Unknown guerrillas have destroyed railroad tracks in Russia’s Rostov region, according to a video published by the Telegram channels “Rospartizan” and “All People's Movement of the ‘Freedom of Russia’ Legion” (“VDL”). The Freedom of Russia legion is a unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine formed in March 2022. It consists of Russian army defectors, as well as other Russian and Belarusian volunteers who have not previously been part of the military, according to a report by Interfax Ukraine.
This section of the road was used to transport military equipment from the Rostov region to the combat zone in the regions bordering Ukraine, the VDL clarified.
The message says that members of the Legion were behind the explosion, and that they continue to “destroy railroad tracks in different regions of the country.” However, the same recording had previously been published in the Telegram channel of the Militant Organization of Anarcho-Communists (BOAK). In early December, the BOAK claimed that guerrillas had carried out an explosion in one of the regions bordering Ukraine. The exact region was not specified.
Since the start of the war, reports on the destruction of railroad tracks or power line towers have come in from various regions across Russia. The Insider spoke with members of guerrilla groups who have taken responsibility for the attacks. All of them oppose the invasion of Ukraine and hope to prevent Russia from waging war by destroying infrastructure aiding the supply of weapons.
In November, Ilya Podkamenny, an 18-year-old “rail partisan” was detained in Irkutsk – he had wrapped copper wire around the railroad tracks, planning to cause a disruption in train traffic. A month earlier, a railroad was blown up in the Bryansk region, with the local governor attributing the destruction to the detonation of an explosive device. Two electricity pylons near the railroad were blown up in the same area prior to the explosion.