A Ukrainian sabotage group reportedly crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border, infiltrating the Bryansk region and taking several people hostage, Russian officials told Russian state news agencies on Thursday. Reports say Russian forces are rushing to deal with them, with Russian President Vladimir Putin calling an emergency meeting of the country’s Security Council.

Russia’s border regions have become increasingly unstable since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia’s FSB security service told Russian news agencies on Thursday that its own forces and the military were trying to eliminate what it called an “armed group of Ukrainian nationalists” that had crossed the border.

The governor of the Bryansk region, Oleksandr Bogomaz, said that the Ukrainians shot dead one person: “Today, a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group penetrated the Klimovsky district, the village of Lyubetsanoye,” he said on his Telegram channel. These are border areas, not far from the Ukrainian city of Semenifka.

“Saboteurs fired at a moving car. As a result of the attack, a resident was killed and a ten-year-old child was injured,” he added. He also said that the Ukrainian armed forces launched a drone strike and fired artillery at other areas near the border.

British military intelligence said on Wednesday that Russia was launching drone strikes into Ukraine from the Bryansk region, which is in northern Ukraine and closer to the capital Kyiv than other launch sites.

Russian state news agency TASS reported that Ukrainians had infiltrated two villages, taking local residents hostage in one of them. The RIA news agency reported that several people were taken hostage at a store in Lyubetsanya, less than a kilometer from Russia’s border with Ukraine.

A Russian lawmaker told Reuters that Mr. Putin is urgently convening a Security Council in response to an incident of alleged Ukrainian activity in Lyubetsanskoye. The Kremlin confirmed that the council’s meeting was scheduled for Friday, while spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the alleged Ukrainian attack “terrorist.”

Source: Reuters.