Putin accuses Ukraine of ‘terrorist attack’ in Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukrainian Nazi “terrorists” Thursday of crossing into Russia’s Bryansk region and launching an attack on villagers — a claim denied by officials in Kyiv who said it was a “deliberate provocation” that Moscow may use to justify a ramped-up offensive.

Putin — who has justified his war under the false pretense that his democratic neighbor was overrun with genocidal Nazis — said Ukrainian “terrorists” had targeted civilians and children in “yet another terror attack, another crime.”

He repeated his rhetorical propaganda while describing the alleged attack, saying “neo-Nazis” were to blame, the likes of which he claimed Russia would “finish pushing” out of Ukraine.

“They infiltrated the area near the border and opened fire on civilians,” the strongman said during a video call. “They saw a civilian vehicle with civilians, with children in it, and they fired on them.”

Details of the purported ambush were unclear, but the accusation came days after Ukraine drone attacks flew deep inside Russian territory, with one drone coming within 60 miles of Moscow.

The strikes caused little damage and no reports of injuries, but underscored Russia’s defensive vulnerability as its plodding invasion entered its second year — marked by few victories, a soaring death toll, plummeting morale and surprising resistance from less equipped Ukrainian forces.

Earlier this week, Putin ordered the Federal Security Service — the successor to the KGB — to shore up security on the 1,200-mile border between the two nations.

Andrii Cherniak, Ukraine’s military intelligence representative, blamed the purported uprising Thursday on Putin’s own people, who have become increasingly disillusioned with the stalemated war effort and ensuing draft, despite an onslaught of propaganda.

“This was done by the Russians; Ukraine has nothing to do with it,” Cherniak said.

His assertion was echoed by Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, who alleged Putin’s claims were “a classic deliberate provocation.”

Russia “wants to scare its people to justify the attack on another country (and) the growing poverty after the year of war,” he tweeted, while implying that Russian rebels where behind any violence in Bryansk.

The governor of the Russian oblast said attackers killed two villagers and injured a child in Lyubechane, and the Federal Security Service said it worked with the military to “eliminate armed Ukrainian nationalists who violated the state border.”

Officials went on to say the incursionists were pushed back into Ukraine and killed by a “massive artillery strike,” claims that could not be verified.

At the same time, a little-known group of Ukrainians that called themselves the Russian Volunteer Corps released a video saying it had crossed the eastern border. The band of soldiers called on Russians to rebel against the state, but did not share its goals or describe any actions it took. It was unclear if they were affiliated with the military.

Meanwhile, Russian shelling killed three people and injured six others Thursday when a missile hit an apartment building in Zaporizhzhia.

Another attack on a line for humanitarian aid in the Kherson region injured nine people, including a teenager, Ukrainian officials said.

The attacks on civilians prompted President Volodymyr Zelensky to say Russia “wants to turn every day for our people into a day of terror,” adding that “evil will not reign in our land.”

Amid the Russian attacks on civilians, a fierce battle continued for control of the key eastern stronghold of Bakhmut, in the eastern Donetsk region which Russia claimed to occupy without fully taking control following a sham election during the fall.

Ukraine officials had signaled they might strategically withdraw from Bakhmut, which would give Russia both a rare win, and a staging ground from which to pursue other territories in the illegally annexed region.

Putin’s repeated false references to Nazis in Ukraine are an attempt to call back to the patriotism surrounding the country’s unified World War II effort against Nazi Germany and Axis powers, in which more than 20 million Russians were said to have been killed.

Ukraine is now led by Zelensky, a Jew who lost families in the Holocaust. The country did see a rise in bigotry across the country which prompted the passage of a 2021 law that criminalized antisemitism, although Putin’s claims of organized genocide were categorically false.

With Post wires