Explosives used to blow up two railway bridges in Russia over the weekend were foreign-made, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee Aleksandr Bastrykin has announced. The attack, which claimed the lives of seven civilians, was organized by Ukrainian intelligence, he added.
Speaking at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and government officials on Wednesday, Bastrykin said that the “evidence collected by the investigators directly points to [the fact] that all three terrorist attacks [in Bryansk and Kursk regions] were beyond any doubt arranged by Ukrainian special services.”
According to Bastrykin, the bombs used in the attacks “were composed of foreign-made plastic explosives equivalent to 15kg of TNT,” and set off by a Ukrainian-made detonator.
He added that the probe into the blasts is still underway, with the authorities working to identify all those responsible.
Bastrykin reported that between May 20 and May 25, Russian security services were conducting an operation in Bryansk Region against a group of Ukrainian saboteurs. He revealed that during the raid, the authorities uncovered a cache containing 13kg of similar plastic explosives and Ukrainian-made remote detonators.
The official estimated the material damage caused by the explosions at over 1 billion rubles ($13mn).
On Saturday evening, debris from a bombed bridge fell in front of, and derailed, an inter-city passenger train in the Bryansk Region. Seven people were killed and over one hundred seriously injured in the crash.
Early on Sunday, a railway bridge was blown up as a freight train passed over it in neighboring Kursk Region, wounding the driver and two assistants.
Later on Sunday, a stretch of railroad in a different part of Bryansk Region was damaged when a bomb went off in front of a switcher locomotive. No casualties have been reported from the third incident.
The attacks were carried out the day before the second round of direct Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul. While no breakthroughs were achieved in Türkiye, the two sides agreed to conduct a prisoner swap as well as to exchange the bodies of thousands of fallen soldiers.
Russia and Ukraine also exchanged memorandums containing drastically different visions for ending the conflict. Both sides have indicated that dialogue would continue.
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