Anti-Kremlin Militants With Tanks Fight Russia in Border Region

Anti-Kremlin militants claimed to have successfully crossed into Russia on Tuesday and seized control of a village, while Moscow said it had successfully fought off the attempted incursions.

Ukraine insisted that the armed groups were made up of Russian citizens, with Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukrainian military intelligence, claiming the fighters were attempting to “free their country from the Russian Putin dictatorship,” the Kyiv Independent reports. Russia’s Defense Ministry flatly accused the groups of being “Ukrainian militants” who tried to enter Russian territory in the Belgorod and Kursk regions “with the support of tanks and armored combat vehicles.”

The Freedom of Russia Legion, one of the organizations involved in the attack, claimed on Telegram to have taken control of the village of Tyotkino in Russia’s Kursk region on the Ukrainian border. It also released a video that it said showed Russian troops fleeing the village and abandoning heavy equipment.

Read more at The Daily Beast.