Russia 'investigates bridge collapses as terrorist attacks' as seven people killed

Sky News

3 days ago

Why you can trust Sky News
Seven people have been killed and dozens are injured after two bridges collapsed overnight in different Russian regions bordering Ukraine.
The Russian investigative committee said the incidents in the west of the country were being investigated as potential terrorist attacks.
The top criminal investigation agency had previously said explosions were the cause but hours later it edited its statement to remove the words "explosions", without explanation.
Debris from a road bridge came down on to railway tracks at 10.50pm local time on Saturday (8.50pm in the UK), derailing an approaching passenger train in Bryansk's Vygonichsky district. The driver and six others died.
At least 69 people were injured in the crash, with the train travelling from Moscow to Klimov at the time. Local authorities blamed "illegal interference".
At around 3am local time on Sunday (1am in the UK), a railway bridge came down in Kursk's Zheleznogorsk district, causing a passing freight train to fall on to the road below.
The driver and his two assistants were injured in the crash, according to the committee.
Its spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said: "These incidents are qualified as terrorist attacks."
Andrei Klishas, a senior member of the Federation Council, Russia's upper chamber of parliament, said the Bryansk incident showed that "Ukraine has long lost the attributes of a state and has turned into a terrorist enclave".
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Since the start of the full-scale invasion that Russia launched more than three years ago, there has been continued cross-border shelling, drone strikes, and covert raids by Ukrainian forces into the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions that border Ukraine.
Emergency workers are at the scene of the train derailment in Bryansk, attempting to pull survivors from the wreckage.
Images from the scene showed passenger carriages ripped apart amid fallen concrete from the collapsed bridge.
Other footage on social media appeared to be taken from inside vehicles which narrowly avoided driving on to the bridge before it collapsed.