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Ukraine has conducted a cross-border raid on Russia's western Belgorod region, inflicting losses on Moscow's forces, Kyiv's military intelligence said on Friday, releasing a video of the operation.
"Raid on the occupants' lair—the scouts inflicted another loss on the enemy," the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) said on its Telegram channel.
The Belgorod region bordering Ukraine has been frequented by two Russian rebel groups—the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC)—throughout Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The HUR said it had obtained intelligence that Russian military leadership planned to inspect military positions in Belgorod's Gayvoron district due to complaints from Russian personnel about poor conditions.
"In order to inflict losses on the enemy and worsen his morale and psychological state, special officers of the HUR of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine planned and carried out a special operation," the post said.
The nearly 150-second-long video shows a group of Ukrainian soldiers making their way through a forest, planting mines and firing from a distance, causing multiple explosions.
The HUR said its troops mined the area and attacked a Russian platoon.
It's not clear how many casualties were sustained by Moscow in the operation. Newsweek has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry for comment via email.
The raid comes after Russia accused Ukraine of being behind a number of recent strikes on Belgorod. Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed on Monday to retaliate. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the strikes on Belgorod, and rarely comments on strikes that occur on Russian soil.
Putin said the attacks—the deadliest in the region since the war began in February 2022—would "not go unpunished."
A Russian military analyst said Wednesday that a video showed that a motor of a missile from Russia's air defense systems tore through a roof and into a child's room in Belgorod.
"The upper block of the Pantsir-S1 rocket flew into a child's room in Belgorod," Ian Matveev, a Russian military analyst affiliated with the Anti-Corruption Foundation, set up by opposition activist Alexei Navalny, said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
The same clip was posted on X by pro-Ukrainian user (((Tendar))), who said that it had been distributed by Russian Telegram channels as they believed it showed destruction caused by Ukrainian missiles in the city.
"Russian channels like 'Zhest Belgorod' distributed videos and pictures of missile fragments, which damaged civilian properties in Belgorod," wrote (((Tendar))). "However, once they realized that those were the booster sections of 23Ya6 missiles of the Russian Pantsir-S1 air defense system, they deleted them."
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About the writer
Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more