Russia repels pro-Ukraine militia attacks

ARMED fighters purporting to be Russian citizens who oppose the Kremlin said they carried out cross-border incursions into western Russia from Ukraine using tanks yesterday, but Moscow said it had repelled the attacks.

Ukraine said the groups were acting independently. But the border raids, carried out days before a presidential election in Russia and just over two years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, were widely seen as backed by Kyiv. “This is only the first day. But the elections, as we know, are only at the end of the week... All the most interesting things are yet to come,” said Alexei Baranovsky, a spokesperson for the Freedom of Russia Legion.

The group said it had taken control of Tyotkino, a village on the edge of Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine, and aired aerial footage, apparently shot by a drone, showing several soldiers running across a field.

Baranovsky said the bulk of the forces used in the operation were in Kursk. He said the attack could force Russia to pull in reserves to defend the area, relieving Russian offensive pressure on Ukrainian troops in eastern Ukraine.

The group said it had destroyed a Russian armoured personnel carrier and that the border incursions had been undertaken alongside two other Ukraine-based groups – the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Siberian Battalion. The local governor said one person had been wounded by Ukrainian shelling in Tyotkino.

The Russian defence ministry said it had beaten back the attackers. It said Ukrainian “terrorist formations” backed by tanks and armoured combat vehicles tried to invade in three separate directions in Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders the Kursk region and Ukraine. It said four more attacks were repulsed around five hours later in the Kursk region.

The Belgorod and Kursk regions were also attacked by Ukrainian drones and a drone crashed into the Belgorod city administration building, injuring two people, the regional governor said.

Ukraine’s military said the groups were acting independently of Ukraine, but Kyiv has not made clear how such groups have received advanced weapons and armoured vehicles.