(Reuters) – A senior Ukrainian intelligence official said on Thursday that armed groups, which he described as Russians opposed to the Kremlin, were carrying out an incursion into Russian territory and had turned two border regions into “active combat zones”.
But the governor of one of the Russian regions hit by the attacks said after a visit to villages in the area that hostile troops were no longer there.
Three Ukraine-based groups issued statements saying they were carrying out armed operations in the Belgorod and Kursk regions and calling on residents to evacuate the locations for their own safety.
“The Kursk and Belgorod regions are now an area of active fighting. This is what we confirm,” Andriy Yusov, spokesman for the GUR intelligence directorate, told national television.
“And as the volunteers and rebels said, we are talking about Russian citizens who, having no other choice, defend their civil rights with weapons against the Putin regime.”
Vyachslav Gladkov, governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, said in an account posted on Telegram that there were no Ukrainian forces in any of the attacked areas.
“I can state that there are no Ukrainian troops on the territory of the region,” he wrote in the report published after midnight local time. “The fighting takes place outside of it.”
But Gladkov said the village of Kozinka “was severely affected. The damage is very serious.” Residents had been evacuated to places where they were now safe.
Gladkov had previously said that two people were killed and at least 20 wounded in attacks by the Ukrainian armed forces.
Russian military bloggers had previously reported that Russian paratroopers had been sent to Kozinka. The Russian Defense Ministry said it had thwarted an attack by the Ukrainian army.
Kursk regional governor Roman Starovoit provided few details, but noted on Telegram that “Ukrainian terrorists have not stopped their attempts to bring saboteurs to our territory.”
One of the three armed groups, the Freedom Legion of Russia, said on Telegram that, in view of the “limited military operation” conducted in the two regions, it had asked residents of some towns to leave the area.
A second, the Siberian battalion, said it observed “a climate of panic in the town of Grayvoron – near Kozinka – with cars queuing to leave.
Two of the groups had reported launching a cross-border incursion earlier this week.
In the past, Russian officials have viewed the groups as puppets of the Ukrainian military and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which Moscow says is trying to foment chaos in Russia.
The Freedom Legion of Russia and the Russian Volunteer Corps have previously claimed responsibility for other cross-border raids into Russia from Ukraine.