Russia claims Ukraine attacked village; Kyiv denies it was responsible for incursion

Russian officials claimed that Ukrainian military saboteurs launched an attack across the border Monday, wounding three people in a small town. Kyiv officials denied any link with the group and blamed the fighting on a revolt by disgruntled Russians against the Kremlin.

Neither version of events could be independently verified.

The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, said a Ukrainian Armed Forces saboteur group entered the town of Graivoron, about 3 miles from the border. The town also came under Ukrainian artillery fire, he said.

Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said three people were wounded in the assault. Three houses and an administrative building were damaged, he said.

In nearby Zamostye village, a projectile hit a kindergarten and caused a fire. Gladkov also reported that Russian anti-aircraft systems shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle over Belgorod region.

Gladkov said a counterterrorist operation was underway 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.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the action as an attempt by Ukraine to divert attention from the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Moscow claimed to have captured but where Kyiv says it is still fighting.

But Ukrainian military intelligence officials didn’t confirm that Kyiv had deployed saboteurs. Instead, they 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.

Earlier Monday, Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest atomic power station, spent hours operating on emergency diesel generators Monday after losing its external power supply for the seventh time since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said.

ANDRIY ANDRIYENKO/ASSOCIATED PRESS A man hauls a bicycle with humanitarian aid Monday in front of a house destroyed by Russian shelling in Orihiv, Ukraine. Meanwhile, the eastern city of Bakhmut’s status remained unclear. Moscow claimed to have captured it, but Kyiv says it is still fighting.