Three Ukraine-based anti-Kremlin Russian armed groups, the Russian Volunteer Corps, the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Siberian Battalion, announced on their Telegram channels that they had launched incursion into Russia from Ukrainian territory in the Kursk and Belgorod regions on Tuesday, the 12th of March, reports Reuters.
“We will take our land from the regime centimetre by centimetre,” the Freedom of Russia Legion said on its Telegram channel.
⚡️Freedom of Russia Legion, The Russian Volunteer Corps and the Siberia Batallion have entered the Kursk and Bilhorod regions in Russia. Heavy fighting is reported in the border area.
Events will be posted in this thread. pic.twitter.com/dS2ye6zpS6
— NOELREPORTS ?? ?? (@NOELreports) March 12, 2024
Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence, told Ukraine’s 24 Channel that the groups are carrying out the operation on Russian territory autonomously and independently.
He revealed that the units are composed of Russian citizens who are part of Ukraine’s “security and defence forces”. Despite their involvement in the liberation of Ukraine from Russian invaders, Yusov stressed that these individuals are Russian citizens who have the right to act in their own country to protect their civil rights and resist Putin’s dictatorship in Russia, as per the Kyiv Independent.
The Freedom of Russia Legion’s statement seems to refer to the upcoming Russian elections this weekend.
“The people will vote for whom they want, not for whom they have to. Russians will live freely,”
the militant group was quoted as saying.
The Russian defence ministry claimed to have thwarted an attempt by Kyiv to invade Russian border areas in the Belgorod and Kursk regions, saying the incursion had taken place simultaneously in three directions. The ministry did not mention the groups directly but claimed that missiles and artillery were fired against the “Ukrainian terrorists” trying to break into Russian territory, the Kyiv Independent reported.
The Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps have previously claimed responsibility for other cross-border attacks against Russia from Ukrainian territory.
Also read: Russia in effort to rewrite history wants to nullify Soviet Union’s transfer of Crimea to Ukraine
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