A German-Russian citizen has been arrested in Russia for allegedly preparing to sabotage a rail line on the orders of Ukraine’s SBU security service, Russian FSB security services said on Tuesday, according to Russian news agencies.
The man, born in 2003, is accused by the FSB of having “prepared the sabotage of a section of railway line in the city of Nizhny Novgorod with an explosive device” in return for payment by the SBU, a statement said.
Nizhny Novgorod is situated some 280 miles (450 km) east of the Russian capital, Moscow.
Alleged plan to derail freight train
The FSB said authorities had found an improvised explosive device (IED) at the man’s home, along with evidence that he had been in contact with a member of the SBU.
A video published by the Russian military news outlet on Tuesday purports to show the man giving a confession.
In the video, the man, whose face was blurred out in the footage, says he arrived in Russia last year and met a man online who later turned out to be “a member of the Ukrainian special services.”
He said the man paid him to set fire to a fuse box and draw pro-Ukrainian graffiti. “The last task he proposed to me was to blow up, well, derail a train, a freight train,” the man said.
Neither the German Foreign Ministry nor the Ukrainian security service has yet commented on the case.
Russian railroads have become a major military target for Ukraine as they play a major role in supplying invading Russian forces.