Clashes continue in Russia between Moscow forces and anti-Putin militias.

There is still an ongoing conflict on Russian soil between Vladimir Putin’s forces and rebel Russian militias siding with Ukraine. The governor of the Belgorod region, which has recently been shaken by the onslaught of armed groups from Ukraine, said there were “several” drone strikes tonight. “The night was not exactly peaceful. There were a lot of drone attacks. Air defense took care of most of them,” Vyacheslav Gladkov told Telegram.

The governor said that the attacks damaged vehicles, houses and public buildings in the area, but there were no casualties. According to Vyacheslav Gladkov, a gas pipeline was hit in the Gravoron region. “There’s a small fire going on,” he said, adding that authorities are at the scene and are investigating the cause. He said that 9 civilians injured in the attack are still in the hospital and 3 are in intensive care. More than 550 civilians who fled the Gravoron area due to the conflict are currently in temporary shelters. “As soon as the security forces finish clearing the area and give their approval, I hope you can go home. Yesterday was still dangerous,” Gladkov said.

Yesterday, the Russian army declared that in the most spectacular attack on Russian soil since the beginning of the conflict, it “crushed” the group that attacked the region with air and artillery the previous day. According to Russian authorities, a civilian was killed in the village of Kozinka, one of the places attacked, and a woman died of heart failure during the evacuation. The raid was claimed by Russian armed groups based in Ukraine, who wanted to overthrow Russian President Vladimir Putin. These are the Russian Freedom Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK). Despite Moscow’s denials, members of these units said their campaign was continuing and denied Russia’s claims that dozens of fighters had been killed.

A video released by RDK shows the fighters in an armored vehicle in what they call “a small but already liberated part of our homeland.” Another showed the fighters firing mortars from what they claimed was inside Russia. Clashes in the Belgorod region began on Monday. The Russians broadcast videos of helicopters firing rockets at a city, while Ukrainian media broadcast videos of drones showing smoke rising from a village after the bombing. Such scenes have become ubiquitous in Ukrainian cities and towns attacked by Russia, but are rarely seen on the Russian side of the border.

The cross-border raid was seen by some as a potential “shape-up” operation aimed at drawing Russian attention to the battlefield ahead of an anticipated Ukrainian counterattack. Although Volodymyr Zelensky’s Ukraine denies any contact with the troops, they are located on Ukrainian soil and appear to be equipped with US-made military vehicles, including Humvees and international vehicles that appear to be the mine-resistant Maxxpro 1224. In 2022, the United States said it will deliver hundreds of these vehicles to the Ukrainian military.

The United States walked away from the operation, denying Moscow’s accusations that it supported the operation. A State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said at a press conference that he was “suspected” over reports that US-supplied weapons were used in the operation and reiterated that he “does not encourage or permit attacks on Russian soil”. He added that “it is up to Ukraine to decide how to wage this war.”

Kiev also assured that it had no direct link to the attacks, but warned that they could be repeated in other parts of Russia due to the “number of Russian citizens opposed to the regime” compared to the occupation of Ukraine. This was expressed by the secretary of the Security and National Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksyi Danilov. “Briansk, Kursk, Voronezh and other regions cannot be safe, given the number of Russian citizens who oppose the regime and could spark protests anywhere in Russia,” Danilov, quoted by UNIAN, said.

Continue reading at Today.it

Source: Today IT

\