VIENTIANE, May 23. /TASS/. The deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, has described the perpetrators of the attack on the Belgorod Region as "scumbags" who "should be exterminated like rats."
"As for these scumbags - there is no other way to call them - one can characterize them in different ways. The only question is what is to be done about them? You just have to exterminate them like the rats they are and not even take them prisoner," Medvedev said.
"Whatever chatter you hear from Kiev about how sabotage attacks of this kind have nothing to do with them, it is all a lie, of course. An absolute lie," he pointed out when asked by TASS whether the fact that the sabotage was carried out by Russian citizens absolved Ukraine of responsibility for the saboteurs' attack on the Belgorod Region.
"The responsibility for them (acts of sabotage - TASS) lies with the Kiev regime and ultimately with its sponsors across the ocean, i.e. Washington, and the European Union countries together with states like Britain and others. This is their direct and immediate responsibility," Medvedev stressed.
A Ukrainian subversive and reconnaissance group entered the territory of the Graivoron district of the Belgorod Region on Monday. Eight people were injured on the first day of the attack. On the second day, the governor said two more people had been wounded in the villages the militants had entered. An elderly woman died during evacuation.
An anti-terrorist operation was declared in the Belgorod Region in connection with the attempted breakthrough. Efforts are being exerted to force the Ukrainian saboteurs out of Russian territory and eliminate them.
Temporary accommodation centers for local residents have been set up in Stary Oskol and the Yakovlevka and Ivnyanka districts of the region.