Warning: you may find the following images disturbing.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has released a video taken following Thursday’s deadly Ukrainian cross-border saboteur attack on two villages in Bryansk Region that claimed at least two lives and injured a ten-year-old boy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin described the raid on the villages of Lyubechane and Sushany, located right on the Russian-Ukrainian border, as a “terrorist attack,” while labeling the Ukrainian saboteurs “neo-Nazis.” He also noted that the gunmen opened fire despite seeing that they were attacking civilians.
The FSB’s one-minute clip shows a Russian-produced Lada car shredded with bullets on the front and right side, with the tires punctured. According to local media reports, its driver, who was killed in the attack, was working as an engineer at a nearby school. He is said to have been driving back from his shift to visit his mother at the time of the incident.
The video also shows a second car that was attacked by the Ukrainian saboteurs. Its driver is said to have used the vehicle to take local children to school at the request of his neighbors. One boy and two girls were in the car at the time of the attack. After the raiders killed the man and injured the boy, the latter helped the two girls escape, an act that Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov described as “heroic.”
The FSB also released photos of what appear to be several mines left by the Ukrainian operatives, as well as a portable hand-grenade launcher lying on the ground. Earlier, the agency said that numerous explosive devices of various kinds had been found around the area, adding that bomb squads were working at the scene to disarm them.
According to the FSB, the saboteur group was “pushed back to Ukrainian territory, where they were hit with a massive artillery strike.”
In recent months, Russia’s territories bordering Ukraine have come under recurring attacks. On Thursday, local authorities in Bryansk and Kursk Regions reported that local villages had been shelled by Ukrainian troops. According to Kursk Governor Roman Starovoyt, the attack killed one man, with another one injured.