Trains derailed by saboteurs in two Russian border regions: As it happened

Bridge collapses have derailed trains in two Russian regions, leaving at least seven people dead and multiple others wounded.
On Saturday evening, a bridge fell in front of a moving train in Bryansk Region, killing seven people and injuring 71 others. Several hours later, early on Sunday, a railway bridge collapsed under a moving freight train in Kursk Region, leaving the driver and two of his assistants wounded.
The Russian Investigative Committee said that both incidents were deliberate acts of sabotage.
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01 June 2025
13:50 GMTThe attacks targeting trains in Bryansk and Kursk regions are part of “a terroristic plan from the Ukrainian regime” to derail the talks scheduled to take place between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Türkiye on Monday, Italian war correspondent Andrea Lucidi has told RT.
"There are some groups of powers in Ukraine that would like to sabotage any attempt to reach a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine and they will make this through terrorism,” he said.
According to Lucidi, the Kiev authorities “need to explain why they would like to attend some meeting like the second round of peace talks in Istanbul and at the same time use terrorism as a weapon against the Russian people.” Such behavior looks like a manifestation of some “borderline psychological disease,” he added.
- 12:35 GMT
Russia is united in a desire to help the people affected by the bridge collapses in the Bryansk and Kursk regions, the Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, has told RT.
Ukraine is gloating over the deaths caused by the collapses, and over the suffering of children, the spokeswoman declared on Sunday. She denounced such actions as a “symptom” of a neo-Nazi “disease” that Russia is combating.
- 11:28 GMT
The train derailments in Bryansk and Kursk Regions are an attempt to “bring terror” to the Russian population, former Pentagon official Michael Maloof told RT.
"Ukraine recognizes that it is not winning the war, in fact, it has flat out lost it already, but they continue to want to resist. So, I would imagine that what we are probably going to see is increasing insurgency efforts,” he cautioned.
- 10:33 GMT
Independent Dutch journalist Sonja van den Ende has told RT that she believes Ukraine to be the likely culprit behind the train derailments in Russia’s Bryansk and Kursk Regions.
“It is an act of terrorism and Ukraine is lowering itself to... terrorism like we see with Al Qaeda or, you know, in the Middle East,” she said, adding that targeting civilians “has nothing to do with war.”
Van den Ende also noted that the bridge collapses occurred in the run up to Monday’s meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul. Before the last round of talks in May, Kiev also tried to raise tensions by sending swarms of drones into Russian territory, she recalled.
- 10:02 GMT
Moscow Railway has said that its workers have discovered damage to train tracks in another part of Bryansk Region.
There were no injuries as the affected part of the railway, between the settlements of Unecha and Zhecha, which is not being used for traffic, according to the company.
- 09:19 GMT
Russian President Vladimir Putin had been receiving reports from the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Emergencies Ministry about the train derailments in Bryansk Region and Kursk Region “throughout the whole night,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
- 07:21 GMT
Russian Federation Council member Andrey Klishas has blamed Kiev for the derailment, writing on Telegram that the incident confirmed that “Ukraine is being controlled by a terrorist group.”
“Ukraine has long lost the attributes of a state, turning into a terrorist enclave without borders, without legitimate authorities and laws,” he said.
The senator urged the creation of a vast buffer zone inside Ukrainian territory to make sure that “terrorists” are unable to reach Russia in the future.
- 06:54 GMT
A source in Russia’s law enforcement agencies has told RT that, according to preliminary data, a section of the bridge collapsed on the tracks in front of the train, with the driver having no time to avoid the crash. The driver and his assistant likely died immediately as a result of the collision, the source said.
According to RT’s interlocutor, a probe is now being carried out to determine if the incident was a terrorist attack.
- 04:54 GMT
One of the passengers on the derailed Bryansk train told Izvestia that a truck had fallen onto the locomotive.
“The first car completely derailed, the second overturned, and the third was also involved in the collision… Passengers in cars one through ten sustained similar injuries,” she said.
- 04:43 GMT
A freight train also derailed in Russia’s Kursk region on Sunday after a bridge collapsed underneath it, Acting Governor Aleksandr Khinshteyn said. One of the train’s drivers was hospitalized with leg injuries. The cause of the incident is under investigation, according to the governor.