Putin Urgently Convenes His National Security Council – Unknown What Will Be Considered, Ukraine War Scenario

The Russian president Vladimir Putin called an emergency meeting of his National Security Council for today, Thursday, after the information released by the FSB, the Russian intelligence service, about “terrorist” Ukrainian “saboteur” attack in Bryansk, in the southwestern part of the Russian Federation — which Kiev denied.

Mr Putin’s planned trip to the Caucasus has been cancelled.

What exactly will be considered in the Council is not clear. There has long been a back-and-forth scenario that wants Russia to formally declare war on Ukraine, which would allow the Kremlin to call for further conscription, to send invitations to millions of conscripts.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, asked by reporters if the meeting of the Security Council could mean a change in the nature of what Moscow continues to call a “special military operation,” replied “I don’t know, I can’t say.”

It is a criminal offense in Russia for anyone to refer to the “special military operation” launched on February 24, 2022 with the term “war”.

The meeting, according to some estimates, could result in further curtailment of freedoms and rights in Russia, or steps towards a declaration of war and a move to a centrally controlled economy — that is, turning it into a war economy.

Mr Putin condemned ‘terrorist’ attack yesterday in a village of Bryansk. It was “another act of terrorism, another crime”, he insisted, as reported by international agencies and relayed by the Athens News Agency.

According to Russian authorities, two civilians were killed and a 10- or 11-year-old child was injured when “saboteurs”, according to them “Ukrainian nationalists”, opened fire on a moving car in a village in the region. Russian news agencies, citing eyewitnesses and officials, reported that the perpetrators of the attack took hostages.

Independent verification of this information is impossible.

The Ukrainian presidency denied Moscow’s accusations, calling it a “deliberate” and “classic” provocation aimed, according to it, at justifying the attack launched by the Russia in Ukraine more than a year ago.

At the same time yesterday the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedevthe current vice-president of the NATO, again warned NATO against the delivery of fighter jets to Ukraine and their maintenance in Poland, declaring that this would be perceived in Moscow as a declaration of war against Russia.

“Anyone who decides to deliver (…) such equipment, means of destruction”, as well as “foreign mercenaries and military instructors” would in such a case be considered “legitimate military targets”, he interpreted.

Mr. Medvedev cultivated the image of a moderate, comparatively liberal politician when he held the offices of prime minister and later president of Russia. But now he is expressing increasingly hard-line positions; observers speculate that in this way he is trying to maintain his place in Russia’s power structure.

President Putin, who blamed yesterday’s attack directly on the Ukrainian leadership in Kiev, spoke of “neo-Nazi” action. He repeated accusations that Ukraine is trying to revise “history” and eradicate the Russian language on its territory. “But, I repeat: they will not succeed, and we will crush them,” he flew.

Russian far-right nationalists later claimed responsibility for the Bryansk attack in videos they distributed.

Although the Russian far-right generally backs the invasion ordered by Mr. Putin, some have sided with Kiev. It is unclear whether, if the allegation is true, there was coordination with the Ukrainian military of the self-proclaimed “volunteers.”

Fighting in eastern Ukraine continued to rage yesterday, with the general staff in Kiev announcing that new Russian attacks had been repelled, particularly in Bakhmut, where the Ukrainian side acknowledged the situation remained “critical”.