May 23, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Ukraine’s top national security official told CNN that those responsible for the cross border-raid in Belgorod are Russians who want to get rid of the darkness in their country, denying any involvement from Kyiv.

“They are Russians, it is their country and they have the right to be there,” Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, told CNN's Frederik Pleitgen in an exclusive interview on Tuesday. “There are some Russians who are on the side of the light and who went to deal with the darkness that exists in Russia now.”

Danilov rejected accusations of Ukrainian involvement levied by Moscow against Kyiv and said the incident in Belgorod was solely a Russian matter.

“There are events happening there that are related to a sector that, in our opinion, should be commented on either by the supreme commander-in-chief, i.e. Putin, or by the Defense minister or someone else,” he said. “They are citizens of the Russian Federation.”

Remember: On Monday, Ukraine confirmed that the group behind the incursion was made up of Russian nationals. The attack was carried out by a group that was "part of the defense and security forces" in Ukraine but acting as “independent entities” in Russia, according to Andriy Yusov, a representative of Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency.

There have been no new incursions by fighters crossing the Ukrainian border into the Borisovsky district in Russia's Belgorod region Tuesday, according to the Belgorod governor.

“Reports are coming from the Borisovsky district: the village of Bogun-Gorodok, the farm Lozovaya Rudka and the village of Tsapovka. According to our information, there was shelling from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, there were [strikes],” regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram.

“Some telegram channels are starting to interpret this information as the sabotage and reconnaissance group entry and trying to make people panic. There was no entry. The FSB, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Ministry of Defense do not confirm this information. The military is working,” he said.

Some background: On Monday, a group of anti-Putin Russian nationals – who are aligned with the Ukrainian army – claimed responsibility for an attack in Russian’s southwestern region of Belgorod, as Moscow said it was fighting a group of saboteurs there.

In a Telegram post, groups calling themselves the “Freedom for Russia Legion” and “Russian Volunteer Corps” said they had “liberated” a settlement in the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine.

On Monday, the Freedom for Russia Legion made its most decisive move since the war began, launching a cross-border attack on the Russian region of Belgorod.

But it has been defending Ukraine from Moscow’s invading troops for months. CNN’s Sam Kiley met members of the Legion fighting in Bakhmut in December to understand more about what has led Russian nationals to fight for Ukraine in the war.

One soldier, who goes by the call-sign Caesar, told CNN that defending Bakhmut against his Russian motherland is an almost religious imperative.

“From the first day of the war, my heart -- the heart of a real Russian man, a real Christian -- told me that I had to be here to defend the people of Ukraine,” Caesar said.

When he sees invading Russian troops in his gunsights, he feels no ties to his countrymen.

And when the war is over, members of the Legion have more ambitious targets in sight.

His claims echoed those made by members of the legion in a video posted Monday.

Read and watch our full report here.

Around 100 civilians have been evacuated from the Russian border settlements of Glotovo and Kozinka in the Belgorod region, local authorities say. 

The regional governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on his Telegram channel:

On Monday, a group of anti-Putin nationalists claimed to have “liberated” the settlement of Kozinka, home to a crossing station close to Russia’s border with Ukraine. 

Earlier on Tuesday, Gladkov said that both Kozinka and Glotovo had come under mortar and artillery fire the previous day.

In an exclusive report, CNN joined a group of British explosives and counter-insurgency specialists as they passed on decades of bomb making know-how to frontline Ukrainian troops. But it’s not just their subversive skills and techniques that these British-Irish experts are bringing – it’s the bomb components too.

Much of the focus in recent months has been on Ukraine’s demand for heavy military hardware: tanks, jets, rocket launchers and missiles.

But sometimes the biggest help can come in the smallest packages: sophisticated switches, specialized microchips, night vision goggles, covert monitoring devices, even 3D printers.

An officer in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, known as “Skif,” told CNN this equipment is used “to produce explosive devices we can use on the ground, on the battlefield, or in the air as munition for drones.”

Watch Nic Robertson's report here:

Belgorod’s governor says the Russian region bordering Ukraine was hit by drone attacks overnight, following the cross-border attack launched by anti-Putin Russian nationals on Monday. Meanwhile, Ukraine says it’s still holding on to part of Bakhmut – despite Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s claims to the contrary.

Here are the latest developments:

The fighters who crossed from Ukraine into Russia’s western Belgorod region on Monday have been pushed back into Ukrainian territory, the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a daily briefing on Tuesday. 

The ministry said on Monday, “after intensive artillery shelling of the Kozinka international checkpoint, as well as a number of other civilian facilities in the Graivoronsky district of the Belgorod region, a unit of the Ukrainian nationalist formation invaded the territory of the Russian Federation.” 

Russia repelled the attackers using air strikes, artillery fire and military units, it said, adding: “The remnants of the nationalists were driven back to the territory of Ukraine, where they continued to be hit by fire until they were completely eliminated.” 

Some context: While Russia has referred to the group or groups that crossed into Russia as "Ukrainian," the attack has been claimed by the Freedom for Russia Legion and Russian Volunteer Corps – two groups of anti-Putin Russian nationals who are fighting in Ukraine as part of Kyiv’s defense forces. Ukrainian officials have acknowledged that the groups crossed into Russia but say they were acting independently.  

Around two hours before the ministry’s briefing, the Freedom for Russia Legion posted on Telegram: “The Legion and the RDK [Russian Volunteer Corps] continue to liberate the Belgorod region!”

Ukrainian pilots have started to undergo training on F-16 fighter jets in several European Union countries according to the bloc’s High Representative, Josep Borrell.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has been asking allies for the aircraft as Kyiv seeks to improve its defenses against Russian air attacks.

Speaking on his way into a meeting of EU defense ministers in Brussels Tuesday, Borrell said the training will “take time, but the sooner the better.”

While the idea was initially met by reluctance from Ukraine’s allies, Borrell said that the door is now open for the provision of jets, and he expects a similar outcome to that of the donation of Leopard 2 tanks which also went through a period of uncertainty.

At the start of talks about sending the German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv, Borrell said many countries were “reluctant.” But “at the end,” he added, “the decision comes to provide this military support because it is absolutely needed in order for Ukraine to continue defending.”

Jet coalition grows: The Dutch defense minister said that EU officials are working on a concrete timeline for training and said that there is agreement that it must happen urgently. 

“But we did need the green light from Washington, DC. And it is a co-effort with Denmark, Belgium, UK and other allies. So a coordinated effort. But we will speed up now that we know that we have the green light,” Kajsa Ollogren told reporters.

US President Joe Biden signaled his approval for Ukrainian pilots to be trained to fly them over the weekend.

Residents of the settlements under attack in Russia’s Belgorod region have been resettled in other areas as authorities continue “clearing the territory” after a cross-border incursion from Ukraine, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has said. 

“The clearing of the territory from the aftermath (of the attack) continues,” Gladkov said on his Telegram channel, without specifying what the operation involved. 

Gladkov also claimed that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had fired mortar and artillery shells at the Belgorod region dozens of times on Monday, and dropped explosive devices from drones. 

Twelve civilians had been wounded, he said, and a number of houses and cars damaged.

The Freedom for Russia Legion said on Telegram early on Tuesday that it and the Russian Volunteer Corps, “continue to liberate the Belgorod region!” These groups are made up of anti-Putin Russian nationals and are aligned with the Ukrainian army.

The Telegram post described them as “patriot volunteers” and claimed that Russia is vulnerable to attack.