Saboteurs today derailed a Russian freight train and destroyed power cables with explosive devices in a double blow for Vladimir Putin.
The train, carrying oil and construction materials, burst into flames following a detonation on the tracks in the Bryansk region, 37 miles from the Ukrainian border.
Video taken shortly after the attack showed several destroyed carriages ablaze and laying on their side, with dark grey smoke billowing into the air.
Local governor Alexander Bogomaz said the explosive device went off ‘on the 136th kilometre’ of the railroad between Bryansk and the town of Unecha – a route used for transporting Moscow’s military supplies.
The sabotage attacks came as Kyiv prepares for a widely expected counter-offensive this spring, with Ukraine building up its mechanised brigades with armour supplied by its Western allies.
A Russian freight train derailed and burst into flames today after an explosive device detonated on the rail tracks just 37 miles from the Ukrainian border
The train, which was carrying Russian tanks, was targeted in the Bryansk region of Russia , the local governor Alexander Bogomaz said, adding there were no casualties
Video shows several destroyed oil tanker carriages ablaze and laying on their side following the blast, with dark grey smoke billowing into the air
Separately, the governor of Russia’s Leningrad region near St. Petersburg said a power line had been blown up overnight and an explosive device found near a second line
Russian Railways, the country’s rail operator, said the attack on the freight train occurred at 10.17am Moscow time (07.17 GMT).
It said the locomotive and seven freight wagons were derailed and the locomotive caught fire.
‘An unidentified explosive device went off at the 136-kilometre mark on the Bryansk-Unecha railway line, derailing a freight train,’ Bogomaz said, adding there were no injuries.
Russian Railways later said that the fire had been put out at 12.30 pm local time (0930 GMT) and that passengers of two Moscow-bound trains in the area would be taken by bus to the regional capital Bryansk.
Russian authorities say the region – which borders both Ukraine and Belarus – has seen multiple attacks by pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups in the 14 months since Russia invaded.
Separately, the governor of Russia’s Leningrad region near St. Petersburg said a power line had been blown up overnight and an explosive device found near a second line.
A blast moments after midnight caused the collapse of the main power lines and officials said the attack was of sabotage.
Governor Alexander Drozdenko posted photos of destroyed power lines and metal supports near the village of Susanino on his Telegram page on Monday morning.
Video shows several destroyed tank carriages ablaze and laying on their side following the blast, with dark grey smoke billowing into the air
A blast moments after midnight caused the collapse of the main power lines and officials said the attack was of sabotage
Governor Alexander Drozdenko posted photos of destroyed power lines and metal supports on his Telegram page on Monday morning
He said Russia’s FSB federal security service was working on the site, and did not say who he believed was responsible for the incident.
There have been reports of sabotage on railroads in Russia and its ally Belarus throughout Moscow’s more than year-long Ukraine offensive.
But this was the first time Russian officials confirmed an attack of this scale.
Ukraine’s intelligence chief Major-General Kyrylo Budanov said some incidents in Russia are orchestrated by Ukraine.
‘Much of this is no accident,’ he said. ‘Something is constantly on fire [in Russia].
‘Signalling equipment on railways, it lights up several times a day, on various highways constantly for two to three hours, sometimes for five to six hours, traffic gets suspended.’
He admitted Kyiv is behind some of the sabotage attacks. ‘Clearly it doesn’t just happen like this… I would put it this way: money works wonders.’
The attacks came after Russia launched a series of missiles at Ukraine this morning, killing one person in Kherson and injuring at least 34 people in the eastern city of Pavlohrad.
Firefighters work at the site of a residential area hit by a Russian air strike in Pavlohrad, Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Monday
Local resident Liubov Vasylieva, 77, wipes away tears as she stands among the rubble of her destroyed home following the air strike in Pavlohrad, Ukraine, on Monday
Air raid sirens began blaring across Kyiv at about 3.45am, followed by the sounds of explosions as missiles were intercepted by Ukrainian defense systems.
Eighteen cruise missiles were fired in total from the Murmansk region and the Caspian region, and 15 of them were intercepted, said Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
Three days ago, Russia killed 23 Ukrainian civilians with a missile that hit a high-rise apartment building in the central city of Uman, part of its first big countrywide volley of air strikes in nearly two months.
Russia appears to have returned to its winter tactic of major countrywide air strikes as Ukraine prepares to launch a counteroffensive to retake occupied land in the south and east.
On Saturday, an apparent Ukrainian drone struck a fuel storage depot in Sevastopol, base of the Russian navy in Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014. Kyiv said the blaze was part of its preparations for its offensive.
After five months of a Russian assault that secured little new territory despite the bloodiest ground combat of the war, Kyiv is preparing to unleash its counterattack using hundreds of armoured vehicles and tanks supplied by the West.
