Putin calls emergency meeting after 'Ukraine took hostages in Russia'

© Provided by Metro Russian president Vladimir Putin is understood to have called an emergency security council meeting (Picture: AP)

Vladimir Putin is expected to hold a meeting of his national security council today over an alleged Ukrainian sabotage group that has ‘taken hostages’ in Russia.

Unconfirmed reports from Moscow state that a group of up to 50 Ukrainians had crossed the border in the Bryansk region.

The Federal Security Service said in a statement to Russian news agencies that its own forces and the army were trying to liquidate what it described as ‘an armed group of Ukrainian nationalists’ who had infiltrated.

Some disinformation experts have already branded this as propaganda on Twitter, and a ‘possible false flag operation and disinformation campaign’ coming from the Kremlin.

© Provided by Metro Putin and director of Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov attend a meeting of the service’s collegium in Moscow (Picture: Reuters)

Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky, also stressed this was ‘classic deliberate provocation’ from the invader.

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In a statement on Twitter, he said: ‘Russia wants to scare its people to justify the attack on another country and the growing poverty after the year of war.

‘The partisan movement in Russia is getting stronger and more aggressive. Fear your partisans.’

Details remain unclear, but Bryansk governor Alexander Bogomaz said they had shot and killed one person.

‘Today, a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group penetrated the Klimovsky district in the village of Lubechanye,’ Bogomaz said on his Telegram channel.

‘Saboteurs fired on a moving car. As a result of the attack, one resident was killed and a 10-year-old child was wounded.’

He said Ukrainian armed forces had launched a drone attack and fired artillery shells at other areas near the border.

The state-owned RIA Novosti news agency reported on its Telegram channel that Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Putin cancelled a planned trip to Stavropol ‘due to the situation in the Bryansk region’.

The president told the FSB this week that it needed to step up its guard against espionage and what he called terrorist threats emanating from Ukraine and the West.

‘Your task is to put a barrier in the way of sabotage groups, to stop attempts to illegally transport weapons and ammunition into Russia,’ he said in a speech on Tuesday.

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