On August 2, in Bashkortostan, the Nogai highway was blocked in an incident with a military man armed with a hand grenade. The head of Bashkortostan came to negotiate with him, as reported by the Baza Telegram channel.
Police officers were delivering an army volunteer for forensic psychiatric examination in an investigation for an unauthorized abandonment of his unit during mobilization. However, the man managed to escape and later appeared on the Nogai highway near a Lukoil gas station, threatening to detonate a hand grenade unless the criminal case was stopped.
The police had to block the highway and began negotiations with the military man. He demanded that the head of Bashkortostan, Radiy Khabirov, personally meet with him. Khabirov arrived and spoke to the volunteer on the phone before approaching him on the highway. After negotiations with Khabirov, the man surrendered to law enforcers and handed over the explosive devices.
In the video of Khabirov's phone conversation with the volunteer and their meeting on the Nogai highway posted on Bashkirian social media, Khabirov urges the man not to “mess up” and offers to discuss his concerns in a “normal way.” On the highway, Khabirov comes over to the man and asks him to put the grenade down on the ground.
“Just so you understand, I just care about your life, because you're in trouble, really. I want to help you," Khabirov says.
“If I put down the grenade, will my trouble be over or what?" the man replies.
Khabirov asks him to step back and put the grenade down. He promises that when “everyone is gone,” he will sit down with him and have a talk. At the end of the video, Khabirov comes to the man, shakes hands with him, and they sit down together.
On June 4, the Russian Volunteer Corps offered Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov to meet at a church in Novaya Tavolzhanka so they could pass over to him a group of captives. However, the meeting did not take place, as Gladkov set his own conditions for the encounter. Subsequently, the Defense Ministry reported that they had successfully repulsed an attack by saboteurs.