Russia’s security agency, the FSB, announced on Tuesday, September 16, that they had arrested a woman in her fifties accused of planting explosives to damage the Trans-Siberian Railway.

The agency claimed the woman was acting under the orders of Ukrainian intelligence.

According to the FSB, in August 2025, the woman built a homemade bomb using materials that could be found easily. She then placed it on the railway tracks, set it off, and recorded the explosion on her phone to send proof to her handler in exchange for money.

The woman’s identity was not revealed, but officials said she was born in 1974 and carried out the act in Russia’s Zabaikalsky region in eastern Siberia.

The FSB also warned citizens that Ukrainian intelligence is trying to recruit Russians through social media platforms and messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp to carry out sabotage.

In a separate case, the FSB told state media TASS that a man had been sentenced to 18 years and six months in prison for transporting explosives for a “pro-Ukrainian” group.

The man, from Russia’s Bryansk region near Ukraine, reportedly made contact with a banned “terrorist group” via Telegram. He was accused of collecting explosives from a hidden storage site and waiting for new orders.

A military tribunal later convicted him and sentenced him to over 18 years in prison.