Risky resistance to war
Who is behind the acts of sabotage in Russia?
10/27/2022, 4:42 p.m
The resistance group “Stop the wagons!” attacks the rail network in Russia with targeted actions. They want to disrupt military transports to the combat zone. Online, the partisans confess to acts of sabotage and provide instructions for everyone.
According to intelligence services, rail partisans are also active in Russia against Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. “Ostanovi wagony!” – in German: Stop the wagons! – is the name of the anti-war movement that has specifically dedicated itself to sabotaging military transports on the railway tracks. However, it is unclear who the organizers are.
Russia transports tanks and other heavy combat equipment, ammunition and fuel to the war zone in freight cars. The rail partisans want to prevent this, as they did on their Website and write on a Telegram channel that has more than 9000 subscribers. There is a call for active participation in the resistance against the war, in which, for example, tracks are to be blocked by laying wires.
Critical areas in focus
The mission is needed across Russia to cut off supplies for Russian troops in Ukraine. However, the Moscow and St. Petersburg railway junctions, the rail routes to and in Belarus, where rail partisans are also deployed, as well as the regions of Belgorod, Volgograd, Voronezh, Kaluga, Krasnodar, Rostov and the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia, are particularly mentioned.
“If the two tracks are “short-circuited” with a wire, then there is an automatic signal that the path is occupied – and the traffic light lights up red,” says the instructions. “By sabotaging the work of the railway, you save lives on both sides of the front line!” Burning relay stations can also be seen in the movement’s Telegram channel – with the note that this also helps to paralyze war traffic.
FSB reported killing of saboteurs
In the Russian public, the movement, which Western secret services called “Stop the wagons!” is mentioned, not known. However, the Russian domestic secret service FSB repeatedly reports that “terrorists” have been arrested or that acts of sabotage aimed at the war in Ukraine have been uncovered.
In early October, the FSB reported that an attack on a railway facility in the Kabardino-Balkaria region in the North Caucasus had been foiled. Two armed men were caught laying an explosive device there and then killed after resisting. “Ostanovi wagony!” reacted in horror.
On Wednesday, the British Ministry of Defense in its daily briefing “Ostanowi wagony!” named. Damage to a railway line near the village Novozybkov Not far from the Russian-Belarusian border earlier this week was the sixth act since June to which the anti-war movement has committed itself, it said.
“Ostanowi wagony!” published on Telegram on Monday pictures of damaged rails, which are said to come from the line near Novozybkov. “The consequences of this small explosive distraction must be remedied with a complete relocation of the rails, and that’s a good thing,” it said.