The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said on Monday that a Ukrainian “sabotage group” had infiltrated Russia’s territory in the Graivoron district on the border with Ukraine and had been repulsed by Russian security forces. Anti-Kremlin militants claim to have captured the Russian border town of Belgorod. Fighting broke out along Russia’s border with Ukraine after Russian guerrilla forces launched a cross-border raid, claiming to have captured a border town for the first time since the war. Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that the city is also under fire from Ukrainian artillery. He said eight people were injured and that most residents had left the area, but the situation remained “tense”.

Highlights of the war in Ukraine, day 454, LIVETEXT:

01:12 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said in his speech on Monday that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly adopted an important declaration that recognizes Russia’s crimes against Ukraine as genocide and clearly condemns “Russian ideology.”

“We add value for Ukraine every week since the NATO summit in Vilnius. We are doing everything to make the decision at the summit in our favor. We’ll see, but we’re still working on it. By the way, today was an important statement of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. They call a spade a spade: a clear recognition of Russia’s crimes against our country as genocide, a clear condemnation of Russian ideology. This is the right basis for other international organizations as well,” Zelenskyy said.

00:32 F-16 fighters, the key to the immediate and long-term future of Ukraine

Ukraine’s ambassador to the US says sending F-16 fighter jets to Kyiv is crucial for the country’s short- and long-term future, Sky News reports.

“This is a capability we desperately need,” Oksana Markarova said during a speech at Boston College.

A brief summary of recent events:

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said during a speech on Monday that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly adopted an important declaration that recognizes Russia’s crimes against Ukraine as genocide and clearly condemns “Russian ideology.”
• The governor of the Belgorod region of Russia, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that the majority of residents of the Graivoron district had left their homes.
• The first car captured on the territory of Russia in this war? As Ukraine Weapons Tracker reports, during a raid by pro-Ukrainian Russian units across the border in the Belgorod region at the Graivoron border crossing, a BTR-82A wheeled armored personnel carrier was captured.
• The Freedom for Russia Legion released a video that appears to show an opposition flag flying over a Moscow university
• A new hypothesis about the explosion of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline, in which the suspect is Ukrainian and has a Romanian surname. The explosion at the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline still remains a mystery to the public. Several theories have been put forward, one of which has recently been circulating in the German media, somewhat confusingly. According to her, the investigation is working in a new direction, in which a citizen of Romania and a Ukrainian appear.
• Training Ukrainian pilots to use the F-16 and working with allies to provide advanced fighter jets to Ukraine remains a “priority” for the United States in the coming months, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
• The eastern Ukrainian cities of Bakhmut and Maryinka continue to be the “epicenter of hostilities”, reports the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
• The leader of the Belarusian opposition, Svitlana Tsykhanovskaya, who is in exile, accused Oleksandr Lukashenko of personally ordering the illegal transfer of Ukrainian orphans and suggested that he may be guilty of war crimes, The Guardian reports.

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The events of Monday, the 453rd day of Russian aggression, were broadcast LIVE on HotNews.ro