MOSCOW, March 2. /TASS/. The attack by Ukrainian saboteurs in the Bryansk Region bordering Ukraine is a terrorist act, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with participants of the pilot educational program Mentor School.

Soldiers and officers of the Russian Armed Forces are now courageously carrying out their duty, protecting Russia, Putin stressed. "Protecting against neo-Nazis and against terrorists such as those who were torturing and killing people in Donbass for eight years, such as those who murdered Darya Dugina in Moscow, such as those who today carried out another act of terror, committed another crime, infiltrated the border area and opened fire on civilians," the president stressed.

The saboteurs were well aware that they were attacking a civilian car. "They saw it was a civilian car, saw that civilians and children were inside, that it was just a Niva car, but no, they opened fire on them," Putin said.

It is people like this who "set out to deprive the Russian people of their historical memory, deprive us of our history, our traditions, and language," President Putin stressed.

"This is violence, real crime, committed exactly by the neo-Nazis I’ve just mentioned, and by their masters. I'm sure that these very masters won’t remember today's crime. No one will even pay heed to it," Putin went on to say. "They won't succeed, we will put the squeeze on them," he vowed.