Russia’s Security Service (FSB) announced on Thursday the arrest of a Belarusian citizen it accused of carrying out two operations in late November, including one that led to the explosion of a train in Russia’s longest tunnel, in cooperation with Ukrainian special services, AFP reported. and Agerpres.

The suspect “confessed” that he installed “eight explosive devices” in the tank cars of two trains and acted on the orders of the “Security Service of Ukraine,” the FSB said in a statement.

He also received instructions “from a compatriot who was in Lithuania” to carry out this “terrorist act”, the purpose of which was to “destroy critical transport and energy infrastructure”, the message of the Russian security service also states.

The first attack was carried out on the night of November 29-30 in the Bessolovsky tunnel in the Republic of Buryatia, where four explosive devices were detonated during the passage of a fuel train, then a second sabotage was carried out in another train, which was heading on an alternative railway, on which traffic was diverted after the first sabotage, a Ukrainian source reported on Sunday.

The purpose of the operation was to decommission the specified railway line, which connects China and Mongolia and passes through the Baikal-Amur tunnel in Buretia province, a tunnel with a length of 15.3 kilometers, the same source explained.

What the Russian press wrote about sabotage on the railway infrastructure

According to the Russian publication Kommersant, during the first sabotage, explosives were placed under the train and detonated after it entered the tunnel.

The Baza Telegram channel, close to the Russian special services, noted that after the explosion in the Baikal-Amur tunnel, the railway tracks were seriously damaged, and the fuel that leaked from the wagons flooded the tunnel.

Kyiv has claimed several attacks on Russian territory since the start of the war launched by Russia in February 2022, but this is the first time that Ukrainian special services have carried out such operations thousands of kilometers from the front line.

The special services in Kyiv are increasingly turning to such sabotage as tactics of asymmetric warfare with the aim of disrupting the logistical support of the Russian army, while the Ukrainian army’s counteroffensive did not yield results, and now Russian troops have gone on the offensive in separate sections of the front.

In addition to attacks on Russian facilities in the rear, such as ammunition depots, strategic bridges (for example, the sabotage of the Crimean bridge), command centers, air bases or railway lines, attacks were also carried out on occupied Ukrainian territories. from Russia and even on Russian territory, attacks that killed Russian officials or supporters of the Kremlin.

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