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SBU detains alleged Russian agent planning to blow up Kharkiv railway

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SBU detains alleged Russian agent planning to blow up Kharkiv railway
A photo shared by the Security Service of Ukraine shows two agents holding the alleged saboteur. (Security Service)

A Ukrainian man suspected of working with Russian military intelligence and planning to blow up a railway in Kharkiv Oblast has been detained, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced on March 14.

The alleged saboteur is accused of trying to destroy power lines and rolling stock using a homemade improvised explosive device, in an attempt to disrupt fuel and ammunition supplies headed for Ukrainian forces in the Lyman direction.

The SBU said in a post on Telegram that the man’s plans were discovered before he had a chance to carry them out and the identities of his Russian contacts had been established.

“As a result of the special operation, an enemy saboteur who tried to detonate power lines of railway tracks and rolling stock near the junction station was detained,” the SBU said.

The attacker turned out to be a local resident who worked for the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (known as GRU),” the agency added.

“In addition, during the investigation, evidence was obtained of the defendant's performance of another task – he collected information about the locations of the bases of the Armed Forces units in Kharkiv and Pavlograd, in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.”

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Chris York

News Operations Editor

Chris York is news operations editor at the Kyiv Independent. Before joining the team, he was head of news at the Kyiv Post. Previously, back in Britain, he spent nearly a decade working for HuffPost UK. He holds an MA in Conflict, Development, and Security from the University of Leeds.

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