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Perpetrator of railroad blast near Ryazan plotted another terror attack

According to the official, investigators had confiscated all the components that the perpetrator was using to make explosive devices

MOSCOW, January 15. /TASS/. Ruslan Sidiki, a resident of the Ryazan Region, who was arrested for blowing up a railroad and attempting an attack on a military airfield on the orders of Ukrainian intelligence, was plotting another terrorist attack in Russia last December, Pavel Vymenets, head of the Western Interregional Investigative Directorate for Transport of Russia’s Investigative Committee, told TASS.

"It was established that already after the attack on the railroad [in the Ryazan Region], Sidiki was plotting another similar terror attack in December 2023 in Ryazan’s Dashki District," he said. According to the official, investigators had confiscated all the components that the perpetrator was using to make explosive devices.

On November 11, 2023, the blast of a homemade explosive device derailed 19 cars of a freight train in the Ryazan Region, damaging 15 of them.

Investigators established Sidiki’s involvement in the crime. The perpetrator, who has Russian and Italian citizenships, has confessed. He was arrested in early December 2023 charged with a terror attack and illegal possession of explosive devices or substances.

Additionally, it was established that on July 20, 2023, Sidiki attempted to attack a military airfield in the Ryazan Region using at least four drones outfitted with homemade explosive devices.

Earlier, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) reported that Sidiki was recruited by an operative of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry in Istanbul in February 2023. He underwent training in sabotage in Latvia with the direct participation of Latvian intelligence and returned to Ryazan in March.

The official said that the criminal case against Sidiki had been handed over to Russia’s Investigative Committee for further investigation.