Kyiv said it has served suspicion to a European national who reportedly attempted to overturn a military train in October 2024 acting on orders of the Russian intelligence.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in its Tuesday press release that the suspect “was preparing to blow up a railway track and derail a freight train” in the Bukovina region shared by Ukraine and Romania, where he “hoped to disrupt the transport logistics of the Defense Forces in the southwestern regions of Ukraine.”
The SBU said the suspect, who is “a citizen of a European country,” entered Ukraine at the onset of Moscow’s 2022 invasion and received “professional knowledge in explosives engineering at the Higher Institute of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation” prior to his entry.
The suspect’s nationality is not specified. It is also unclear under which Russian intelligence branch the suspect worked.
According to the press release, the suspect was first tasked with identifying arms logistics in Ukraine upon his entry, where he was then told to manufacture an improvised explosive device (IED) to be placed “under railway tracks in Chernivtsi and Vinnytsia regions.”
The SBU said the suspect stayed in different hotels in an attempt to conceal his movements.
The person was arrested in a car with IEDs and a mobile phone used for the communication with his handler “on one of the roads in Bukovina” in October 2024.
“After that, SBU investigators informed him of suspicion under Part 2 of Article 113 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (sabotage committed under martial law),” the press release says.
The person face life imprisonment and confiscation of property if charged.