News of the cross-border attack surfaced on Monday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The Freedom of Russia Legion, which calls itself an anti-Kremlin militia seeking to liberate Russia from Vladimir Putin, said it had crossed the border and overrun the settlement of Kozinka, while sending units into the nearby town of Grayvoron, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper reported.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military intelligence said that two armed Russian opposition groups, the Liberty of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps, both consisting of Russian citizens, were responsible for the attack, the Reuters news agency reported.
The Russian regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on Monday that at least eight people had been wounded, several buildings damaged and many residents had left, according to Reuters.
Gladkov stated that two buildings were attacked by drones overnight and people could not return to their homes.
The governor also said he had restricted movements and communications, according to Reuters.
Footage of the raid, purportedly from a border checkpoint in Grayvoron, showed casualties including a Russian officer lying face down in a pool of blood next to Russian passports and other documents strewn on the floor, The Guardian reported.
The video also showed armoured vehicles appearing to overrun the post, according to the UK newspaper.
Footage published by the Russia Volunteer Corps late on Monday showed what it said was a fighter inspecting a captured armoured vehicle.
Another video showed what it said were fighters operating an armoured vehicle on a country road, Reuters reported.
Russian authorities ‘cleaning territory’ after Belgorod attacks: governor
On Tuesday morning, Gladkov urged Grayvoron residents not to return to their homes.
“It is not worth it yet,” he said, as quoted by The Guardian.
Gladkov added: “The cleaning of the territory by the Ministry of Defence together with law enforcement agencies continues. We will immediately notify residents, and I will publish on my social networks, when it is safe [to return].”
The attack on Russia’s Belgorod region appears to have been one of the biggest cross-border incursions from Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began 15 months ago, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, on Monday night, there were bomb and drone attacks on the facilities of Russia's FSB security service and the interior ministry in the Belgorod region, the PAP news agency reported.
Ukraine had 'nothing to do’ with attacks but 'studying the situation': presidential aide
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter that Ukraine’s authorities were “studying the situation” in Russia’s Belgorod region, but had “nothing to do with it.”
'Russia is a paper tiger’
Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine’s defence minister, told Times Radio in the UK on Tuesday morning: “It is quite surprising to us that it has taken so long for Russian insurgents and Russian partisans to become more active in terms of trying to get rid of the terrorist regime which is inflicting death and destruction on Ukraine, which is isolating Russia internationally. Over 200,000 Russian soldiers have been killed. Apparently the breaking point has been reached.”
He also told listeners, as quoted by The Guardian: “Why is it happening now? Because Ukrainian armed forces have exposed that Russia is a paper tiger. We have exposed that Russia can and should be beaten on the battlefield. This is what we are doing in Ukraine.”
Sak added: “We are confident that this has encouraged Russian partisans and those Russian citizens who hope to change something, and don’t want to be part of this crime of aggression.”
Russia will use Belgorod attacks to portray itself as ‘victim in the war’: UK
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday that "Russian security forces highly likely clashed with partisans" between May 19 and 22 "in at least three locations within Russia’s Belgorod Oblast, near the Ukrainian border.”
It added that “Russian anti-regime groups” claimed responsibility for the attacks, the most serious of which took place near the town of Grayvoron.
The UK Ministry of Defence reported that “as well as small-arms fire fights, there was an uptick in drone or indirect fire attacks near the incidents.”
The British experts assessed: “Russia is facing an increasingly serious multi-domain security threat in its border regions, with losses of combat aircraft, improvised explosive device attacks on rail lines, and now direct partisan action.”
The UK Ministry of Defence added: “Russia will almost certainly use these incidents to support the official narrative that it is the victim in the war.”
Russian commentators ‘taken by surprise’: ISW
Meanwhile, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US think tank, has analysed the response to the attacks in Belgorod among Russian war bloggers.
“While the majority of milbloggers responded with relatively varied concern, anxiety, and anger, the information space did not coalesce around one coherent response, which indicates first and foremost that the attack took Russian commentators by surprise," the ISW wrote in its latest report on the war in Ukraine on Monday night.
Tuesday is day 454 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, Reuters, The Guardian, ISW