MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/. The FSB has prevented a terrorist attack on a railroad in Crimea, plotted by two Russian citizens recruited by Ukraine's military intelligence.

"Illegal activities of a Russian citizen born in 1999 and his common law wife born in 2000, have been terminated. On an assignment from Ukrainian secret services they were plotting an explosion on a railroad in the Leninsky district of the Republic of Crimea," the FSB’s public relations center has said. The man was recruited in October 2023 via an Internet messenger by an officer of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. Later he persuaded his common law wife to help him.

"In April 2024, using coordinates provided by their handler, the defendants retrieved an explosive device from a cache in Sevastopol and tried to plant it under the railroad track near the village of Oktyabrskoye in the Leninsky district of the Republic of Crimea. They were detained on the spot," the FSB said.

Earlier, the man and the woman had photographed and sent to the enemy data on the places of residence of military personnel, positions of Russian air defenses, as well as coordinates of fuel and energy facilities. A criminal case was opened against them under part 1 of article 30, part 2 of article 205 (preparations for committing a terrorist attackt) and part 3 of article 222.1 (illegal trafficking of explosives or explosive devices) of the Criminal Code. Both were taken into custody.

"The plotters have confessed and agreed to cooperate with the investigation," the FSB said.