Pro-Ukraine Russian militias attack two border regions
Pro-Ukrainian militias staged a brazen cross-border raid on Tuesday, claiming to take control of a Russian village, as Kyiv launched one of its largest drone attacks since the start of the war.
Groups of pro-Kyiv volunteer fighters, made up of Russians who oppose the Kremlin, said that they had broken into the Kursk and Belgorod regions, while Moscow said it had fired rockets and artillery to foil the attempted incursion.
“The village of Tyotkino, Kursk region is completely under the control of Russian liberation forces,” the Freedom of Russia legion, a militia that claims to be made up of Russian citizens fighting on behalf of Ukraine, said in a post on Telegram. It published a video purporting to show a handful of Russian troops fleeing across a snowy field. Moscow denied that the fighters had made ground, saying its forces had thwarted multiple attacks.
“At about 3:00 am (0000 GMT), Ukrainian terrorist groups, after intensive shelling of civilian sites, tried to invade Russian territory in three directions,” Russia’s defense ministry said. “All the Ukrainian attacks were repelled. The enemy was hit by aircraft, rockets and artillery,” it added.
Another attack at 8:00 am (0500 GMT) at Tyotkino was also foiled, it added. Russia’s defense ministry said it halted the last attack at 8:25 am (0525 GMT), but a spokesperson for the Freedom of Russia region told AFP fighting was ongoing.
‘Not in control’
Moscow also reported a wave of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian border regions overnight and throughout Tuesday. In one statement it said it had shot down four Ukrainian drones over the Kursk region in the space of an hour.
Kursk Governor Roman Starovoyt said there had been a shoot-out in his region. The neighboring Belgorod region was also hit in a series of drone attacks on Tuesday — including a strike on Belgorod city hall, the regional governor said.
Officials in Kursk city said they were closing schools until the end of the week amid the spike in attacks. Russia’s FSB security service said that since Sunday it had repelled a number of attempted cross-border attacks in the Belgorod and Kursk regions.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence, Andriy Yusov, said the fighters were not acting under orders from Kyiv. But he said the attacks showed “the Kremlin is once again not in control of the situation in Russia.”
Ukraine-based militias — made up of Russian citizens who oppose Moscow’s invasion and have taken up arms for Kyiv — have claimed to be behind previous incursions into Russian territory.
The Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion said they took temporary control of several settlements in the Belgorod region in May and June 2023 in a string of raids after breaking through a border checkpoint.