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RIGA, Latvia — More than 24 hours after a strange raid near the Russia-Ukraine border that President Vladimir Putin described as a “terrorist attack,” there has been no new clarity about the incident, in which authorities say two people were killed.
But that didn’t stop government officials and propagandists on Friday from using the episode in western Russia’s Bryansk region to bolster their own positions, starting with Putin, who joined state television commentators to fuel fears among Russians that the nation it is under constant threat from terrorists.
Russian pro-war hardliners have called for revenge and a tougher crackdown, with mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group and harsh critic of the Russian military, calling Russia’s “red line” — that it would not tolerate attacks of its own accord Territory – had been crossed again.
“Red lines?” said Prigozhin, answering a question through his press service. “We seem to have run out of red, and instead of red it’s brown.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine denied responsibility for the attack, insisting it was a sign of internal unrest in Russia and rising anti-Putin sentiment, exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The cacophony of responses, including a confession from the Russian Volunteer Corps, a group of Ukraine-based Russian far-right white nationalists fighting on Ukraine’s side in the war, highlights the swirling information warfare being waged parallel to the real fight and also some of the sinister forces – mercenaries, paramilitary formations, nationalist movements and others – involved in both struggles.
The Russian Volunteer Corps, while having ties to the Ukrainian military, operates independently, Ukrainian military officials said. It’s also just one of a number of combat groups — Ukrainians, Russians, and others — that don’t necessarily fall under the official military chain of command.
Russia’s Federal Security Service FSB on Friday released video footage of two vehicles and sluggish drivers, claiming they were the victims killed by militants. One vehicle had dozens of bullet holes. The video and the men’s deaths could not be independently verified.
Whatever actually happened, Putin used the incident to express concerns about Russia’s border defenses, which have already been called into question due to attacks inside Russia, including multiple drone incidents on Tuesday and multiple attacks on Russian airbases in recent months while Russian Hardliners used this to demand tougher action in the war.
Ahead of a meeting of Russia’s Security Council on Friday, convened in response to Thursday’s incident, Putin grimly warned of the need to protect the nation’s security and law enforcement bases. “Colleagues, today we have to discuss a very important topic: that is anti-terrorist security of law enforcement agencies’ locations,” Putin said succinctly before the Council went to a closed session.
Hard-line nationalists have expressed anger that the attack appeared to have gone unpunished after the self-proclaimed perpetrators reportedly returned to Ukraine. For weeks, such hardliners have expressed doubts about the Russian military’s ability to deal a major blow to Ukrainian forces as Moscow’s offensive on multiple fronts in Ukraine makes icy progress.
After months of fighting for control of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine and thousands of casualties on both sides, Wagner militants led by Prigozhin claimed on Friday they are on the verge of seizing control of the city’s devastated ruins in what will be a long-awaited one would victory for Russia. But Ukrainian military insisted their units did not withdraw.
The Kremlin accuses Ukraine of a violent attack in western Russia
In any case, Western military analysts claim that the occupation of Bakhmut will offer Russia little military advantage given the high losses on the battlefield, and Ukraine has already prepared fallback defenses.
The Russian Investigative Committee, the agency that investigates serious crimes, opened a terrorism case on Friday to investigate Thursday’s cross-border attack. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said steps were being taken to prevent such attacks from happening again.
Russian authorities claimed militants left Ukraine on Thursday, attacking two villages, taking several hostages, killing two people and wounding a boy before fleeing back across the border, leaving many explosive devices in their wake.
However, details of the attack remained extremely sketchy, with no video or clear description of the incident itself emerging, unusual in a war where major events are routinely filmed and uploaded.
The Russian Volunteer Corp released two videos of militants – including one that appeared to show its leader Denis Kapustin outside a clinic in the village of Lyubechane near the Ukrainian border in western Russia – which provided the only clear evidence the raid took place.
A call to Kapustin’s phone was answered Friday, but there were no answers to questions. A text message reply from its user excluded a discussion of Thursday’s raid and declined to comment on claims by the FSB that two civilians were killed.
“I can’t share details about yesterday’s surgery,” the text read, “so if you want to talk about anything else, you’re most welcome.” However, the user didn’t respond to further calls or messages.
Kapustin is a well-known far-right figure who lived in Germany for many years and has been associated with hooligans involved in soccer violence.
The Russian Volunteer Corps, formed in August, is an anti-Kremlin group that believes Putin is threatening ethnic Russians by turning Russia into a police state. While she despises President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s pro-European approach, she sees Putin as worse.
According to one of the videos posted by the group, the motive for the attack was to show Russian citizens that they could take up arms and rise up against Putin. Some Russian Kremlin critics suggested that the incident could be a Russian false flag operation, intended to justify a major escalation of the war.
As Russia’s military efforts failed, Putin came under increasing pressure from pro-war hardliners, whose criticism of the Russian military was largely tolerated because it bolstered Russian support for the war, despite heavy Russian casualties.
Heavy fighting as Russians advance at Bakhmut, but Ukrainian units hold out
A military journalist and ardent supporter of the invasion, Yuri Kotenok, said Thursday’s invasion was “a clear and visible result of the enemy’s impunity.” Moscow’s failure to pay attention to refugees attacking Russia and “fifth columnists” in the country only made the enemy bolder “precisely because of our lack of resistance to evil,” Kotenok wrote on his Telegram blog.
“What else has to happen so that Moscow no longer faints in its retaliatory measures against the enemy? Should Ukrainians destroy a nuclear power plant or reach Red Square?” he wrote. “We have to take action!”
Like many other hardliners, Kotenok blamed “the incompetence of the military leadership” and “limited armament capabilities” for Russia’s failure to step up aggression against Ukraine.
War blogger and propagandist Semyon Pegov berated Russian border guards for allowing members of the Russian Volunteer Corps to flee Russian territory after the invasion.
“When the militants have fled, it generally requires more than just serious action. Another question is whether our border guards are adequately resourced to perform their duties,” Pegov wrote.
Kremlin spokesman Peskov said no decision had yet been made on imposing martial law in the border areas after Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, whose paramilitary forces have been fighting alongside Russian troops in Ukraine, took such a step and “the Maximum level of martial law “reply” demanded in areas bordering Ukraine.
One year of Russia’s war in Ukraine
Portraits of Ukraine: Every Ukrainian’s life has changed – big and small – since Russia launched its full-scale invasion a year ago. They have learned to survive and support each other in extreme circumstances, in bomb shelters and hospitals, destroyed apartment complexes and destroyed marketplaces. Scroll through portraits of Ukrainians reflecting on a year of loss, resilience and fear.
Attrition: Over the past year, the war has morphed from an invasion on multiple fronts that included Kiev in the north to a conflict of attrition largely centered on a vast territory to the east and south. Follow the 600-mile frontline between Ukrainian and Russian forces and get a glimpse of where the fighting was concentrated.
Living apart for a year: Russia’s invasion, coupled with Ukraine’s martial law barring military-age men from leaving the country, has forced millions of Ukrainian families to make agonizing choices about how to balance safety, duty and love, with once-intertwined lives no longer are recognizable. This is what a train station full of farewells looked like last year.
Deepening of the global divide: President Biden has dubbed the reinvigorated Western alliance forged during the war a “global coalition,” but a closer look suggests the world is far from settled on the issues raised by the Ukraine war to be united. There is ample evidence that efforts to isolate Putin have failed and that sanctions have not stopped Russia thanks to its oil and gas exports.
Understanding the Russia-Ukraine conflict
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