Russia blames Ukrainian militants for attacks in Belgorod region: live updates

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KRAMATORSK, Ukraine Fighting raged in Russia’s southern Belgorod region on Tuesday as a Ukrainian-aligned paramilitary group claimed to seize villages and repel counterattacks, in the case the most dramatic yet to bring the war to Russian territory.

The Free Russian Legion, a group of Russian volunteers who took up arms to fight for Ukraine, claimed responsibility for the incursion, while Kyiv publicly denied any direct involvement, reversing the Russian strategy that preceded the invasion last year by sending in unrecognized weapons. and soldiers in Ukraine.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday afternoon that it had pushed the militants back across the border, adding that dozens of saboteurs had been killed. This claim could not be verified and people who said they represented the combatants maintained that the attacks were continuing and had gained ground. These statements could not be verified either.

The incursion could force Russia to divert troops from a long and unevenly defended front in southeastern Ukraine ahead of a long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive, military analysts said. It also seemed intended to anger and embarrass Russian leaders by showing weakness in border defenses.

Against a bucolic backdrop of verdant farm fields, smoke billowed from explosions during the fighting, according to drone video verified as authentic by The New York Times.

The representative of the Free Russian Legion said on Tuesday that Ukrainian officers knew about the operation but did not lead it. The tanks deployed in the attack on Russia, they said, had been captured from the Russian army in Ukraine. Russia claimed it captured an American-made armored vehicle designed to resist landmines that were used in the attack.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov said that while the attackers were ethnic Russians, they are Ukrainian militants whose violence justifies a broader war by Moscow against its neighbor.

This once again confirms that Ukrainian militants are continuing their activities against our country, Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.

A Ukrainian deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, described the attackers as Russian patriots who rebelled against the Putin government.

These are internal Russian trends driven by the will of citizens to change the country’s political system and end the bloody war the Kremlin has unleashed, Maliar told Ukrainian television on Tuesday.

Belgorod Region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the region was hit 15 times by artillery on Tuesday morning. He later said a civilian had been killed.

Soldiers and armored vehicles, some with Ukrainian markings, were seen in videos posted online from Belgorod on Monday.

Free Russian Legion soldiers train in the kyiv region in February.Credit…Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

In another northern Russian border region, Bryansk, a military factory warehouse caught fire near the town of Dyatkovo on Tuesday, local media reported. Details were not immediately available.

The Free Russian Legion operates under the umbrella of the Ukrainian International Legion, a combat force overseen by Ukrainian officers.

Ukrainian commanders of the International Legion knew about the operation but did not lead it, Ilya Ponomarev, an exiled Russian politician who describes himself as the political representative of the Free Russia Legion, said on Tuesday.

Mr Ponomarev said soldiers from the Free Russian Legions had captured a dozen Russian border guards and were inside Russia, digging trenches and preparing to defend the land they had liberated. His claims could not be independently verified.

Mr Ponomarev described the incursion as an attempt to liberate a certain part of Russian territory, to force the Russian military to divert troops fighting in Ukraine and to destabilize the government of President Vladimir V. Putin.

We now think they need to reconsider and deploy more forces all along the Ukrainian border, Ponomarev said.

A spokesman for the political wing of the Free Russian Legion, Aleksey Baranovsky, said the group captured two villages on Tuesday and held a total of around eight square miles of Russian territory.

A senior Ukrainian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive mission, said the Free Russia Legion had suffered losses but not enough to affect the combat readiness of the fighters.

Andrew E. Kramer and Valerie Hopkins

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