(Moscow) A Russian freight train derailed on Tuesday after the detonation of an explosive device, the second in two days, while acts of sabotage multiply.
Russia and annexed Crimea are the target of a series of attacks which Kyiv, which recently claimed that its preparations for a counter-offensive were nearing an end, has however not claimed responsibility for.
In four days, explosive devices derailed two freight trains and damaged a high-voltage line in the Leningrad region (north-west), a drone attack caused a huge fire in an oil depot in annexed Crimea and a Ukrainian strike left four dead in the Bryansk region.
The incidents come as Russia prepares to celebrate May 9, which marks the victory over Nazi Germany, a period of patriotic fervor and a highlight of President Vladimir Putin’s regime.
On Tuesday, “an unidentified explosive device exploded near Snejetskaya station,” said the governor of the Bryansk region, bordering Ukraine, Alexander Bogomaz.
“The incident led to the derailment of a locomotive and several train carriages,” he added, adding that there were no casualties.
The station is located two kilometers from the region’s main city, Bryansk, which has a population of nearly 370,000.
On Monday, an explosion had already derailed a freight train, which had partially caught fire, near the town of Ounetcha, even closer to the Ukrainian border.
The state-owned Russian railways for its part attributed the derailment of a freight train on Tuesday to “the intervention of unauthorized persons in the work of rail transport”, without mentioning an explosive device.
The company said the incident occurred at 7:47 p.m. local time (12:47 p.m. Eastern Time) between Snejetskaya and the village of Belye Berega.
She said the locomotive and “about 20 cars” had derailed and that traffic on this section had been suspended.
Kyiv will “pursue”
Numerous sabotages on railways in Russia have been reported since Moscow launched its offensive against Ukraine in February 2022.
More than 65 people suspected of railway sabotage have been arrested in Russia since the fall in around 20 regions of the country, according to a count by the Russian opposition media Mediazona published in mid-April.
The Russian authorities have also repeatedly denounced incursions by Ukrainian armed groups into its territory, particularly in the Bryansk region.
But this is the first time this week that officials have confirmed attacks of this magnitude. Since the beginning of the offensive in Ukraine, the Kremlin has tried to present Russia as a safe country.
Earlier in the day on Tuesday, he acknowledged the current security threat.
“Of course, we are aware that the Kyiv regime, which is behind a number of these attacks, terrorist attacks, intends to continue on this path,” said its spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“Our intelligence services are doing everything necessary to ensure security,” he added.
In recent weeks, the Russian authorities have been insisting that the terrorist risk has increased. Many public events organized in early May for major national holidays were canceled due to threats deemed too high.
Zelensky says he was not notified of leaked US documents
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published Tuesday by the washington posthaving learned in the press, and not from Washington, of the existence of a leak of confidential American documents concerning the war of his country against Russia.
“I did not receive any information from the White House or the Pentagon beforehand,” he told the American daily. “We didn’t have this information, I didn’t have it,” laments the Ukrainian president.
Asked on CNN, the spokesman for the Pentagon, General Pat Ryder, said Tuesday evening “not being able to say whether this is true or not”, while reiterating the support of the United States for Ukraine in the conflict.
Classified US documents, released to the press in early April as a result of online leaks, detail Washington’s views on the war in Ukraine, including the worrying state of Ukraine’s air defenses as of late February.
The young American soldier arrested for having disseminated this information was charged on April 14.
“For us, anything that informs our enemy in advance is, in one way or another, a disadvantage”, also launches Volodymyr Zelensky to the washington post.
This episode “is not beneficial for the reputation of the White House, and I think it is not beneficial for the reputation of the United States”, he still declares daily, comparing the leaks to ” a TV series “.