Russia’s FSB security service said on Tuesday it had detained and charged a woman in her fifties accused of attempting to sabotage the Trans-Siberian Railway by detonating explosives.
The suspect was allegedly working on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence, the FSB said, in the latest incident of alleged covert activity during the conflict between the two countries.
“In August 2025, following the instructions provided by the adversary, the suspect manufactured a homemade explosive device from publicly available components, placed it on the railway tracks and triggered it,” the Russian agency said:
She recorded the moment of the explosion on her mobile phone camera and sent the footage as a report to the handler to receive a reward.
The FSB warned Russians that it was monitoring social networks and online messaging services such as Telegram and WhatsApp for evidence of Ukrainian espionage services recruiting Russians to carry out sabotage.
Separately, the agency told state news agency TASS that a man had been sentenced to 18 years and six months for transporting explosives on behalf of a “pro-Ukrainian” group. A resident of the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, had—the FSB claimed—established contact through the Telegram app with a banned “terrorist organisation.” He allegedly retrieved explosives from a cache on the orders of this group before waiting for “further instructions,” according to the same source cited by TASS. He was jailed by a military tribunal.
