Russian prosecutors say foreign-manufactured explosives deployed in railway terrorist assaults

(MENAFN)
The explosives that destroyed two railway bridges in Russia over the weekend were manufactured abroad and were detonated by a Ukrainian detonator, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Aleksandr Bastrykin, said on Wednesday.

During a meeting with President Vladimir Putin and government officials, Bastrykin stated that the attacks were orchestrated by Ukrainian special services. “The collected evidence directly points to the Ukrainian side's involvement in all three attacks in Bryansk and Kursk regions.”

He explained that the bombs were made from a form of foreign-plastic explosive, roughly equivalent to 15kg of TNT, and were triggered by a detonator made in Ukraine.

Bastrykin added that investigations are ongoing to identify all those involved in the attacks. Between May 20 and May 25, Russian authorities were already investigating a group of suspected Ukrainian saboteurs in Bryansk. During their operations, a cache of 13kg of the same kind of explosive and Ukrainian-made remote detonators was discovered.

The blasts, which resulted in an estimated material damage of over 1 billion rubles ($13mn), left seven people dead and more than 100 injured when a passenger train derailed in Bryansk on Saturday. The following day, a freight train was struck in Kursk, wounding the driver and two crew members. Later, another blast damaged railway tracks in Bryansk, although there were no casualties in that incident.

The attacks came just a day before the second round of direct peace talks in Istanbul. The two sides failed to find a breakthrough, although they did agree to a prisoner swap and exchange the remains of soldiers who died in the conflict. Moscow and Kiev exchanged documents outline their respective positions on peace negotiations, and dialogue is expected to continue.

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