Kyiv’s saboteurs strike deep in enemy territory, with Russian media reporting that authorities are investigating it as a terror attack.

Ukraine’s security service blew up a railway connection linking Russia to China, in a clandestine strike carried out deep into enemy territory, with pro-Kremlin media reporting that investigators have opened a criminal case into a “terrorist attack.”

The SBU set off several explosions inside the Severomuysky tunnel of the Baikal-Amur highway in Buryatia, located some 6,000 kilometers east of Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official with direct knowledge of the operation told POLITICO.

“This is the only serious railway connection between the Russian Federation and China. And currently, this route, which Russia uses, including for military supplies, is paralyzed,” the official said.

Four explosive devices went off while a cargo train was moving inside the tunnel. “Now the (Russian) Federal Security Service is working on the spot, the railway workers are unsuccessfully trying to minimize the consequences of the SBU special operation,” the Ukrainian official added.

Ukraine’s security service has not publicly confirmed the attack. Russia has also so far not confirmed the sabotage.

  • @rottingleaf@lemmy.zipEnglish
    6•7 months ago

    No, your imagination betrays you on this subject.

    Most Ukrainians are fluent in Russian, but with southern accent, and plenty of them also bad at Ukrainian at the same time.

    A lot of Russians speak it with the same southern accent and know some Ukrainian.

    There’s no clear border in that sense. Also there are still plenty of people born in Ukraine living in Russia and vice versa, maybe millions.

    For half of Ukraine and half the (Slavic) south of Russia the whole idea of choosing between being Ukrainian and Russian was preposterous not so long ago.

    • @alvvayson@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1•7 months ago

      Very interesting to hear this.

      So are you saying that (aside from this war) people from Donetsk and Rostov used to be more similar to each other culturallly and linguistically than compared to either Moscow or Kyiv?

      • @rottingleaf@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1•7 months ago

        In Donetsk and Rostov specifically - yes, but it’s still been a one-sided gradual change from people speaking Ukrainian or dialects closer to it to Russian with southern accent, as I said. Mostly during Soviet years, as Don, Kuban, even Terek Cossacks and their dialects would sometimes be described as Ukrainian. So yes, but not quite.

        While, say, in Polesye, Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian dialects literally form a continuum, which fits your question more as an example.