civilians called to leave Russian border towns
A new drone attack targeted an energy site in Russia on Wednesday while Russian volunteers fighting for Ukraine announced strikes on two major Russian cities located near the Ukrainian border. A multiplication of attacks intended to undermine the Russian presidential election, accused Vladimir Putin.
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Russian volunteers fighting for Ukraine announced strikes on two major Russian cities near the Ukrainian border on Wednesday March 13 and urged civilians to leave these localities.
“We are forced to strike military positions stationed in the cities of Belgorod and Kursk,” the units “Liberty Legion of Russia”, “Russian Volunteer Corps” and “Siberian Battalion” said on Telegram. “To avoid civilian casualties, we call on everyone to leave these cities immediately.”
The day before, these fighters said they had crossed the Russian border in an armed incursion which left at least one dead and which Moscow claimed to have repelled.
But the attackers claimed the capture of the border village of Tiotkino, in the Kursk region. On Wednesday, one of these groups, “Russian Freedom Legion”, released a video in which two fighters claim to be fighting in the locality. AFP was unable to confirm or deny this information.
In addition, a new attack by dozens of Ukrainian drones took place during the night and morning of Wednesday. One of these devices caused a fire at a refinery in Ryazan, about 200 km southeast of Moscow. The strike caused “some injuries,” the governor of the Ryazan region, Pavel Malkov, wrote on Telegram.
In the Rostov region, bordering Ukraine, three drones shot down by air defense fell on the site of an oil factory in Novochakhtinsk, said the governor, Vasily Goloubev.
In total, 58 drones targeted several Russian regions during the night and morning, notably those of Belgorod, Briansk, Kursk and Voronezh, bordering Ukraine, according to a press release from the Russian Ministry of Defense, which ensures that they all been destroyed.
The state agency Tass also announced on Wednesday that a Ukrainian drone damaged the building of the Russian Security Services (FSB) in the city of Belgorod.
A Ukrainian source told AFP that the attacks were operations by the special services, the SBU.
These Ukrainian attacks, affirmed Vladimir Putin in a long interview on Russian television, aim to disrupt the presidential election, scheduled in Russia from March 15 to 17. “The main objective (…) is at least to try to prevent citizens in any way from expressing their will,” he judged.
Moscow “ready” for nuclear conflict
At the same time, the Russian president praised his country's nuclear armament, deeming it “more advanced” than that of the United States.
The West has regularly accused the Russian president of using veiled threats on this subject, particularly regarding the use of these weapons in Ukraine.
“Triads (the vectors for launching atomic weapons, Editor's note), only the Americans and we really have them. And there, we are much more advanced. The entire nuclear component is more modern here,” he said. affirmed, as the start, Friday, of the presidential election approaches which, in the absence of any opposition, should see his re-election triumphant.
Vladimir Putin added that his country was “ready” for a nuclear conflict, but that he had never thought of using such weapons in Ukraine.
“Why should we use means of mass destruction? There has never been such a necessity,” he assured, stressing that Russian military doctrine provided for the use of the ultimate weapon if the existence of Russia was threatened or in the event of “an attack on our sovereignty and independence”.
The Russian president also reacted for the first time to the comments of his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, who said on February 26 “not to exclude” the sending of Western troops to Ukraine. “If these are official military contingents from foreign countries, I am sure that this will not change the situation on the battlefield. This is the most important thing, just like sending weapons does not change anything” , replied the master of the Kremlin.
“No one is afraid of you here,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told him through the media, reacting to the violent attack committed the day before in Lithuania against Leonid Volkov, former right-hand man in exile of the Russian opponent Alexei Navalny died in prison in February.
With AFP
Source: France24
