The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Escalation as town in Russia attacked
Russian officials have claimed that Ukrainian military saboteurs were behind an attack across the border that wounded eight people in a small town.
Kyiv officials denied any link with the group and blamed the fighting on a revolt by disgruntled Russians.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, said that a Ukrainian armed forces saboteur group entered the town of Graivoron, about 5km (3 miles) from the border.
The town also came under Ukrainian artillery fire, he said.
Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said eight people were wounded and most residents have left the area but the situation remains “tense”.
Three houses and an administrative building were damaged, he said.
In nearby Zamostye village, a projectile hit a pre-school and caused a fire. One woman was wounded, Mr Gladkov said.
He also reported that Russian anti-aircraft systems had shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle over Belgorod region.
Mr Gladkov said a counterterrorist operation was under way and that authorities were imposing special controls, including personal document checks and stopping the work of companies that use “explosives, radioactive, chemically and biologically hazardous substances”.
An effort to “push them out from the Russian territory and liquidate them” was under way, he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the action as an attempt by Ukraine to divert attention from the city of Bakhmut, which Moscow claimed to have captured after months of fighting but where Kyiv says it is still resisting.
Ukrainian military intelligence officials claimed that Russian citizens seeking regime change in Moscow were behind the Graivoron incursion.
Ukraine intelligence representative Andrii Cherniak said Russian citizens belonging to murky groups calling themselves the Russian Volunteer Corps and the “Freedom of Russia” Legion were behind the assault.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said Ukraine “has nothing to do with it” and suggested an “armed guerrilla movement” was behind the attack.
The Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) claimed in a Telegram post it had crossed the border into Russia once again, after claiming to have breached the border in early March.
The RVC describes itself as “a volunteer formation fighting on Ukraine’s side”.
Little is known about the group or the Freedom of Russia Legion or if they have any ties with the Ukrainian military.
The RVC consists mostly of anti-Putin far-right Russian extremists who have links with Ukrainian far-right groups.
Earlier yesterday, Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant spent hours operating on emergency diesel generators after losing its external power supply for the seventh time since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said.