A volunteer group of Ukrainian special forces operates in the occupied territories of Ukraine and in Russia - the secret battalion "Brotherhood", which is fighting against the Russian Federation outside the

front in its state.  

This was reported by The Guardian, having talked to three members of this battalion.

Their work ranges from kidnapping high-ranking Kremlin officials to destroying key military infrastructure and shooting down enemy planes on Russian soil.

"It is very easy for us to cross the Russian border," said one of the battalion members with a smile.

Volunteers of the "Brotherhood" have a special status - they are technically independent from the army of Ukraine, but act side by side with the official forces.

The work of the "Brotherhood" must remain secret and independent primarily because of the "nervousness" of the West at the thought that Ukraine could strike on Russian territory, as evidenced by the debate over Germany's delivery of Leopard 2 tanks and the refusal of the United States and other countries to supply F16 fighter jets.

"It turns out that Russians can enter the territory of Ukraine, but Ukrainians cannot enter Russia," says another member of the formation named Oleksiy.

One of the volunteers of the group talked about one of his last operations, which he called downtime:

"Our group needed to bring a certain amount of explosives to the territory of Russia and leave them in a certain place. I don't know what and to whom these explosives were intended. But I know for sure that some people in Russia are ready to help Ukrainians," the fighter said.

As The Guardian writes, the "Brotherhood" also carried out an operation in the Belgorod area, where several warehouses with ammunition exploded a month ago.

"After the Russians find out that there are saboteurs working on their territory, they need to transfer a lot of soldiers to find these saboteurs... This makes the Russian command nervous," says "Brotherhood".

The members of the group also said that they received the task "to capture or kill one of the high-ranking officers of the FSB", the Russian special services.

"He worked not far from the border with Ukraine, but on the territory of Russia. We had the route of this Russian officer's car, and we decided to set up an ambush," says Vladyslav.

However, the Russian officer's car never arrived, so the mission had to be postponed.

They needed to get out of the ambush, but they faced the problem of breaking into Ukraine, past the watching Russian troops gathered on the border.

"We met a border post of Russian border guards. We were four on four. We killed three Russians and slightly wounded one. We captured him, took him to the territory of Ukraine and handed him over to the Ukrainian military," said a member of the group.

The "Brotherhood" also noted that their operations "are actually twice as safe as those carried out by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It seems like a very dangerous job, but we are preparing for it very seriously."

Read also:

• Ukraine news

• War in Ukraine

• News of Ukraine: video