The Ministry of Defense of Russia said on Tuesday (23) that the alleged Ukrainian forces responsible for attacks on the border between the two countries have already been expelled from Russian territory. According to the folder, more than 70 attackers were killed.
The region, however, had dawned in its second day of fighting —the biggest attack on Moscow since the beginning of the war in February last year. Russian authorities evacuated civilians from nine locations, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said, citing bombing raids on villages.
In yet another conflict version war, the Ukraine publicly denies participation in the border attack, although some of his statements appear ironically to imitate Russian statements about participation in Ukrainian separatist movements.
Kiev “has nothing to do with this,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podoliak said on social media. “As you know, tanks are sold in any Russian military store and clandestine guerrilla groups are made up of Russian citizens.” The incursion, which began on Monday (22), left at least eight injured and led Russia to enact an “anti-terrorist” regime.
The Kremlin expressed “deep concern” over the group’s incursion and called for more efforts to prevent such incidents. “Once again, Ukrainian fighters are continuing their activities against our country,” said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “This requires more efforts on our part. The special military operation [na Ucrânia] keep going so it doesn’t happen again.”
The attack comes three days after the alleged capture of the city of Bakhmut by Russia – a feat also denied by Kiev, which faced the bloodiest land battle in Europe since World War II there.
Over the weekend, US President Joe Biden voiced support for a plan to create an international effort to train Ukrainian pilots in advanced fighter jets, including F-16 jets — the fighter aircraft that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has claims of its western allies to fight Russia.
One of the US concerns is that the fighter jets could be used to hit targets in Russian territories and thus escalate the conflict. On Tuesday, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg expressed the alliance’s concern in the matter by stating that “training Ukrainian pilots in US-built F-16 fighter jets does not make NATO a party to the conflict”.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday that the more destructive weapons Ukraine receives from its Western allies, the greater the risk of “nuclear apocalypse”, state news agency RIA reported. The now vice-president of Russia’s Security Council is said to have further claimed that Kiev’s denial of involvement in an armed incursion into the Russian border region was a lie.
