A Russian court in the Belgorod region has sentenced two defendants to three and a half years in a strict regime colony (a Russian prison combining detention and hard labor). They were suspected of planning to sabotage a Russian military train that was due to pass through a region bordering Ukraine.
The suspected men were arrested in March 2022 on charges of planning to "cause mechanical damage to a section of the railway" in the Yakovlevsky district of Belgorod before a military train was due to pass through. According to Reuters and Russian state news agency TASS, the criminal intent was that such actions would lead to derailments, damage to military and railway equipment, and deaths among soldiers.
Railways are crucial for the Russian army, especially for transporting soldiers and military equipment, but with 33,000 kilometers of tracks, often running through deserted areas, they are extremely difficult to secure. Not surprisingly, Russian railways and other facilities in the country have been the target of sabotage on several occasions since the start of the war in Ukraine, particularly in the border regions. The Russian anti-war group Ostanovi vagony (Stop the Trains) has also claimed responsibility for several sabotage attacks in the past. Three eighth-grade students from the town of Chekhov near Moscow, arrested by the FSB, also face ten years to life in prison. The FSB suspects them of sabotaging the Moscow-Kursk railway line on the orders of a social networking site.Ru
