By Alexander Smith, Caroline Radnofsky and Matthew Mulligan - NBC News
The United States is trying to distance itself from the incursion into Russian territory of pro-Ukrainian fighters who allegedly used Pentagon military equipment in their attack.
Russia said on Tuesday it had repelled an assault on its Belgorod region after two days of battle with the assailants, who had staged a military incursion from across the border.
Russian authorities claim the raid was carried out by Ukrainian army saboteurs, but Ukraine blames Russian citizens who rose up independently.
Images of the vehicles provided by the Russian Defense Ministry / EPA via Shutterstock
The United States has provided billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, but has sought to limit its use to defending Ukrainian territory by preventing attacks on Russian soil that could be used as a reason for Russia to escalate the war.
A video released by the Russian Defense Ministry and verified by NBC News shows American-made Humvees and MRAP armored vehicles at a Russian border checkpoint.
The Russian Volunteer Corps, which claims to be made up of Russians fighting on behalf of Ukraine and claims to be behind a raid, released a video on Wednesday showing him in possession of MRAP vehicles, although it is unknown where the footage was filmed.
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Denis Nikitin, its far-right nationalist leader, told Britain's Financial Times newspaper that his group has American-made vehicles, but declined to say how he got them.
Some analysts questioned the appearance of the vehicles in the video shared by the Russian Defense Ministry, pointing to the lack of visible damage and their placement.
"It is possible that the vehicles were used in some kind of assault, but it is also possible that the image is a montage, a disinformation practice long employed by Russia to launch a narrative. This narrative conveniently matched the narrative of the Russian domestic audience that the United States and NATO threaten Russia's security," said expert Clint Watts.
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Asked about the footage, U.S. officials said they were closely following the reports. "It's something we're watching closely," said Gen. Pat Ryder, a Defense Department spokesman. "I don't know if it's true or not, in terms of the veracity of the images," he added. The United States, he said, has not authorized Ukraine to hand over this equipment to anyone else, and said Ukraine has not requested permission.
"We are skeptical about the veracity of these reports," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
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Both stressed that the U.S. does not "encourage or permit attacks in Russia," Miller said. "But, as we have also said, it is up to Ukraine to decide how to conduct this war," he said.
The warning is part of a broader debate in the West over how much military support to give Ukraine without provoking a direct war with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. "It is no secret to us that more and more equipment is being supplied" to Ukraine, Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday. And "it's no secret that this equipment is used against our military," he added.
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"It is no secret that the direct and indirect involvement of these Western countries in this conflict grows every day. We draw the appropriate conclusions," he said, referring to the United States.
Half of Americans support the Pentagon continuing to supply weapons to Ukraine, according to a poll this week by the University of Chicago and The Associated Press.
If the images of the U.S. vehicles are authentic, it is unclear how they came to be used in a battle on Russian soil.
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Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said 70 attackers, who he said were Ukrainian army saboteurs, were killed in the attack, but did not mention Russian casualties.
Ukraine denies this. Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate spokesman Andriy Yusov told NBC News that the attackers were Russian citizens of the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Russian Freedom Legion.
The militias "acted completely autonomously," he said, while the Ukrainian army is "engaged solely in the liberation of occupied Ukrainian territories within the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine."
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The Russian Freedom Legion describes itself as a group of Russians fighting on behalf of Ukraine against the Kremlin. Some members of the group have expressed neo-Nazi ideologies.
The group said on its Telegram messaging channel that the aim of the operation was to "liberate" the border region, which lies about 45 miles north of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and far from the war front lines.
The arsenal provided to Ukraine by its Western allies, including British cruise missiles and American F-16s, comes with the strict requirement that it not be used to attack Russian territory.
"For Ukraine to be able to carry out this operation, it has to do so in a deniable way through its proxies," said Samuel Ramani, an expert on Russian military operations at Oxford University.