Russia ups their false flags - FT21 Feb 2022 14:33
Russia has claimed it destroyed two Ukrainian military vehicles straying into its territory, killing five people, in an unconfirmed incident that would be the first direct clash with Ukrainian forces since Moscow mobilised 190,000 troops on its border.
The army’s southern military district said in a statement that a “diversionary reconnaissance group” was discovered at 6am on Monday near the border village of Mityakinskaya and claimed that Ukraine sent two infantry fighting vehicles to “evacuate them from the battlefield”.
Russian forces “destroyed both Ukrainian fighting vehicles with anti-tank weapons”, it added. “As a result of the clashes, five members of the diversionary reconnaissance group who violated the border of the Russian Federation were destroyed,” the statement said, adding that no Russians were hurt in the fighting. Russia did not provide any evidence to support its claims.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said on Twitter that Ukraine did not send saboteurs or armoured personnel vehicles over the Russia border and that it had no plans to do so. “Russia, stop your fake-producing factory now,” he wrote.
Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region have accused Kyiv of launching an offensive to retake the breakaway territories on the Russian border, where more than 14,000 people have died since Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
Ukraine says Russia is trying to use the claims as a pretext for a renewed invasion of the country.
Europe’s Stoxx 600 dropped sharply after the Russian army released its statement. The gauge was down 1.8 per cent in afternoon trading, with Russia’s Moex stock index off 8.1 per cent. The rouble fell 1.5 per cent against the US dollar.
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