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FSB nabs Ukrainian intel agent who blew up railroad tracks in Crimea

It is noted that the detainee "confessed to cooperating with Ukraine’s special services and committing an act of sabotage and terrorism"

MOSCOW, July 7. /TASS/. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained an agent of Ukrainian military intelligence who blew up railroad tracks in Crimea’s Bakhchisaray District on February 23, the FSB’s Public Relations Center told TASS on Friday.

"The FSB has thwarted the unlawful activity of a Russian national born in 1998, who is implicated in committing an act of sabotage and terrorism at a railroad facility in the Republic of Crimea at the behest of Ukrainian special services," the center said.

According to the FSB, after the special military operation began in February 2022, the Simferopol resident left for Odessa, where he was recruited by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR), received reconnaissance and sabotage training, and was then dispatched to Crimea. "On assignment for his Ukrainian handlers, on February 23 he blew up railway tracks in the Chistenkoye-Pochtovoye section of railroad track in the Bakhchisaray District, Republic of Crimea, using a homemade explosive device supplied to him via a cache," the press service said. As the Crimean Emergencies Ministry reported at the time, railway traffic was suspended due to the damage done to the railroad tracks in the village of Pochtovoye.

The detainee "confessed to cooperating with Ukraine’s special services and committing an act of sabotage and terrorism," the FSB noted. The defendant faces criminal charges filed earlier under Part 1, Article 281 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Sabotage"), which calls for 10-20 years of incarceration. The press service noted that the suspect had been detained and arrested in Simferopol. The circumstances of his illegitimate activity and potential involvement in other crimes on Russian soil are being established.