Railway demining turns deadly in western Russia
Two people are dead and one is wounded after a bomb exploded during an inspection of railway tracks in Orel Region, western Russia, Governor Andrey Klychkov has said.
“Explosive devices were discovered during an inspection of railway tracks… when one of them detonated, two people were killed and one injured,” Klychkov said in his statement on Saturday.
Security agencies are now looking for saboteurs who mined the railway, he added.
According to the governor, several trains have been delayed. “Train crews are providing comprehensive assistance to passengers, we are considering transporting them to their places of residence by bus,” Klychkov said.
In May, two railway bridges were blown up by Ukrainian intelligence in Russia’s Bryansk and Kursk regions. In Bryansk, debris from a bombed bridge fell in front of, and derailed, an inter-city passenger train. Seven people were killed and over one hundred seriously injured in the crash.
Another railway bridge was blown up as a freight train passed over it in neighboring Kursk Region, wounding the driver and two assistants. The attacks were carried out the day before the second round of direct Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul. According to the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee Aleksandr Bastrykin, the explosives were foreign-made.
