“This is an attempt to interfere with the presidential election,” Putin said.
Moscow:
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that his military would respond to a series of Ukrainian attacks on Russia that he said were attempts by Kyiv to undermine the presidential election.
Russia’s border region has been the target of deadly Ukrainian bombings this week and faces multiple incursions by pro-Kiev militias made up of anti-Kremlin Russians.
“These attacks by the enemy will not and will not go unpunished,” Putin said in a televised address to a meeting with the Security Council.
“I believe that our people, the Russian people, will face this problem with greater unity,” he said.
He claimed that Ukrainian assault groups had tried on at least three occasions to take control of Russian territory in the Belgorod border region and in the neighboring Kursk region.
“This is an attempt to interfere with the presidential election,” Putin said.
He also claimed that Russian forces had driven Ukrainian troops out of the Kursk and Belgorod regions and that Russian air defense systems had shot down most of the projectiles fired by Kiev’s forces.
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