Two people were shot dead in a Ukrainian border village on Saturday morning in a cross-border incursion by a Russian “reconnaissance and sabotage group,” local officials said.
The attack happened in Ukraine’s Sumy region inside a five-kilometer (three mile) buffer zone along the border with Russia — an area where Kyiv had asked residents to evacuate.
“This morning, an enemy reconnaissance and sabotage group brutally and cynically shot a brother and sister,” the Sumy regional administration said in a statement.
The incident happened in the village of Andriivka, four kilometers (2.5 miles) from the border with Russia’s western Kursk region, it added.
Though infrequent, such cross-border attacks and incursions by guerilla-style fighters have been recorded throughout the nearly two-year war.
Russian authorities have also accused Ukrainian groups of armed raids into towns and villages on its side of the border, killing civilians.
Ukrainian authorities on Saturday renewed their appeal for residents to leave border areas.
“Russian terrorists continue to kill civilians. By evacuating from dangerous areas, you will save your life,” Sumy Governor Volodymyr Artyukh said.
At least three other civilians were killed in Russian attacks in the east and south of the country, local officials said Saturday.
In Beryslav, which sits on the Dnipro river in the southern Kherson region, explosives dropped from a drone killed one person, the governor said.
And two were killed by Russian artillery shelling in the eastern Donetsk region, Ukraine’s national police said in a statement.
There was no comment from Moscow, which has repeatedly denied targeting civilians, despite widespread evidence of attacks on residential areas and the United Nations saying at least 10,000 civilians — likely many more — have been killed since Russia invaded.
Moscow claims to have annexed both the Kherson and Donetsk regions, even though its forces do not have full control over either of them.