Moscow, May 1 (AFP/APP):A freight train derailed Monday in Russia’s western region of Bryansk bordering Ukraine after an “explosive device” detonated on the tracks but caused no casualties, authorities said.
Belarus, a close ally of Russia, said the train was Belarusian and was going from its southeastern city of Gomel to Russia’s Bryansk.
There have been reports of sabotage on railroads in Russia and Belarus throughout Moscow’s more than year-long Ukraine offensive.
But this was the first time Russian officials confirmed an attack on this scale.
Separately, officials said power lines had been blown up in northern Russia, which the FSB security service called an “act of sabotage”.
The apparent attacks came a day after a Ukrainian strike killed four people in a Russian village in the Bryansk region and as Kyiv prepares for a widely expected counter-offensive.
“An unidentified explosive device went off, as a result of which a locomotive of a freight train derailed,” Bryansk governor Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram.
There were no casualties, he added.
Footage on social media showed the front of the train and several cargo carriages on fire and lying on the grass next to the tracks.
Russian Railways said the incident took place on Monday at 10:17 am local time (0717 GMT) between the town of Unecha and the village of Rassukha in the southwestern corner of the region — some 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
It later said that the fire had been put out and that passengers of two Moscow-bound trains in the area would be taken by bus to the regional hub, Bryansk.
– Railroad sabotage –
The state operator said the front locomotive and seven wagons derailed “after the intervention of unauthorised persons”.
“As a result of the incident, the locomotive caught fire,” it said in a statement.
The Belarusian transport ministry later said the train belonged to Minsk.
“The train, number 2528, departed from the station in Gomel to Bryansk station,” it said in a statement.
It said the explosive device went off “50 metres” (nearly 55 yards) from the train.
The ministry said it had sent its rail workers to the scene “to participate in the investigation”.
There have been many reports of sabotage on railways — a key mode of transport for the Russian army — in Russia and Belarus, which allowed Moscow to launch its Ukraine offensive from its territory.
Russian independent news website MediaZona this month reported that at least 66 people have been arrested across Russia for sabotage acts on the rail network since last autumn.
Also on Monday, the governor of the northern Leningrad region, Alexander Drozdenko, said local power lines had been blown up by an “explosive device”.
The official said the lines were damaged near the village of Susanino, 60 kilometres (37 miles) south of Russia’s second city, Saint Petersburg, and posted images of the lines lying on the ground in a forest.
Drozdenko later said the FSB security service had opened a criminal case on “sabotage”.
Separately, authorities in Sevastopol in annexed Crimea announced on Monday they were “repelling the attack of enemy drones”.
“One drone has already been shot down. All services of the city are on alert,” Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said on Telegram.
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