Russian security forces today killed a heavily armed man who broke into a private home in the suburbs of Moscow and opened fire on them, threatening, according to media reports, to march on the Kremlin, the Associated Press reported.
The attacker was spotted by security guards after breaking into an uninhabited house in an elite villa settlement in the Istra region, about 45 kilometers west of Moscow. The intruder held them at gunpoint, but the guards managed to escape, Russian media claim.
For several hours, the authorities negotiated with the attacker, who was in combat clothing and carried a Kalashnikov assault rifle. The man claimed that he came from the front line in Ukraine and God was making him go to the Kremlin.
The man refused to surrender, shot at the special forces and was killed when they broke into the house, the National Guard of Russia reported. The statement said the attacker had several assault rifles and hand grenades.
Russian lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein identified the attacker as Vyacheslav Chernenko, 35-year-old resident of the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. It is unclear whether he actually fought in Ukraine.
The administrative head of the settlement of Istra, Tatyana Vitusheva, described the attacker as mentally unstable.
Some Russian media have claimed that the villa he broke into once belonged to Viktor Yanukovych, the former Moscow-friendly president of Ukraine who was ousted by mass protests and offered shelter by Russia. The property has been announced for sale by its current owner, who was abroad at the time of the incident.
The incident attracted much media attention because it occurred less than a month after the mercenary commander of the private military company Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, launched a short-lived mutiny. During the rebellion, his troops seized military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and then advanced 200 kilometers to Moscow in an attempt to topple the country’s top military leaders, the AP recalled.
Prigozhin agreed to end the June 24-25 rebellion and agreed that he and his men would be given amnesty and the opportunity to move to Belarus.
2023-07-22 19:41:15
#Russian #special #forces #killed #man #machine #gun #grenades #attacked #elite #villa #Moscow #video