Rare fighting inside Russia stretches into its second day
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — Fighting raged for a second day Tuesday in the Belgorod region of southern Russia as a Ukrainian-aligned paramilitary group claimed to seize villages and rebuff counterattacks, in the most dramatic instance to date of bringing the war into Russian territory.
The Free Russia Legion, a group of Russian volunteers who have taken up arms to fight for Ukraine, claimed responsibility for the incursion, while Ukraine publicly denied direct involvement, turning the tables on a Russian strategy that preceded the invasion last year of sending unacknowledged weaponry and soldiers into Ukraine.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Tuesday afternoon that it had pushed the militants back across the border, adding that scores of “saboteurs” had been killed. That claim could not be verified, and people who said they represented the fighters maintained the attacks were continuing and had gained new ground. Those statements also could not be verified.
The incursion could compel Russia to divert soldiers from a long and unevenly defended front in southeastern Ukraine before a long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive, military analysts said. It seemed intended as well to unnerve and embarrass the Russian leadership by showing a weakness in border defenses.
Against a bucolic background of green farm fields, smoke billowed from explosions during the fighting, according to drone video verified as authentic by the New York Times.
Representative of the Free Russia Legion said Tuesday that Ukrainian officers were aware of the operation but had not directed it. The tanks deployed in the attack against Russia, they said, had been captured from Russia’s army in Ukraine. Russia claimed it had captured a U.S.-made armored vehicle designed to withstand land mines that had been used in the attack.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that even if the attackers were ethnic Russians, they are “Ukrainian militants” whose violence justifies Moscow’s broader war against its neighbor.
“This once again confirms that Ukrainian militants are continuing their activities against our country,” Peskov told reporters.
A deputy Ukrainian defense minister, Hanna Maliar, described the attackers as “Russian patriots” who “rebelled against the Putin” government.
“These are internal Russian trends dictated by the desire of citizens to change the political system of the country and end the bloody war that the Kremlin has unleashed,” Maliar said Tuesday on Ukrainian television.
The governor of Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said the region had been struck 15 times with artillery Tuesday morning. He later said one civilian had been killed.