Russia’s FSB says killed four Ukrainian ‘saboteurs’ attempting to infiltrate

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has reportedly killed a group of Ukrainian “saboteurs” attempting to infiltrate the country from the former Soviet republic.

Russian news agencies cited the FSB security service as saying on Monday a four-member Ukrainian sabotage group had been "eliminated" while trying to enter Russia's western region of Bryansk. “The FSB eliminated a group of Ukrainian saboteurs on Russia’s state border,” TASS quoted the FSB.

“In a clash on December 25, 2022, four saboteurs were eliminated upon their attempt to penetrate into the Bryansk Region from Ukraine.”

The saboteurs had German-made SIG Sauer rifles and ammunition, communication and navigation devices, as well as four homemade explosives equivalent to some 40 kilograms of TNT, according to the FSB.

The Russian news agencies shared a video attributed to the FSB showing several bloodied bodies sprawled on the ground, wearing winter camouflage and carrying guns.

Russia has previously accused pro-Kiev forces of a number of sabotage attacks, including a huge explosion in October that destroyed a bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula to Russia. The bridge, constructed on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was inaugurated in 2018, four years after Crimea voted in a referendum to become part of Russia following a Western-backed uprising in 2014 that ousted a pro-Moscow administration in Kiev.

Ukraine, claiming no responsibility for the explosion, said the bridge served as a key transport link for carrying military equipment to Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, especially in the south.

Putin: Crimea bridge blast 'terrorist act' done by Ukraine secret services

Putin blames Ukraine for a recent huge blast that targeted a bridge connecting Russia to Crimean.

Last week, Russian lawmakers backed long prison terms for "saboteurs," pointing to emerging terror threats – including from foreigners – amid the war in Ukraine.

Russia launched a “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, following Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements and Moscow’s recognition of the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. At the time, the Russian president said one of the goals of the operation was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. Since the outbreak of war, the United States and its Western allies have supplied numerous shipments of heavy weaponry to Ukraine, despite Russia’s warnings that it will only prolong the war.

At a press conference on Thursday, the Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Ukrainian president and his American counterpart were turning a deaf ear to “Russia’s concerns," and that Russia was not after occupying Ukraine.

Regarding Moscow's conditions in the peace talks, Russian diplomats say demilitarization of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, collectively known as the Donbas, is among the main conditions Moscow has stated to end the war. The two regions broke away from Ukraine in 2014 after refusing to recognize the Western-backed Ukrainian government that had overthrown a democratically-elected Russia-friendly administration.

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