The final document adopted at the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting is without a position on Ukraine due to objections from China and the Russian Federation. Countries that saw the two foreign ministers meet and carry on a dialogue already ‘cemented’ by Moscow and Beijing on 7 February 2022. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that Russia “does not reject serious proposals for negotiations on Ukraine, but I do not recall anyone calling Kiev for dialogue”.
US Army Secretary Christine Wormuth believes that the military conflict in Ukraine could end ‘on its own’ in the next year or two. According to her, the fighting has turned out to take longer than expected. German Chancellor Scholz takes a different view: ‘Peace in Ukraine cannot be achieved by the cessation of arms supplies’.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian says that the Ukrainian authorities have not provided evidence that Russia used Iranian drones during military operations. The minister also stated that Iran ‘does not support the war in Ukraine’.
General Igor Fazletdinov and retired Colonel Vladimir Lumpov wrote an article that Russia is developing a new type of military operation, including the use of nuclear weapons, the material was published in the Russian journal Military Thought published by the Ministry of Defence.
Russian social sources broke the news of an assault by the Ukrainian DGR in the Bryansk region. “Ukrainian saboteurs on Thursday morning entered the border region of the Bryansk region. About 50 men crossed the border’. They allegedly split into two teams and took hostages. Before the attack on the Bryansk region, the Ukrainian armed forces of two kamikaze drones blew up surveillance cameras at border points.
A 10-year-old boy was operated on for his injuries and a girl ended up in hospital. The driver of one vehicle was shot dead. The authorities report that the other hostages are reportedly OK. A military purge is underway in Lubechany. Soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the FSB roam the village looking for Ukrainian saboteurs in hiding. Residents are urged to stay at home. Shops, post office, gardens, schools and other institutions are closed. At 13:00 on 02 March the operation was declared over. No more gunfire could be heard. But the round-up operation continues.
“Today the DRG penetrated from Ukraine into the territory of the Klimovsky district in the village of Lyubechane,” reports the governor of the Bryansk Bogomaz region. “The saboteurs fired at a moving car. As a result of the shelling, one resident was killed, a ten-year-old child was injured. Currently the child has been taken to hospital, he is receiving all necessary assistance. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are taking all necessary measures to eliminate the sabotage group,” Bogomaz said.
Ukraine’s Defence Ministry intelligence considers the message about the clash in the Bryansk region “a continuation of Russia’s transformation, its purification and liberation from Putin’s dictatorship” – Strana news agency
President’s office advisor Mikhail Podolyak: ‘The story with the Ukrainian sabotage group in the Russian Federation is a classic deliberate provocation’.
Videos have appeared in the social sphere of the ‘Russian Volunteer Corps’ in the Bryansk region, which claims to have crossed the border between the Russian Federation and Ukraine and attacked villages. One video was taken near the post office in the village of Lyubchany. In the background can be heard the bursts of a heavy machine gun. Another comes from the streets of the village of Sushany in the Klimovsky district of Bryansk region. And again a photo of a Ukrainian saboteur from the ‘Russian Volunteer Corps’ with a sign from the House of Culture in Sushanov. The electrical substation and gas station exploded in Sushany.
In the late morning, the official message of the CSO FSB was posted online: ‘In the Klimovsky border district of the Bryansk region, the FSB and annexed forces of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation are taking measures to destroy armed Ukrainian nationalists who have violated the state border,’ the report states.
Meanwhile, the State Border Committee of Belarus told RIA Novosti that the border with Ukraine is under strict control.
The ‘Russian Volunteer Corps’ is defined by Russian data as a ‘Ukrainian sabotage group whose elements have consistently penetrated the Russian-Ukrainian border since the beginning of large-scale hostilities at the end of February last year. The saboteurs are mostly engaged in intelligence gathering, attacks on Russian military personnel and citizens, as well as undermining objects deep inside the country’.
