Several hundred people attended the funeral of volunteer fighters killed in a “sabotage” mission in Russia on Tuesday in Kyiv, amid several reports of attacks along Russia’s borders in recent months, AFP reported.

Mourners, many dressed in khakis and with their faces covered, attended the funerals held at St. Michael’s Monastery for four men killed in December in the Bryansk region on Russia’s western border with Ukraine.

The FSB, Russia’s security service, announced the killing of the men, saying they were armed with guns and explosives. Russian media reported that their bodies were returned this month.

The coffins of the four soldiers were covered with the flag of the nationalist battalion “Brotherhood”, founded by the political party of the same name.

They were part of “one of the intelligence and sabotage groups of the Brotherhood that take part in missions behind enemy lines, both in the occupied territories (…) and in Russian territory,” party leader Dmytro Kortsinsky told AFP as he left the church.

They were killed during one of these raids.

According to Dmytro Kortsinskyi, the battalion acts “at its own peril and risk” when operating in Russia, and does not coordinate actions with the Ukrainian armed forces.

After the religious ceremony, the crowd paid their last respects to the four men – 34-year-old Yuriy Horovets, 32-year-old Maksym Mykhaylov, 34-year-old Taras Karpyuk and 19-year-old Bohdan Lyagov – on Independence Square in the center of Kyiv.

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