Plot to Bomb Russian Gas Pipeline Reportedly Foiled

(MENAFN) Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Saturday that it had prevented what it described as a Ukrainian-directed scheme to sabotage a significant natural gas pipeline located in the Moscow Region.

In its account, the FSB asserted that Ukrainian intelligence operatives had enlisted a 56-year-old Russian citizen to execute the planned explosion.

The agency explained that “It has been established that the citizen in question was recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services in 2024 while in a temporary detention center for foreigners in Ukraine, where he was placed for violating immigration laws. The agent was sent to Russia under the guise of deportation after recruitment.”

According to investigators, the suspect’s contacts reached out earlier this month, telling him to buy a vehicle and an electric drill. The FSB added that Ukrainian handlers provided coordinates for a hidden cache, from which the man collected improvised explosive devices concealed inside tubes resembling construction adhesive.

Authorities reported that he was apprehended in the act as he attempted to drill into the soil above the pipeline in order to position the explosives.

The FSB noted that, following the intended attack, he planned to flee Russia and make his way back to Ukraine through intermediary countries.

Russian officials have repeatedly accused Kiev of organizing similar acts of sabotage and assaults on infrastructure throughout the duration of the conflict.

For example, earlier in the week the FSB stated that it had neutralized two individuals allegedly operating for a “terrorist group and in coordination with Ukrainian special services,” who were attempting to place a device designed to derail trains on a railway bridge linking Novoaltaysk and Biysk.

The suspects, according to the agency, were killed in an exchange of fire with FSB personnel.

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