Fired ammunition, battles – illustrative photo.
Kyiv – Militias that unleashed clashes this week in Russia's Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, used US-made tactical vehicles in the attack, the Financial Times (FT) wrote. Kiev has previously denied direct involvement in the clashes reported by Russian authorities from the border region since Monday. According to Ukraine, Russian partisans are behind them. However, according to the FT, one of the Ukrainian officials admitted some form of cooperation with the groups that claim the attacks in the Belgorod region.
Advertisement'; }
Two groups claimed responsibility – the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) and the Legion of Freedom in Russia (LSR). Reuters identified them as two allegedly anti-Kremlin armed groups whose members are Russians. The Financial Times writes about far-right militias or nationalist groups.
The head of the Russian Volunteer Corps, Denis Nikitin, also known as Denis Kapustin, told the FT that his fighters attacking in the Belgorod region had US-made military vehicles at their disposal . They reportedly included at least two MaxxPro armored vehicles and several Humvees. However, Nikitin did not tell how he got them.
According to an analysis of the relevant videos and photographs – carried out by the FT – it appears that some, though not all, of the images of the US-made vehicles were taken on the Russian side of the border. Footage released separately by Russia's Defense Ministry shows US-made vehicles damaged by gunfire and apparently abandoned, the newspaper said, according to the newspaper, which said the same types of military vehicles were received by Ukraine from the US as part of its fight against Russian invasion.
American officials have repeatedly stated that they do not support or allow Ukrainian armed forces or their allies to attack Russian territory using American equipment. “We are skeptical about the veracity of such reports and remain in close contact with our Ukrainian counterparts,” an unnamed US official commented on the FT's information about the use of US vehicles in the Belgorod region.
The paper goes on to write that Ukrainian officials at first publicly distanced themselves from Russian sabotage units, but on Tuesday, the representative of Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR) Andriy Chernyak admitted some form of cooperation with the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Legions of Freedom to Russia. “Of course we communicate with them. Of course we share some information,” he said. “You could say that we are even cooperating with them,” he added.
At the same time, however, he stated that the Ukrainian army was not directly involved in the attack, suggesting that it was the Russians' own initiative. “They are rebelling,” he said, also denying the group's supply of weapons. All Western weaponry acquired by the Ukrainian armed forces is “under the strictest control”, he said.
The Belgorod region on Tuesday canceled the anti-terrorist operation regime it imposed on Monday in connection with the fight against the troops, according to its governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov. , which entered its territory from Ukraine. Russia's Defense Ministry said earlier that Russian forces had managed to push the “saboteurs” back across the border. More than 70 attackers were killed, Reuters quoted the ministry as saying. Similar reports from the battlefield cannot be independently verified.
