Ukrainian armed group crossed Russian border, claims Russia

• The FSB and the Russian Ministry of Defense are conducting joint operations.
• Against armed Ukrainian nationalists in the Bryansk region.
• With up to six individuals being held captive.

A top Ukrainian official dismissed the accusations made by Russian security authorities as “typical purposeful provocation” on Thursday.

When they said a small Ukrainian armed group had crossed the border into the southern Bryansk region.

In a statement released through state-run media on Thursday, the Security Service of Russia (FSB), which is also in charge of border security, said that it was working with the Russian Ministry of Defense to conduct joint operations against “armed Ukrainian nationalists who violated the state border” in the region.

Up to six individuals were reportedly being held captive in two villages in the Bryansk region of Russia near the Ukrainian border by the alleged saboteurs, according to a report from the Russian state news agency. which cited an anonymous source in the Russian security services.

A spokesman for the governor of the Bryansk area asserted, without presenting any supporting evidence, that a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance organisation is operating on the grounds of the village of Sushany in remarks to the state-run military channel Zvezda.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin was in the Kremlin and being regularly briefed on the alleged attack by the heads of the FSB and the Russian Ministry of Defense as well as by the head of the Russian National Guard, Viktor Zolotov.

“We are talking about the events in the Bryansk region in connection with the attack of militants,” Peskov said.

According to Peskov, Putin cancelled a planned trip to southern Russia Thursday due to the events that he described as a “terrorist attack” and added, “measures are now being taken to destroy these terrorists.”

Asked if the alleged attack on the Bryansk region can serve as a reason for changing the status of “special military operation,” the official shorthand for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Peskov said “I cannot say yet.”

“The story about [a Ukrainian] sabotage group in RF [the Russian Federation] is a classic deliberate provocation,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine, in a statement on Twitter. “RF wants to scare its people to justify the attack on another country & the growing poverty after the year of war. The partisan movement in RF is getting stronger & more aggressive. Fear your partisans…”

Operational Command of Ukraine “North, which is in charge of the portions of Ukraine that border the Bryansk region of Russia, said, “We remind you! The enemy might use provocations and make an effort to discredit the Ukrainian Armed Forces!”

Separately, the governor of Russia’s Kursk region said in a video statement posted on his Telegram account that Ukrainian forces were shelling a village.

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