militia itself and not by the Ukrainian sabotage group mentioned by the governor of Bryansk.
In recent months, Russian authorities have denounced several sabotage attempts, which they attribute to Ukrainian forces, in the Russian regions bordering Ukraine, in Belgorod and Bryansk, in which several civilians were killed.
The Russian Volunteer Corps and the Legion of Freedom for Russia, another militia of Russian exiles, carried out the most notorious action on March 22 and 23, when they managed to control several locations in Belgorod for hours.
Although Kiev claims to have nothing to do with these actions, both formations use equipment from the Ukrainian army, in some cases Western-made.
According to EFE, the two militias are also authorized to carry out these attacks from Ukrainian territory.
Information released by Ukraine and Russia about the course of the war that Moscow began on February 24, 2022 cannot be immediately verified by independent sources.
Ukraine has received weapons from Western allies, which have also imposed sanctions on Moscow in an effort to reduce its ability to fund the war effort.
The official number of civilian and military casualties from the conflict is unknown, but several sources, including the UN, admit it will be high.
Source: DN
