Russian authorities say a Ukrainian grenade attack has destroyed a Russian border post used by the FSB. Ukraine calls the accusations “fake news.”
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– February 21, at 9:50 (local time) destroyed an unidentified projectile fired from Ukraine a border post used by the FSB’s border guard service in the Rostov region, about 150 meters from the Russian-Ukrainian border, the Russian security service writes in a statement.
They add that no one was injured in the incident. The security service FSB has also published a video which, among other things, shows a small building where both the roof and walls have been destroyed. The video has not been verified, and it is also unclear exactly where the alleged attack took place.
Ukraine denies being behind such a grenade attack and calls the accusations “false news”.
“They carry out various provocations and produce fake news every day, even a couple of times a day,” said Pavlo Kovalchuk, a spokesman for a joint military operation against Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
– We could not stop them from producing this fake news, but we always emphasize that we do not shoot at civilian infrastructure, he adds.
Reuters reports a similar incident in the same border region a little later the same day. The Russian military says Russian forces and border guards have prevented Ukrainian “saboteurs” from crossing the Ukrainian-Russian border. According to the Russian military, five of them were killed in the clashes. The Ukrainian military refers to it all as “fake news”.
The West has recently warned of an escalation of the conflict, but also of staged attacks that Russia and pro-Russian separatists could use as a pretext to launch an invasion of Ukraine.
Last week, the southern Rostov region declared a state of emergency due to an expected influx of civilians from the rebel-held territories where evacuation orders have been issued.
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