Russia claims that Ukraine carried out a terrorist attack on its territory: “They murdered civilians and took hostages.” Ukraine strongly denies “this is a staged attack, a Russian provocation intended to justify the actions in Ukraine”
Russia announced yesterday about a Ukrainian terrorist attack that took place on its territory, in the Russian Bryansk region, which borders with Ukraine. According to Russia, dozens of Ukrainian ‘terrorists’ took part in the invasion, shooting at passenger vehicles, killing a car driver and injuring his 10-year-old son.
According to the Russian announcement, the Ukrainian terrorists continued from the scene of the shooting towards the village of Lubcha, located only one kilometer from the border with Ukraine, where they raided a store and took six hostages. Russia also claims that, at the same time, the Ukrainian army attacked civilian homes in the Bryansk region, using rockets and explosive drones, and indeed several homes were hit.
Following this, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced that President Vladimir Putin decided to immediately cancel a visit he planned to make to the city of Sevastopol in the Crimean Peninsula, and instead convened an emergency meeting in the Kremlin, in order to examine the events and form an appropriate response immediately.
Putin himself went on camera a short time later, and delivered a message to the nation, as he tries to calm the frightened citizens of Russia in the face of the “brutal terrorist attack”. On the other hand, in Ukraine, they immediately denied the claims, and made it clear that they are baseless. A senior advisor to President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mykhailo Podoliak, responded to the Russian reports and said that these are “ugly intimidation attempts by the Russian government against the citizens of Russia themselves. This is another attempt by Putin and his people to justify the attack on Ukraine.”
Other Ukrainian officials have expressed concern that this is a classic ‘false flag’ operation, the purpose of which is to bring about a ‘retaliatory operation’ that will follow, and accordingly, Ukraine is preparing for a step up in the Russian attack attempts.