The Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case on a terrorist attack after the attack of "saboteurs" on the Bryansk region. This was reported in the official press release of the department.
Cases have also been initiated under articles on encroachment on the life of law enforcement officers and destruction of property.
"Evidence is being collected and recorded of crimes committed by representatives of the Ukrainian armed groups against the civilian population and law enforcement officers in the settlements of Lyubechane and Sushany, Klimovsky district, Bryansk region," the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
On March 2, Russian pro-government media reported that armed men attacked the village of Sushany on the border with Ukraine and took dozens of local residents hostage (the information about the hostages was not confirmed later). The FSB claimed that employees of the department, as well as Russian servicemen, entered into battle with "armed Ukrainian nationalists who violated the state border." The governor of the Bryansk region, Alexander Bogomaz, said that a sabotage and reconnaissance group from Ukraine entered the village of Lyubechane and fired at a car. Vladimir Putin called what happened in the region a terrorist attack. The Ukrainian authorities, represented by adviser to the Office of the President Mikhail Podolyak, stated that the information about “Ukrainian saboteurs” in the Bryansk region is a Russian provocation and, in fact, some Russian partisans could have carried out the attack.
Later, the Russian Volunteer Corps claimed responsibility for the attack. This is a unit in which Russian emigrants are fighting on the side of Ukraine, many from the neo-Nazi environment. Representatives of the RDG stated that they did not kill anyone or take hostages, but only wanted to show their compatriots in Russia that it was possible to fight the regime.
Former State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev, who moved to Ukraine and received citizenship there, confirmed in a conversation with The Insider that RDK fighters had infiltrated the territory of the Bryansk region.
On March 3, the FSB released a video that allegedly shows two vehicles being fired upon in the Bryansk region. In the first frames, a car riddled with bullets is visible; a bloodied man, probably dead, lies motionless in the cabin. There is also a motionless person in the driver's seat of the second car, but there are no traces of bullets on the body of the car.
State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein said that “during the cleansing of the territory” near the village of Sushany, a car of the National Guard was blown up by a mine and three security officials were injured.