FSB Says It Killed & Captured Ukrainian Sabotage Group Which Entered Russia

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) says it has thwarted and captured a team of Ukrainian commandos who were conducing a cross-border sabotage operation in the Bryansk border region.

FSB said the men were “carrying an impressive arsenal” – including US-made automatic rifles with silencers, along with other NATO equipment such as grenades and night-vision goggles. A subsequent video of the aftermath showed the group’s arsenal laid out.

The FSB statement said two of the Ukrainian commandos were killed, and three wounded, with five more captured.

Security services along with state media said the group was engaged in carrying out “a series of high-profile terrorist acts targeting objects of military and energy infrastructure.”

Meduza describes, summarizing the official statements:

Bryansk governor Alexander Bogomaz posted nearly the exact same statement on his Telegram channel, and said that the “saboteurs” possessed American-made automatic rifles with silencing devices, powerful explosive devices, a large number of NATO standard grenades and ammunition, and night vision devices.

Early in the war these cross-border ground attacks didn’t happen, or were very rare, but there’s been an uptick of late, also amid an increase in drone attacks across many parts of Russia.

The biggest ground incident was when last May a group calling itself Liberty of Russia Legion attacked Belgorod region for many hours, and “invaded” with US armored vehicles, claiming to have “liberated” one or more villages before many in the group were killed by Russian forces.

Video of recovered arms released by the FSB on Thursday:

The Russian FSB shares footage of the arsenal seized from Ukrainian saboteurs caught attempting to enter Bryansk Region. During the operation, two militants were killed, and five more saboteurs were detained. pic.twitter.com/IL8tOevL46

— RT (@RT_com) August 31, 2023

Moscow has continued blaming the West for these brazen attacks. On Wednesday Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the spate of drone attacks on Russian territory would not be possible without help from Kiev’s Western backers.

“Zakharova stressed that the Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) would not have been able to travel such a distance without information feeds from Western satellites,” TASS reported.

Wednesday saw no less than six regions come under aerial attack with in the same span of time. Zakharova said the attacks were against “peaceful civilian targets.” The same day, Russia sent a number of rockets against Ukrainian cities and locations in apparent retaliation.