Russia identified Russian citizen Alexei Liovkin this Tuesday as one of the members of the group that attacked Belgorod on Monday, near the border with Ukraine, and who has been wanted by Moscow authorities since 2018.
Authorities said Liovkin entered the territory of the Belgorod region as a member of the Russian Volunteer Corps sabotage group along with the Legion Freedom guerrillas for Russia, the Spanish agency EFE said.
In 2018, according to the official Russian TASS agency, a Moscow court ordered Leovkin’s arrest in absentia after accusing him of creating an “extremist community”.
Liovkin was also charged with “incitement to hatred or enmity, as well as the debasement of human dignity, namely through the use of the Internet”.
The guerrillas of Legion Freedom for Russia claimed responsibility for the attack in Belgorod on Monday via messages on the social network Telegram.
“Russia will be free,” the group wrote, saying it would “struggle against the dictatorial regime in Russia.”
The Russian Volunteer Corps published videos of Liovkin with the sentence: “The news from the Belgorod camps is not long in coming!”, according to EFE.
Leovkin says he is a member of the group, which describes itself as “a formation of Russian volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine”.
In early March, the Russian Volunteer Corps claimed responsibility for the attack in Bryansk, on the Ukrainian border, which killed two people and injured a minor.
Russia has accused Ukraine of preparing the cross-border attack, which Kiev has denied, saying it was carried out by Russian fighters opposed to President Vladimir Putin.
The Russian Commission of Inquiry has initiated criminal proceedings under six articles of the Penal Code for the attack, including terrorism and murder.
At least ten people were injured in the attack, according to local authorities, while an elderly woman died as she was evacuated from the area.
After the attack, the Belgorod region was placed under the “legal regime of an anti-terrorist operation zone” to allow the Russian armed forces and other security services to operate.
Moscow later announced that it had eliminated the group that took part in the attack in Belgorod, which was the most serious incursion into Russian territory since the beginning of the invasion.
“During the anti-terrorist operation, with the aid of airstrikes and artillery, and with the actions of the border defense units of the Western Military District, the nationalist formations [ucranianas] were stopped and knocked down,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
“The remaining nationalists were pushed into the territory of Ukraine, where the attacks (…) continued until they were completely eliminated,” added the ministry, which claimed to have killed “more than 70 Ukrainian terrorists”.
Russian officials did not report any casualties on their side.
Source: DN
