Ukraine claims two train attacks in Russia

MOSCOW, Russia — A Ukrainian military source on Sunday said the country's forces were responsible for two attacks on railways in Russia that killed at least three people this weekend.

An explosive device detonated on a section of rail track in Russia's western Oryol region late Saturday, governor Andrei Klychkov said, with three Russian national guard officers reported killed.

Early Sunday two trains in separate parts of Russia's western Leningrad region derailed, leaving a train driver dead and disrupting railway traffic, the region's governor Alexander Drozdenko said on Telegram.

A source in Ukraine's military intelligence agency on Sunday claimed responsibility for two of the attacks, but not for the derailment that killed the driver.

The sabotage incidents were the latest to rock Russia's vast railway system, which Kyiv says Moscow uses to deliver troops and fuel to its army fighting in Ukraine.

"Recovery efforts are under way following the derailment of a single diesel locomotive near Semrino station in Leningrad's Gatchina district," Drozdenko said.

"The train driver was killed. He was trapped in the cabin and died in an ambulance after being unblocked," he added.

An unverified video posted on social media appeared to show a train car lying on its side several metres from the track, its undercarriage torn off.

A freight train carrying 15 empty tanker cars also derailed on a section of track further south earlier in the day, between the villages of Stroganovo and Mshinskaya, but left no casualties, Drozdenko said.

A source in Ukraine's GUR military intelligence told AFP the tankers were "destroyed along with their fuel".

The source said Ukraine had targeted "critically important logistical links in supplying the occupying forces in the Kharkiv and Sumy directions."

"As a result of the destruction of the railway infrastructure in these areas, the Russians will experience significant logistical difficulties," it said.

Russia's railway network has been repeatedly rocked by derailments, blasts and fires that authorities blame on Ukrainian sabotage.

Kyiv does not typically claim responsibility but often cheers such attacks, arguing Russia has brazenly used its train network for military purposes since launching its offensive in February 2022.

A Ukrainian military intelligence source said the country's forces also carried out a drone attack on a chemicals factory producing ingredients for explosives in Russia's Perm region, more than 1,500 kilometres (930 miles) from the border between the two countries.