The Ukraine War took a new turn as Moscow today accused Ukrainian saboteurs of crossing the border and launching a “terrorist attack” on villages in the Bryansk region, while Kyiv claims the explosions were caused by resistance elements within Russia taking “concrete measures” against the Putin regime.
NBC News reports the extent of the attacks remains unclear but Vladimir Putin, in a televised address, said that the unnamed group had targeted civilians.
“They won’t achieve anything. We will crush them,” he promised.
Local authorities in Bryansk claim that armed men fired at a moving car, wounding a 10-year-old. Various online sources, according to Yahoo News, have posted conflicting information about “the taking of local hostages,” the presence of “wounded and dead,” and an “explosion at a power substation.”
The only thing clear at this early stage in reporting is that there’s nothing clear yet about what happened.
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It’s a tossup whether to lend less credence to Moscow’s line or to Kyiv’s, but Kyiv’s at least has more entertainment value. Ukraine Defence Intelligence spokesperson Andriy Yusov claimed that a Russian domestic organization called the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) “are fighting with weapons in their hands against the Putin regime and those who support him… Maybe Russians are beginning to wake up, realize things, and take some concrete measures.”
“The Russian Federation today is an entity within which there are a large number of inter-ethnic, inter-religious, socio-political, and other conflicts,” said Yusov. While that’s true enough, Russia’s internal struggles tend to be on the periphery of the empire, where different religious and ethnic groups tend to dominate — not in the European Russian heartland regions like Bryansk.
Taking Yusov’s claim at face value would mean a badly deteriorating domestic situation in Russia — and I don’t take Yusov’s claim at face value.
On the other hand, if Ukrainian infiltrators managed to sneak into Russia and blow up a power station… well, that’s on Putin. Start stupid wars, win stupid prizes.
I don’t have many tears for Russian complaints about armed men crossing their border to blow stuff up.