Russian anti-war group Stop the Wagons (STW) has claimed responsibility for derailing a train on a Russian railway 15km from the border of Belarus.
The governor of Russia's Belgorod region said on Monday that an explosive device damaged the railway near the village of Novozybkovo. The line is the main rail link between Russia and southern Belarus and is responsible for supply logistics to Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. Spanning more than 20,000 miles, Russia's railway lines are vulnerable to attack.
Posting a picture of the accident on Telegram, STW said: "The results of this small explosive sabotage will have to be eliminated with a complete re-laying of the rails. And that's great. The war will not pass!"
The U.K. Defense Ministry in its daily intelligence update on Wednesday acknowledged the activist group and said it was at least the sixth incident of sabotage against Russian railway infrastructure claimed by STW since June.
"This is part of a wider trend of dissident attacks against railways in both Russia and Belarus," the ministry said. "The Russian authorities have previously clamped down on STW's online presence."
The group disrupts Russian railways to prevent the transportation of military equipment, fuel, ammunition and other supplies to the frontlines in Ukraine. "The Russia military primarily relies on rail transport for deploying forces to Ukraine, but with a network extending to over 33,000km, largely transiting isolated areas, the system is extremely challenging to secure against physical threats," the ministry added.
"The Russian leadership will be increasingly concerned that even a small group of citizens has been sufficiently opposed to the conflict to resort to physical sabotage." STW claimed responsibility for other railway attacks, including a fallen carriage at the Oktabrsk station of the Kuibyshev railway.
The group also claimed responsibility for an incident in Amur Oblast on the Trans-Siberian Railway in June, according to TrendingNews.
STW's website has instructions on how to block railways using wire while wearing gloves for safety. The website also has instructions on where activists can block railways. It claims that there are a number of fake pages and bots on Telegram that are not affiliated with it, and are likely targets of the FSB, Russia's intelligence agency.
According to STW's Telegram page, the group formed seven months ago.
Commenting on the British Ministry of Defense acknowledging the group, it said: "If someone had told us then that the day would come when the British Ministry of Defense would write about us with a hint that we were a real problem for military supplies...Hell, we would not have believed it."
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-ant...wagons-1754898