MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian authorities said on Friday they had arrested a Russian-Italian national for planting bombs on a railway line as part of a campaign by agents of Ukraine’s military intelligence service.
After his arrest, the man, born in 1988 and living in Ryazan, confessed to planting homemade bombs that derailed a freight train in central Russia on November 11, according to investigators. He has not been named.
“During interrogation, the detainee confessed to having been recruited in February 2023 by an employee of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine,” the Investigative Committee claimed.
The man allegedly admitted to having followed “sabotage training in Latvia with the direct participation of the Latvian special services,” investigators added.
Reuters was not immediately able to verify these details, except that a freight train derailed on November 11 near the town of Rybnoye, about 177 km southeast of Moscow.
Ukrainian military intelligence could not immediately be reached for comment.
(Writing by Felix Light; French version Lina Golovnya, editing by Kate Entringer)
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