KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian secret service (SBU) agents blew up a Siberian railway line that Russia uses to supply weapons to China and North Korea, a Ukrainian source told Reuters on Thursday.
The source, who insisted on remaining anonymous, specified that four explosive charges had been activated during the night from Wednesday to Thursday while a freight train was traveling in the Severomouiski tunnel, in the Buryatia region, bordering Mongolia.
Such an attack, more than 4,000 kilometers from Ukraine, would constitute a new coup on the part of the SBU and a demonstration of its ability to carry out operations anywhere in Russia.
Reuters was unable to independently verify this information, nor was it able to establish whether the railway line is used for military supplies.
Russian sources acknowledged that a train had caught fire in the area, but made no mention of explosives.
The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation said in a statement that a train carrying fuel caught fire in the tunnel on Wednesday evening, that there were no casualties and that a preliminary investigation was underway. to establish the cause.
The Russian Railways company assured for its part that the trains usually using this tunnel had been diverted and that traffic had not been interrupted.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth, with Gleb Stolyarov, French version Tangi Salaün)
©2023 Thomson Reuters, all rights reserved. Reuters content is the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters or its third party content providers. Any copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. “Reuters” and the Reuters Logo are trademarks of Thomson Reuters and its affiliated companies.