Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has arrested a man accused of working with the Ukrainian special services to carry out a “terrorist attack” on a railway line in Siberia, the agency announced on Thursday.
The FSB said in a statement that it had detained a Belarusian citizen in Omsk Region, on suspicion of blowing up two trains carrying oil products along the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) on November 29 and 30.
The detainee, who the agency said was born in 1971, has confessed to acting on the orders of another Belarusian citizen who is currently living in Lithuania and is working with the Ukrainian special services, the FSB claimed.
According to his testimony, the man was instructed to retrieve eight explosive devices from a secret cache, deliver them by car to the Republic of Buryatia in eastern Siberia, and plant them on the tanks of freight trains.
The explosive devices were remotely detonated while the trains were traveling through the Severomuysky tunnel section of the BAM, igniting fuel and lubricant tanks and temporarily blocking movement along the railway, the FSB said.
Officials said they are investigating if the suspect was involved in other acts of terrorism or sabotage in Russia on orders from Kiev.
The FSB also reported on Thursday that it had arrested a resident aged in his 20s from the western Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, who had allegedly acted as a middleman for the Ukrainian special services. The suspect is accused of recruiting and paying people to commit acts of sabotage against communication and transport infrastructure across Russia.
The man is alleged to have planned around 15 attacks, some of which were reportedly foiled by the FSB. Russian authorities said they had detained a total of ten suspects in relation to the incidents.