Russia Says It Has Expelled Anti-Putin Militias From Border Belgorod

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that it had thrown out of its Belgorod region the armed men who had entered Russian territory from Ukraine the day before. According to Moscow, they have been defeated, dozens of them have ended up dead and the rest have fled to the neighboring country.

According to the military department, the saboteurs not eliminated have gone to the neighboring country. “They have been expelled from the Belgorod region to the territory of Ukraine,” said the ministry’s spokesman, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov.

“They have been expelled to the territory of Ukraine”

During the operation, 70 saboteurs died. In addition, four infantry fighting vehicles and five pickup trucks were destroyed.

The day before, on 22 May, a group of armed men entered the Graivoron district, in the Belgorod Oblast area bordering Ukraine. Russia denounced that it was a raid by saboteurs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. More than ten towns suffered bombardments.

As a consequence, the Russian authorities imposed a terrorist operation regime in this region. By Tuesday morning, the “cleanup operation,” as the regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, called it, was continuing. He said that after the attack from Ukraine, 12 civilians had been injured.

Moscow identifies as one of the saboteurs a Russian nationalist detained in absentia in 2018

Moscow denounced on Monday the incursion into its territory of “saboteurs” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

But the Kyiv authorities denied having anything to do with it and attributed the action to two groups of Russian citizen volunteers opposed to the Kremlin fighting alongside the Ukrainian army, the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Russian Freedom Legion. The goal is to create “a security zone” that protects Ukrainian civilians, said Andrii Yusov of Ukraine’s Directorate of Military Intelligence.

The two formations later claimed on Telegram and other social networks combat actions in Belgorod and Bryansk, Russian border regions with Ukraine.

The Kremlin does not agree with this version. Asked about the participation of Russians in the attack on Belgorod, Peskov said Tuesday that they are all “Ukrainian fighters from Ukraine.”

“There are many ethnic Russians who live in the Ukraine, but they are still Ukrainian fighters,” he replied.

For the Kremlin, after the incursion into Belgorod there is a diversionary maneuver with which Ukraine wants to divert attention from what happened over the weekend in Bakhmut, and minimize the political effect of the loss of the city, which Russia calls Artiomovsk.

The Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case for a terrorist attack. The Tass agency says that nationalist Alexei Leovkin, who is on the hunt, has been identified as one of the saboteurs. Liovkin was detained in absentia in Russia in 2018, accused of forming an extremist society.