A Russian partisan group with ties to Ukraine’s military claimed Thursday it briefly took control of a small border village, an operation that represents a rare known example of saboteurs entering Russia to stage an attack.
President Vladimir V. Putin canceled a planned trip to the Caucasus region to find out about the invasion, the Kremlin said. He condemned the incident as a “terrorist” attack, a label Russia often uses for military backlash in the war in Ukraine.
It remained unclear what was happening in the village, although by Thursday afternoon the raid appeared to be over. The group that took responsibility the Russian Volunteer Corpsis run by a Russian nationalist in exile who opposes Putin’s rule and has fought for the Ukrainian cause.
Whether the group operates with the approval of the Ukrainian government, as it claims, is unclear.
The group posted a video by two armed men outside what appears to be a medical building in the village of Lyubichane in Russia’s Bryansk region near the Ukrainian border on Thursday.
“The Russian Volunteer Corps came to the Bryansk region to show compatriots that there is hope that free Russians can fight the regime with guns in their hands,” reads a caption to the video, which the organization released in the Russian Federation Messenger app Telegram released. The authenticity of the video and details of the incident could not be independently verified.
Ukrainian intelligence officials have attempted to present the incident as evidence of Russian divisions. “This is a sign that Russia can no longer function normally and this is leading to internal destruction,” Andriy Cherniak, a representative of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, said in a telephone interview.
Mr Putin accused the saboteurs of opening fire on civilians and children, a claim that has not been independently verified.
Mr. Putin is closely following developments in the Bryansk region, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov told reporters. He added that Mr Putin receives regular reports from officials in Bryansk.
Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said in a statement on Thursday that Moscow faces “a movement of Russian anti-fascist militias.”
There is no evidence that the Russian Volunteer Corps or other Russian armed groups fighting against the Kremlin have a broad base of support within Russia.
The Bryansk governor said earlier Thursday that a sabotage group entered Lyubichane and opened fire on a vehicle, killing the driver and injuring a child. Russian state news agencies published conflicting reports on the episode on Thursday. They initially claimed that saboteurs took up to six people hostage, but later went back and reported that local officials had no information about the kidnapping.
The Russian state news agency Tass said the saboteurs left Russia as early as Thursday afternoon. But Mr. Peskov said that “all measures are currently being taken to liquidate these terrorists.”
Ukrainian units have conducted sabotage operations in Russian-held areas of Ukraine throughout the war. Ukraine is also believed to have struck inside Russia on several occasions, including in December when a drone launched from Russian soil struck a military base in the city of Ryazan. Ukrainian officials are often willfully vague about strikes in Russia, although they occasionally nod to them with cryptic non-denials.
Some Russian pro-war advocates cited the invasion to call for an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, which began when Mr Putin launched his full-scale invasion last year.
“The last red lines were erased today in the Bryansk region,” wrote Konstantin Malofeev, an ultranationalist tycoon, on Telegram. “Now anyone who even whispers about peace becomes an accomplice of terrorists.”
Ivan Nekhepurenko , Maria Varenikova And Carlotta Gall contributed reporting. Oleg Matsnev contributed research.
