Newsmax – April 1, 2022
Talks to stop the fighting in Ukraine resumed Friday, as another desperate attempt to rescue civilians from the shattered and encircled city of Mariupol failed and Russia accused the Ukrainians of launching a helicopter attack on a fuel depot on Russian soil.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said a fiery cross-border raid by two helicopter gunships left two people wounded, though state oil company Rosneft denied anyone was hurt.
“Certainly, this is not something that can be perceived as creating comfortable conditions for the continuation of the talks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, five weeks after Moscow began sending upwards of 150,000 of its own troops across Ukraine’s border.
The Russian claim could not immediately be verified, and Ukraine denied responsibility.
“For some reason they say that we did it, but in fact this does not correspond with reality,” Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, said on Ukrainian television.
Russia has reported cross-border shelling from Ukraine before, including an incident last week that killed a military chaplain, but not an incursion of its airspace. The Rosneft depot is about 35 kilometers (21 miles) from the Ukraine border.