Amid mounting outrage from Russia’s hardline “patriots” over a supposed Ukrainian invasion in the country’s Belgorod region, military officials on Tuesday claimed to have killed more than 70 “Ukrainian terrorists.”
The Defense Ministry said “aviation, artillery and units of the Western Military District” were used to “defeat” the forces that stormed over the border into Belgorod a day earlier, sparking frantic evacuations and nearly two days of street fighting.
“The remnants of the nationalists were pushed back to Ukrainian territory, where they continued to be hit by gunfire until they were completely eliminated,” the ministry said.
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Vyacheslav Gladkov, the region’s governor, said an elderly woman had died during the evacuation and that 12 others were injured. Two Russian service members were also killed, according to the Kommersant newspaper.
While the Kremlin blamed the incursion on Ukraine, the two groups that claimed responsibility—the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps—are actually made up of Russian fighters who say they want to “liberate” the country from Vladimir Putin.
Among those who took part in the brazen attacks, according to the independent outlet Agentsvo, were a former officer of Russia’s FSB, an actor and yoga teacher, and several neo-Nazis.
Despite panic in the border region, the Kremlin seemed largely nonplussed, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressing “deep concern” but noting that no emergency meetings had been called over the incursion.
Asked why it took so long for Russian security forces to push out the so-called “saboteurs,” Peskov said only the Defense Ministry and FSB could answer that.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of the Security Council, predictably took a harsher line, calling for the “scumbags” to be “destroyed like rats.”
The “saboteurs” themselves, meanwhile, mocked Russian authorities for what was widely seen as a botched handling of the crisis.
“All the [country’s] soldiers are dead, wounded, or in Ukraine,” the Freedom of Russian Legion said in a statement.
“Once again, the myth that citizens of the Russian Federation are safe and the Russian Federation is strong has been destroyed. In fact, the authorities have simply been plundering the budget for years and lying that everything is fine,” the group said.
Several pro-Kremlin military bloggers also expressed skepticism that the military had everything under control, and Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin used the incident to take a shot at his rivals in the defense ministry.
“Where was the military when the [saboteurs] broke through–that’s the big question that must be given to military leadership,” he said via his press service.
Residents of the border region also reacted furiously, with one local responding to the governor on social media: “Why are they attacking Belgorod? Where is our army, where are the 10 billion rubles spent on the defensive line? How did they break through so quickly, after all [we] built fortifications and mined the area. Or was it just for show, as always?”