For instance, one of the most resonant stories was the explosion of Ka-52 helicopters at the Veretye airport in the Pskov region. In addition, there were continuous weakening of railway lines in the border area, the launching of kamikaze drones and the killing of Russian officials in new territories. Sometimes, during the infiltration process, Ukrainian saboteurs were spotted and killed by Russian soldiers.
However, this action represents a novelty. The Ukrainians did not aim their usual targets at specific objects or persons. In this case, the main task of the Ukrainian GUR units was a public demonstration of the insecurity of the Russian border and border settlements. Responses from the Russian side are awaited.
Dimitrij Peskov denied the emergency meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, while a meeting with the permanent members of the Council is scheduled today. On the events in the Bryansk region, the spokesman said: ‘We are talking about a terrorist attack, measures are being taken to eliminate it’. Putin will not go to the Stavropol territory because of the situation in the Bryansk region, as previously planned. He concluded by stating: “I do not know whether the status of the NMD will be changed in connection with the attack by Ukrainian saboteurs in the Bryansk region.” Air alert declared in the regions of Ukraine bordering the Bryansk region.
Another event, so far not classified militarily, occurred in the Tula region. An explosion occurred near Molodezhnaya Street in the village of Berezovsky at around 8am. The local social sphere reads: ‘It was heard by all the locals – according to eyewitnesses, the explosion shook the house. Later, a funnel half a metre deep was found in the forest. All around was strewn with ash and the bodies of several birds lay. Now residents are not allowed to enter the place: the territory has been cordoned off by the police, explosives experts are working on the spot.” Igor Tskhovrebov, head of the Kireevsky district administration, specified to TASS that no one was injured as a result of the incident.
However, a crater has reportedly formed in a forest belt near the village of Berezovsky in the Tula region, which had previously been hit by kamikaze drones – source RIA Novosti. Authorities in the Tula region confirmed that an explosion crater was found 600 metres from the village of Berezovsky. It was later discovered that it was a downed Ukrainian drone that wanted to hit the local Shchekinskaya SDPS electrical station.
The WAGNER group continues its march in Bachmut in a post on its social network reads: ‘Bachmut is strewn with corpses of the Ukrainian armed forces’. ‘Wagner group fighters collect and identify the bodies of Ukrainian militants’. And again ‘Around Bachmut there are still a large number of Ukrainian soldiers killed during the battles’.
At the front, the situation is becoming increasingly tense: ‘On the night of 1 March, two drones of an unidentified model fell on the territory of a military unit in Crimea,’ sources from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the territorial police department told RBC. ‘One of the drones exploded, causing damage to the windows of attached buildings. Earlier, the Russian Defence Ministry reported that the military repelled an attempted drone attack on Crimea.”
There was also an attack on the village of Tyotkino, Kursk region by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, there were casualties, Governor Starovoit reported.
During the first of March the following military operations took place.
Ukrainian units made another attempt to attack objects on the territory of the Crimean peninsula using drones. Thanks to the coordinated work of the Russian air defences, all 15 Ukrainian vehicles were shot down. In the Kupyansk area, the sides engaged in artillery duels and mutual reconnaissance.
Russian troops repelled all Ukrainian attempts to regain control of Hryanykivka. In the Lyman sector, Russian assault troops supported by tanks hit the enemy from different heights in the area of Balka Zhuravka. At the same time, barrel and rocket artillery is hitting the detected AFU positions.
Wagner’s PMC units extended their control zone in the direction of the village of Bachmut, gradually closing the encirclement ring. The liberation of the village will cut off the Bachmut group’s last supply route.
In the south-west, Wagner PMC units conduct regular raids on Ukrainian positions in Krasne and near the road to Kostyantynivka. The Ukrainian command does not count its losses and throws its reserve forces into the fight, trying to hold back the advance of the Russian forces.
Ukrainian units continue shelling residential areas in the Donetsk agglomeration. Residential buildings and infrastructure were hit in Makiivka, Horlivka and Donetsk. Russian marines continue to fight in the countryside areas near Vuhledar.
At the same time, Ukrainian units are building a multi-layered defence in preparation for a new Russian offensive.
Graziella Giangiulio
